What's with Gil Meche?

Gil Meche was signed for 5 years, $55 million by Dayton Moore last year, and everyone thought that was stupid. They're not wrong yet, but Meche has shown noticeable improvement.

Out of his first 6 starts, 5 have been "quality starts" (at least 6 IP, 3 ER or less). More to the point, he's 2-1 with a 2.18 ERA, although it should be noted that he's surrendered 6 unearned runs (compared to only 10 earned runs). So that looks really really good.

So what is different about Gil Meche?

1. He may prove to be more durable as a starter, because thus far he has 15.19 pitches per inning, down from 17.32 career, so it's not unthinkable to consider that he could continue to go deep into games. At that, he has not thrown more than 111 pitches.
   
2. Meche's K/9 rate is no different from his career rate, but his BB/9 is currently 1.96, compared to 3.91 career. That's half of the walks he usually allows.
3. Meche has a career GO/AO (ground out/air out ratio) of .96; this year it's 2.1. This is an extroardinary change to being a groundball pitcher, and if he can sustain that, he'll reduce the number of balls hit hard against him, and thus his opponent's slugging average. As it stands, opponents are batting a staggering .283/.324/.390, compared to .261/.339/.427. Even with a ridiculous .283 opponent's average (which should drop off quite a bit) which is well above average, he's letting fewer people on base, and they are not hitting the ball nearly as hard. This would certainly correspond to his drop in home run rate, as that's now down to 1 every 10.25 innings from about 1 every 8.
   
4. His H/9 is actually up this year, so it is not unthinkable to think that he could improve a bit.

It's really looking quite promising for the guy, but it should be noted that he's historically a bit better in the first half (though a lot of that is due to a history of really good Junes). Meche has had months where he's had a comparable ERA, but he's never pitched 41 innings in a month with 6 starts or fewer. I'm not going to say he's the best offseason move the Royals have ever made, but he certainly had a noteworthy month.