Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
April 13, 2006
Lilly of the Fenway

Ted Lilly pitched his third consecutive good start at Fenway, and this was the best of them all. He allowed one earned run in seven innings tonight while striking out 10. Over these three starts his ERA is 1.86 with 16 K. Tonight, however, he walked none, compared to seven in his previous two starts. With Toronto leading 8-3 in the bottom of the ninth, it looks like Ted will also get his third Fenway win in a row.


Posted by David Pinto at 09:50 PM | Pitchers | TrackBack (0)
Comments

What really adds insult to injury here is that while he pitches like Koufax against the Red Sox, Lilly pitches like Lima against the Yankees.

Posted by: David Dean at April 13, 2006 10:49 PM

I really wonder about these trends of pitchers vs. teams, especially since this Red Sox team is radically different offensive wise from previous Red Sox teams. Is this just a weird statistical hiccup?

Or does it have to do with the Red Sox FO's strategy and creating an offense, and how certain pitchers capitalize on it?

I know it makes sense when the Yankees/Devil Rays fought each other, and the Devil Rays won a surprising amount of times, as it was youth vs. age, and that both teams had pitching woes.

Or is it the fact that Lilly can just get out certain guys (Ramirez in particular), which is enough to strand runners on base.

It's difficult to rank these things as just coincidences, but it's hard to come up with a reason that he keeps beating the Sox.

Posted by: Hunter at April 13, 2006 11:06 PM

Hunter - I agree. It's totally bizarre. Lilly looked absolutely awful last week against Tampa Bay. But tonight, he had control of all his pitches, he was hitting the corners (and getting some generous calls, it appeared), and he had the Sox off balance all night. If I remember correctly, only a couple of his K's were on swings - most of them were looking on a nasty curve or a fastball over the inside corner.

Some of the new Sox did okay - I think Loretta and Lowell had hits, for example. But they couldn't seem to get anything once they got runners on.

I don't know. The rational part of me wants to believe that this is just a weird coincidence, and that next time out, it's just as likely that the Sox will light him up. But as a Sox fan who can't seem to figure out why they can't hit this guy, my lying eyes tell me that facing the Sox turns Lilly into a dynamite pitcher.

Posted by: David Dean at April 13, 2006 11:16 PM

Lilly pitched an unforgotten gem in the 2003 ALDS against the Red Sox, the best of all the A's pitchers ... but got the no decision.

Posted by: Hank at April 13, 2006 11:36 PM

I've been watching this happen for what seems like forever, and I honestly feel like the entire Red Sox problem with Toronto can be chalked up to just terrible luck. They match up unbelievably well with everyone on the Boston squad, and it seems like there's little anyone can do about it. Look back in 04. The best team against Schilling? Toronto. (5.00 era in 4 starts) The best team against Clement and Wells last year? Toronto (8.84 ERA in 4 starts and 6.15 in 4 starts respectively). With 3 starters all suffering against the same team...it's hard to put anything together. And the Lilly phenomenon...don't get me started. I decided to finally check into his numbers from last year... 3-0 in four starts with a 2.4 ERA vs Boston. Vs everyone else? 7-11 in 21 starts with a 6.54 ERA. That combination of factors...it's almost creepy. In 04 Lilly's performance against Boston wasn't as good, but a 3.58 ERA in 4 starts is nothing to sneer at. (4.06 ERA overall) Further, it's not even that the Sox are swinging at bad pitches or getting themselves out. Usually Lilly's stuff is just filthy, every pitch is working, and he's getting the calls on both sides of the plate. Again, I just don't know what else to call all of this but bad luck.

Posted by: the other josh at April 14, 2006 01:54 AM

"Or does it have to do with the Red Sox FO's strategy and creating an offense, and how certain pitchers capitalize on it?"

Oh yeah, one other thing, my friend and I were looking at Lilly's numbers from last season, (Really small sample, I know, but bare with me) the two teams Lilly was best against? Boston and Oakland. He had a 2.77 ERA vs Beane's squad last season in 2 starts. Coincidence? Probably. But since nothing else seems to work, maybe the Sox should try to get away from the moneyball approach next time and just hack away early in the count.

Posted by: the other josh at April 14, 2006 01:57 AM
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