Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
July 18, 2006
Games of the Day

The Chicago White Sox visit Detroit for a three-game series starting tonight. It's a chance for Chicago to pull back in striking distance of the division lead and for the Tigers to put the division in their pocket. The opening matchup appears to favor Detroit, as Nate Robertson hosts Jon Garland. Garland comes into tonight's matchup with a 1.08 Ground ball/Fly ball ratio. Last year, that number was 1.44. This is a big difference for the White Sox staff in general. The number of ground balls they are inducing is down; with that, GDPs are down. In 2005, the White Sox induced 143 GDPs, the second most in the AL. This year, despite more runners on base, they've induced 65, the second lowest number in the AL. This leads to a bigger difference in their base runners allowed than shown in OBA alone, since they're removing fewer base runners.

Nate Robertson posted a good ERA of 2.70 against the White Sox this season, but all he has to show for it is a loss. Too many walks and homers in his 13 1/3 innings led to just enough runs to stay out of the win column.

There's a fun matchup in Minnesota tonight as Scott Kazmir takes on Francisco Liriano in a battle of young, left-handed strikeout artists. No need for air conditioning as the both team should be generating a breeze with their whiffs. Tonight's starters are 1-2 in strikeouts per 9 in the American League with Liriano at 10.4 and Kazmir at 9.7 per 9. Liriano might see that number go up as the Devil Rays batters are third in the AL in strikeouts, while Minnesota owns the second fewest.

Enjoy!


Posted by David Pinto at 02:41 PM | Matchups | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Put in their pocket pluuhhhhees. This July not Sept.

Posted by: Tom Kittypaw at July 18, 2006 04:53 PM
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