Posted by Zach Sanders on Sunday, July 19, 2009 at 2:23 pm

After giving up six earned runs, and pitching only an inning and a third against the White Sox on June 13th, Manny Parra was sent to Triple-A to work out his problems.

Now, after four minor league starts, he’s back and better then ever. Since his return to the Bigs on July 9th, he has allowed only one earned in 13 innings pitched. There is one key number that shows me he has worked out the kinks in his game, and found out how to be a successful start in the majors.

Before being sent down, Parra had an ERA of 7.74, and a BB/9 of 5.7. He was also throwing strikes only 58.1% of time. While he had a solid GB%, and a good defense behind him, he was allowing too many free baserunners to be successful. He worked on this a bit in the minors, but still had a BB/9 of 4.74 in his 24.2 minor league innings.

However, he seems to have seen the light in Milwaukee. Since returning to the bigs, he has walked only 4 batters in his 13 innings, and is throwing strikes 66% of the time. While this is a small sample size, it is a great improvement. If he can continue pounding the zone with his low-90s heat, he will be able to be the pitcher Milwaukee needs him to be the rest of the year.

If he can get his K/BB upwards of two, I can’t imagine what kind of problems Parra could ever have at the big league level.