Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
August 31, 2006
Games of the Day

The Tigers and Yankees play the rubber game of their series this afternoon, with Jeremy pitching against Randy Johnson. Left-handed batters give Bonderman trouble, and the Yankees can pack those into their lineup. Johnson's fall off in strikeouts this year is impressive. He averaged 8.4 per 9 in 2005, 7.1 in 2006. Both are way off from his 10.8 career number. While we're no doubt seeing the decline of Randy Johnson, it's not clear to me why his ERA this season is so much higher than last year. His opponent batting average and OBA are up, but not a lot. Last I looked a .313 OBA allowed was pretty good. The real difference is batting average with runners in scoring position. Last year it was .251 against Randy. This year it's .348. His strikeouts aren't lower just in that situation, so Randy's poor ERA has to do with poor luck in key situations.

Johan Santana goes for his 16th win of the season vs. Jorge de la Rosa of the Royals. Given the four run difference in ERAs, this should be an easy win for the Twins. They've lost three in a row and are now 1 1/2 games behind the White Sox in the wild card race, so they can use an easy one. Minnesota's only scored four runs in their last three games.

The Marlins and Cardinals also play the rubber game of their series, with Dontrelle Willis facing Jeff Suppan. Dontrelle is one veteran Marlins who is not playing up to expectations. Florida could really use the Dontrelle of 2005 down the stretch as they go for a playoff berth. Willis is posting a 2.91ERA in August, but he's still walking too many batters. Suppan's pitched much better since the All-Star break with an ERA three runs lower due to a 30 point drop in OBA allowed and a 100 point drop in slugging percentage allowed.

Enjoy!


Posted by David Pinto at 11:36 AM | Matchups | TrackBack (0)
Comments

From The Onion...(hee hee)...

Randy Johnson Asks Chien-Ming Wang For Some Pitching Advice For A Pitcher Friend Of His
August 17, 2006 | Onion Sports

NEW YORK--Yankees pitcher Randy Johnson asked his teammate and fellow pitcher Chien-Ming Wang Tuesday for some pitching advice that was reportedly not for him, but for a "tall, lanky, inconsistent" southpaw friend of his. "He--my friend--is having trouble because he thinks his release point is erratic," said Johnson, who as the conversation went on had to vehemently deny allegations that the person he was talking about was himself. "So, Chien, what do you think about my, er, his release point?" Wang eventually recommended that Johnson tell his "friend" that when he releases the ball too high, he loses his ability to fool left-handed hitters, and to also mention that he will have to accept that at his friend's age, his slider won't be nearly as effective as it once was.

Posted by: Mark at August 31, 2006 12:43 PM

Suppan pitches well at Busch - most of his games after the ASB have been there.

Posted by: JeremyR at August 31, 2006 09:37 PM
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