Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
April 26, 2005
Games of the Day

There are lots of excellent pitching matchups tonight. The best may be at Shea, where John Smoltz takes the mound for the Braves against Pedro Martinez and the Mets. Smoltz and Martinez are 1-2 in the NL in strikeouts per 9. Once difference between the pitchers this season is that Pedro has done a much better job of putting away hitters with two strikes. They're batting .064 vs. Pedro (4/64) but .222 vs. Smoltz (14/63). A .222 average might seem pretty good, but this year NL hitters are averaging .190 when they have two strikes.

Matt Clement and Rodrigo Lopez hook up again after a dazzling duo on April 21st. The Red Sox took a 1-0 victory in that game, the only run coming due to an error. Both pitchers are among the league leaders in ERA. Both are keeping the ball in the park, each having allowed just 1 home run so far. Since the Orioles and Red Sox are 1-2 in home runs hit, we'll see if that holds up tonight.

It's the battle of the Jo(h)n's in Washington as Lieber and the Phillies face Patterson and the Nationals. Both pitchers are very stingy issuing walks this season. Lieber has allowed 2 in 29 2/3 innings, third in the majors. Patterson has only allowed 4 in 21 innings, helping him to an 0.86 ERA.

There's two in the Bay area tonight as Mark Buehrle faces AL ERA leader Rich Harden in Oakland and Adam Eaton takes on Jason Schmidt in San Francisco. Buehrle pitches so fast that east coast viewers can watch the whole game and still catch all of Letterman. Harden has only allowed 1 run all season, and given the way the Athletics offense has been playing lately, he'll need to allow negative runs to win. :-)

(Aside: shouldn't the pitcher from MIT wear the number i? It would be especailly appropriate if he pinch ran.)

Adam Eaton has gotten especially good run support so far, with the Padres scoring 15 runs in his 21 2/3 innings pitched. Schmidt has been a buzz saw at home, allowing the opposition just a .169 batting average in three starts there.

Enjoy!


Posted by David Pinto at 01:40 PM | Games | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Though that difference in BA between Smoltz and Pedro with 2 strikes is also likely due in large part to Pedro's dramatically better average hits per ball hit in play. In other words, I think this is both (a) largely luck-based, and (b) based on factor(s) outside what you're comparing.

Posted by: Mike at April 26, 2005 04:54 PM

Where Pedro goes, I go.

Posted by: Patricia Morris at April 26, 2005 06:02 PM

Yeah, that whole pitcher's duel at Fenway last night didn't last long. Freaking pen. 2 2 run jobs. ugh.

Posted by: Steve M at April 27, 2005 10:30 AM
Post a comment









Remember personal info?