Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
April 04, 2007
Games of the Day

Andy Pettitte returns to Yankee Stadium in a Yankees uniform this afternoon as New York hosts Tampa Bay. For his career, Pettitte owns a .730 winning percentage at The House that Ruth Built, going 81-30 with a 3.46 ERA. He'll face Jae Seo, a pitcher who performed well for the Mets in 2005, but lost the control that made him so good that year in 2006.

It's a battle of H's in Philadelphia as Tim Hudson tries to bounce back from the worst season of his career vs. young Cole Hamels. Hudson upped his strikeouts in 2006, but, in a reversal of logic, increased his hits allowed. If that's a function of luck, maybe Tim will bounce back in 2007. Hamels struck out more than a batter per inning in 2006, and three times more than he walked. If he can bring his home runs down a little bit, he'll contend for the Cy Young award.

Tomorrow is Bronson Arroyo's anniversary of his Reds debut. He homered against the Cubs in that game, and gets another chance today as he faces one of the new Cubs millionaires, Ted Lilly. After an off year in 2005, Arroyo found his strikeout pitch again and kept his walks low to become one of the better #2 starters in the league. Back in the early part of the decade, Lilly was a pitcher with some potential. It turned out he's a .500 pitcher with an ERA in the low 4.00s at best. It's earned him a nice payday, but at age 31 he's really unlikely to ever be better than that.

A pitcher with plenty of potential is Brandon McCarthy, makes his Texas Rangers debut against Ervin Santana and the LAnaheim Angels. In his brief career, McCarthy's pitched better as a starter, allowing a .287 OBA, about 30 points lower than as a reliever. Santana is a different pitcher in Anaheim than on the road. His batting average and OBA are about 60 points lower at home, and his slugging percentage drops about 160 points.

Enjoy!


Posted by David Pinto at 08:25 AM | Matchups | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Pettitte's return postponed by weather. He's expected to start tomorrow.

Posted by: James at April 4, 2007 02:24 PM
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