The Washington Nationals took a step backwards with Josiah Gray as he continues his slide since the All-Star break and is now over a 4.00 ERA. Gray actually has the worst second half ERA on the team at 5.79 compared to his All-Star worthy 3.45 in the first half of the season. While some of his FIP and WHIP peripherals kept showing he was in the danger zone — he adeptly worked out of trouble in most games in the first half of the season — and that has not been the case lately. Is it arm fatigue or just poor mechanics? Probably both, but you have to wonder why he just isn’t getting much swing-and-miss these days. Part of it could be that he reshaped his curveball for more horizontal movement and he added a “sweeper” which is more of a slurvy pitch. The problem is he is not locating these pitches to look like strikes and the walks are piling up.
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