Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
July 28, 2006
Games of the Day

The White Sox are reeling and they travel to Baltimore to face a red hot pitcher. Erik Bedard looks to finish July 5-0. He's doing everything well, striking out 28 batters in 28 innings in the month while allowing just seven walks and two homers. Meanwhile, Freddy Garcia's ERA in July is over 5.00, He's been pounded by the bottom hitters in the opposition's order.

The Angels visit the Red Sox as both teams are involved in tight division races. Kelvim Escobar faces rookie Jon Lester. (Too bad it's not Weaver against Lester in a battle of undefeated rookies.) Lester is having great success against righties. They draw walks (.351 OBA) but can't get the hits to score those runners (.228 BA, .329 slugging percentage). Escobar's main problem his season is run support, as the Angels score less than 4 runs per nine innings when he's on the mound. He's also had plenty of miscues behind him as 16 of his 65 runs allowed were unearned.

Atlanta gets a chance to gain on the Mets this weekend, but they'll have to go through a rested Pedro Martinez. He'll face Horacio Ramirez at Turner Field this evening. It's not clear if Chipper Jones will be back for the contest.

Another second place team that's far back will host it's division leader tonight. The Tigers send Zach Miner to the mound against rookie sensation Francisco Liriano. Miner's coming off two bad starts in a row in which he's allowed 10 runs in 6 2/3 innings. Most tellingly, he's only struck out one batter in those two starts. In contrast, Liriano's struck out 17 in his last two starts, covering 13 2/3 innings.

Enjoy!


Posted by David Pinto at 12:35 PM | Matchups | TrackBack (0)
Comments

I like your breakdown on Escobar. I didn't notice the Unearned runs when I did my preview of this game at Peace, Love and Lots of Sox. I use the database religously though.

Posted by: Wayne at July 28, 2006 05:09 PM

As a Tigers fan, I'm looking forward to this Twins series with both anticipation and anxiety. It's the hottest team in baseball since early June against my team with the best record. It seems like the Tigers are always having to prove themselves this year, and this series is no different. Hopefully Miner can return to the success he had a few starts ago, because Liriano is going to cause all kinds of problems for Tigers hitters tonight.

Posted by: levi at July 28, 2006 07:31 PM
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