The Oakland-Cleveland series continues with the Athletics sending Kirk Saarloos against AL ERA leader Kevin Millwood. With Millwood at the top of the ERA leader board, I wondered how much evidence there was for him getting Cy Young consideration. It's turns out very little. Kevin's ERA and record represent a perfect balancing of luck. His DIPS ERA is 4.04, indicating he's been pretty lucky or owes thanks to his defense. His record of 7-11 (talk about luck!) given his ERA points to bad luck in winning games. In this case great ERA + poor record does indicate a pitcher not worth the award.

The Yankees play the Devil Rays this evening, and this game is mostly interesting due to New York's poor record against this lowly team. The best way to illustrate the problem is with walks. On the season, the Yankees have outdrawn their opponents 554-399, better than a walk per game. Against Tampa Bay, however, they've been out walked 57-50. This by the offense with the 2nd lowest total walks in the AL and the pitching staff that issued the most! A big reason for the poor record are the starts by rookies (Wang, Penn) in which the Yankees are 0-5 and four starts by Johnson in which he's had an ERA of 6.56. Shouldn't the Big Unit blow Tampa Bay away every game?

The pitching matchups in the NL Wild Card race favor the Marlins tonight as they send Josh Beckett against Wandy Rodriguez and the Braves pit John Thomson against Gavin Floyd. Wandy's overall record isn't that good, but he's improved since the All-Star break, cutting down on both his walks and home runs allowed. Floyd's problem is control. In the two games he's had it this year he gave the Phillies solid starts. If it's gone, he gets shelled.

Finally, the San Diego Padres try to reach the .500 mark again as they take on the Giants in San Francisco. Noah Lowry takes the hill for the Giants, and he's already allowed five more earned runs this month than he did in all of August. The Padres counter with Brian Lawrence. Brian walk and home run numbers are good, but his lack of strike outs is hurting him as balls in play fall for hits.

Enjoy!

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