Zach Wilt: What's made Zach Britton so good this season?

After an All-Star-caliber performance in which he recorded a league-high 51 saves 2012, Jim Johnson scuffled the next season. The Orioles closer still managed 50 saves, but blew nine along the way and the Birds finished 6 1/2 games out of the wild card. Johnson allowed two more hits per nine innings in 2013, as a result recording a 9.75 ERA over 12 innings in May of that season.

Johnson's success in the ninth inning was predicated on the success of his sinker. Unlike most closers, he relied on primarily groundball outs instead of strikeouts. It's a dangerous way to live and we saw what can happen when it works out, like in 2012, and when it doesn't, like Johnson's season with the A's and Tigers in 2014 (7.01 ERA). It's always safer when the opponent swings and misses rather than when they put the ball in play, even when it's a weak grounder.

After watching Zach Britton step into the closer's role last season and cruise to 37 saves, I was a bit concerned that we might see him struggle in 2015 just as Johnson did after his breakout season. Britton was dominant last year, with a 1.65 ERA and 0.904 WHIP, but had a minus-1.48 differential between his earned run average and fielding independent pitching, which suggests that the O's stellar defense helped to bail him out in some tough situations.

We also saw Britton hold opponents to a crazy low .215 batting average on balls in play in 2014 when the league average was .299. I was concerned about whether that would be repeatable this season, since a number like that is typically a red flag for regression. Through the first 58 games of the season, Britton has quickly quieted my concerns and hasn't shown any signs of a decline. In fact, despite his ERA being just a tick above his mark last season, I'd argue that he's been even better in 2015.

So how has he been able to repeat what some may have referred to as a lucky season? By becoming a totally different pitcher.

The pitches are the same, as is the velocity, but Britton has become much more of a strikeout closer this year. In 2014, he fanned 7.31 per nine innings, this season he's striking out over four more (11.68). He's walking fewer hitters (1.46 per nine innings compared to 2.71 in 2014) and depending on the defense less than last season with that 1.52 FIP and .317 BABIP. If you just looked at the numbers, you might wonder if it's even the same guy.

A large part of this success has come from Britton's ability to get hitters to swing at pitches outside of the strike zone. Last season, hitters chased 31.4 percent of the pitches Britton threw outside of the zone, in 2015 they're swinging at 42.1 percent. That tells me that his stuff is just deceptive, hitters can't get a good read on it. Overall, hitters are swinging at 51.6 percent of Britton's pitches this season, up 5.2 percent from 2014 (46.4 percent).

Of course, it's also nice that when hitters do put the ball in play, it's hit weakly 34.4 percent of the time. Most guys throwing 96 mph aren't that lucky, but it shows how much movement he has on that sinker.

Britton's adjustments have completely eliminated my preseason concerns about the ninth inning. They were one of several bad predictions. With the stuff he's throwing, you could easily put him in the conversation with the best closers in the league. He's almost made me forget all about that Andrew Miller guy.

Zach Wilt blogs about the Orioles at Baltimore Sports Report. Follow him on Twitter: @zamwi. His views appear here as part of MASNsports.com's season-long initiative of welcoming guest bloggers to our pages. All opinions expressed are those of the guest bloggers, who are not employed by MASNsports.com but are just as passionate about their baseball as our roster of writers.