Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
May 24, 2006
Games of the Day

Chris Carpener and Noah Lowry face off this afternoon in San Francisco as one tries to stop Barry Bonds and the other Albert Pujols. Bonds has one home run against Carpenter in six at bats. Pujols is 0 for 3 against Lowry. Carpenter is coming off his worse start of the year in which he allowed six runs to the Royals. Lowry is coming off his best start. Ironically Carpenter got the win in his game, Lowry the 1-0 loss.

It's a night for rising stars in New York as Cole Hamels takes on Alay Soler, who is making his major league debut (the article says Lieber is pitching tonight, and so does MLB.com). Soler's been eclipsing both left and righties so far this year. If Hamels pitches, he should benefit from a stadium that favors a high strikeout pitcher.

Update: Hamels hurt his shoulder last night playing long toss.

There's lots of good matchups involving the west coast teams tonight, the best being the battle of the Aarons as Cook faces Sele. Right now, the Cy Young race looks like a battle between Aaron Cook and his teammate Jeff Francis. Cook's ERA is 3.28 and Francis is even better at 3.07. Fantastic numbers for Rockies pitchers.

Enjoy!


Posted by David Pinto at 09:02 AM | Matchups | TrackBack (1)
Comments

Cole is hurt. Leiber is pitching. It's funny, because Ryan Madsen had to know that yesterday, meaning he was probably looking forward to starting. Poor guy.

Posted by: DNL at May 24, 2006 09:31 AM

I don't want to be pedantic here, but what does this mean? "If Hamels pitches, he should benefit from a stadium that favors a high strikeout pitcher."

Is there such thing as a stadium that doesn't favor a high strikeout pitcher? The park factors I've seen put Shea as neutral towards strikeouts and walks.

Posted by: bmc at May 24, 2006 10:25 AM

Cole has been scratched. Lieber starting

GO METS

Posted by: Nathan at May 24, 2006 10:45 AM

When I think of the great pitchers in the Mets history, I think of the big strikeout guys. Have there really been many soft-tossing lefties successful there? I just associate Shea with strikeout pitchers, but I could have the association backwards.

Posted by: David Pinto at May 24, 2006 10:53 AM

Carpenter might be scratched from this afternoon's game, he has back pain. Someone put a bottle of Alleve in him, stat!

Posted by: heyzeus at May 24, 2006 11:03 AM

I'm pretty sure there is data somewhere - Bill James may have run it 20-odd years ago - showing that Shea favors power pitchers more than it favors control pitchers (though some soft-tossers have had success here, like Bob Ojeda and Rick Reed). Sid Fernandez and Dwight Gooden had particularly big H/R splits. The reasoning is that Shea's relatively poor lighting makes power pitchers especially tough at night.

Posted by: Crank at May 24, 2006 11:19 AM

i know some parks work better than others for fly-ball pitchers, but i dont understand how the park would favor power or finesse pitchers. i mean, getting strikeouts is good and giving up walks is bad, no matter where you play. it shouldn't matter if you play in yankee stadium or the sandlot, getting strikeouts should favor the pitcher, right?

Posted by: BenJah at May 24, 2006 11:38 AM

Ok, I just thought it was funny the way you worded it, as though strikeouts could play badly in some stadium... I think the correlation is that strikeout pitchers in general tend to be pretty good. There aren't too many Greg Madduxes in the world...

But you have a point. As for good Met lefties who put the ball in play, only Frank Viola, Glavine and mmmmaybe Bobby Ojeda come to mind. Al Leiter, Sid Fernandez, Koosman all had solid k/9s.

Posted by: bmc at May 24, 2006 01:07 PM

And just to not get too far off topic, Hamels's out pitch is his change up. I don't think a 92 fastball makes him a power pitcher. Not quite power, not quite finesse. I don't know how you would figure out the park factor for that.

But I know this beyond any doubt:

Shea kills righty batters, and plays neutral for lefty batters. So, due to the platoon factor, Shea favors Lefty pitchers.

Posted by: bmc at May 24, 2006 01:13 PM

Looks like Brad Thompson to start in place of Carpenter.

Posted by: salvomania at May 24, 2006 02:24 PM
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