Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
May 09, 2007
Games of the Day

John Maine brings his league leading ERA into San Francisco this afternoon as the Mets face Matt Morris and the Giants. Maine mostly pitched on the road this season, where his ERA is a stellar 1.00. Away from Shea, batters hit just .138 and slug .195. It's tough to explain Morris' good ERA. With few strikeouts, he's allowing a high BA and OBA. But he's kept the power down, which seems to be working so far.

There's a battle of old lefties in Arizona as Jamie Moyer faces Randy Johnson in a late afternoon start. The soft stuff still works for the Moyer as he's walked just 14 and allowed one home run in 41 innings pitched. He's even struck out 27, a respectable number. His former teammate has not fared well in three starts. His strikeouts are still high and the control is there, but Johnson's allowed five home run in just 18 innings so far. When Randy makes a mistake these days, it gets hit a long way.

Dasiuke Matsuzaka and Tomo Ohka come into the game with ERAs in the mid fives, but they get there differently. Matsuzaka posts good strikeout, walk and home run numbers, indicating a bit of bad luck. His fielding independent ERA is 3.26. Ohka, with a low strikeout rate and a high number of home runs allowed, pretty much deserves his high runs allowed.

Old teammates Greg Maddux and John Smoltz meet in Atlanta tonight as the Padres take on the Braves. Both are six inning pitchers now, but both retain their control which makes them so effective.

At the start of the season I would have thought it unlikely that a Tom Gorzelanny vs. Jason Marquis matchup would make games of the day, but they face each other with sub-3.00 ERAs. Gorzelanny's success comes from lowering his walk rate from one every two innings to one every three innings. Marquis is doing a great job against lefties, allowing a .172 batting average to hitters with the platoon advantage.

The best matchup of the day, however, takes place in Kansas City where Dan Haren, leading the AL in ERA takes on Gil Meche, ranked third. Dan keeps runners off base, allowing few hits and fewer walks. The opposition's OBA stands at .235. On top of that, he's allowed a .118 BA with runners in scoring position. Meche has been almost as tough, allowing a .167 BA with men in scoring position.

Enjoy!

Update: Fixed a typo.


Posted by David Pinto at 10:49 AM | Matchups | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Before someone who bleeds Dodger blue comes in here and goes ballistic on you, you should know you made a mistype in the first sentence. ;)

Posted by: Devon Young at May 9, 2007 11:24 AM

"Matsuzaka posts good strikeout, walk and home run number"

as longs as wes are pointings outs the typo

Posted by: Blastings Thrilledge at May 9, 2007 11:51 AM

...did you actually look at those numbers or just his ERA? Admittedly, a 39/15 K/BB isn't great...but since he's striking out better then a batter an inning, it's not bad, either. Further, Matsuzaka's FIP is a nice looking 3.26, suggesting that he's gotten fairly unlucky in terms of balls falling in for hits. Of course, in this case it's not so much luck as it is all his walks and hits typically coming in bunches, usually in a single inning.

And 2 HR's allowed in 39 innings is very good, as is a .331 SLGA.

Posted by: the other josh at May 9, 2007 11:59 AM

Daisuke's numbers show potential. But he deserves his ERA. His walks and hits come together in bunches and you can see a breakdown in his ability to perform in those innings. Basically, if he can fix that his ERA should be 3.26, but this isn't a bad statistical anomaly as much as a bad component of Daisuke's game at this early stage in MLB.

Posted by: seamus at May 9, 2007 12:54 PM

Agree completely, as I (sort of) said. I was just disagreeing with Thrilledge's assertion that Matsuzaka's peripherals are, uh, bad.

Posted by: the other josh at May 9, 2007 01:15 PM

Smoltz a 6-inning guy? Last year, he went 7 or more in 23 out of 35 starts. I'll grant that he's been pulled earlier this season (lasting more than 6 in only 2 of 6 starts), but I hardly think that justifies claiming he can only go 6 these days.

And to further drive home the point, by saying that he's effective because he has "retained his control" makes it sound like he's lost his nasty, nasty stuff and gets by on finesse, which is just flat wrong.

Sounds to me like you described Maddux and rather than doing the same for Smoltz, just decided they were the same guy.

Posted by: mraver at May 9, 2007 02:41 PM

They both have good K/BB, which was the point I made poorly, mraver.

Posted by: David Pinto at May 9, 2007 02:46 PM

Dice-K's main problem is that once he lets somebody on base, he's a different pitcher and ends up allowing a lot of hits or walks all together instead of spread out. Maybe he gets distracted when there's baserunners. As long as he keeps guys off the bases, they don't score. Ok, I feel like Yogi Berra now.

Posted by: Devon Young at May 9, 2007 03:14 PM
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