Matt Kremnitzer: Another scrap heap success story for O's

The Orioles currently have three relief pitchers who have thrown more than 10 innings and posted sub-2.00 earned run averages. The first two, Zach Britton and Darren O'Day, are names you'd expect. But the third isn't, because his name is Chaz Roe.

As MASNsports.com's Steve Melewski wrote in May, Roe thought his career was coming to an end a few years ago. A career minor leaguer up to that point with the Rockies (2006-2010) and Mariners (2011), he failed a drug test before the 2012 season, which came with a 50-game suspension. He ended up playing in an independent league in 2012 before signing with the Diamondbacks at the end of that year. He made his major league debut in 2013 after serving his suspension, and then he bounced around from the Marlins minor league system to the Yankees for a couple of major league innings and to the Pirates, but never pitched an inning for them. He then signed a minor league deal with the Orioles in December.

Before this season, Roe, 28, had only thrown about 24 major league innings. In nearly 1,000 career innings in the minors, he was far from superb, posting a 4.33 ERA while striking out 7.4 batters per nine innings and walking 3.4 per nine. Perhaps Buck Showalter or Dan Duquette, or both, liked something they saw in Roe when he faced the Orioles in one of his three relief appearances in 2014. Maybe Roe was already on their radar. But Roe has been very good so far, and he's currently the latest Duquette scrap heap success story (other than Nolan Reimold).

Roe started the 2015 season in Triple-A Norfolk, pitched well enough and was promoted in late May. He's been with the major league club since, allowing just two runs in 15 1/3 innings (1.17 ERA). Pitchers' earned run averages can be misleading, though, so let's dig deeper (with the caveat that we're only looking at a portion of a season's worth of innings for a reliever).

In his limited work, Roe has struck out nearly 10 batters per nine innings and walked close to 2.5. His 96 percent strand rate is extremely high, but his .250 BABIP isn't alarmingly low, plus he's done a solid job of inducing ground balls (51 percent). His pitching independent stats reflect solid work: 2.71 FIP, 2.77 xFIP.

Understandably, there isn't a whole lot of Pitch FX data out there for Roe. But from what's available on BrooksBaseball.net, he's currently throwing his two fastballs 2 mph harder than in any previous season. Roe is throwing three pitches a third of the time: his four-seam fastball, his two-seam fastball and his slider. His slider has been a real weapon against both right- and left-handed batters (though he's predictably opted for it more against right-handers). Right-handed batters have a whiff/swing percentage of 38 percent against Roe's slider versus 57 percent for left-handed batters. He has been getting more downward movement on his slider, and he's keeping the pitch low in the zone.

Right now, opposing batters are making contact on only about 53 percent of Roe's pitches outside the strike zone. The average major leaguer makes contact on 60 percent of those pitches against relief pitchers. Against lefties, he's staying far away from any inside power. And against righties, he's staying down and away but is also attacking up and in to keep hitters honest.

Roe's sinker has also been the main force in getting batters to hit the ball on the ground, but his slider isn't far behind. Overall, this isn't rocket science. Roe is throwing the ball harder, locating his pitches better, getting ahead in the count and racking up strikeouts and ground balls. If he's able to maintain those skills, he's going to be able to stick in the majors.

Understandably, it's still unclear how good Roe is. The only thing that will make that clearer is to see him pitch more. But it's also realistic that he could be a useful reliever for a while. O'Day was a waiver wire pickup years ago and has been fantastic since. Brad Brach was acquired for basically nothing. And those are two of the most trusted pitchers in the O's bullpen. Roe has yet to be used in many high-leverage situations, but like Brach last year, that can change over a few months. Innings, especially in critical spots, are always there for pitchers who just get outs. It doesn't matter where they came from.

Matt Kremnitzer blogs about the Orioles at Camden Depot. Follow him on Twitter: @mattkremnitzer. His thoughts on the O's appear here as part of MASNsports.com's continuing commitment to welcome guest bloggers to our little corner of cyberspace. 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.