Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
May 30, 2007
Games of the Day

The Twins try to move past the White Sox for third place in the AL Central this afternoon as Jon Garland faces Scott Baker. In his two starts, Baker held opponents to .216 batting average, but five of his eleven hits allowed went for extra-bases. Garland is pitching well in may, allowing just seven walks and one home run in 28 innings of work.

Paul Byrd and Daisuke Matsuzaka sport very good records with slightly high ERAs. Byrd makes up for all his hits allowed by not walking batters. He's issued three all season. Dice-K baffles left-handed batters with the movement of his pitches, but righties seem to hit him just fine. There have been a number of lefties like this in the past, where they throw a pitch than moves away from righties but into the zone against lefties. Matsuzaka may be doing the opposite. Should teams stack their lineups with righties, I wonder?

James Shields continues to develop as the Tampa Bay ace. He strikes out as many batters as Scott Kazmir, but without all the walks. He'll try to stop the Detroit Tigers and Nate Robertson. The Tiger left has yet to allow a home run on the road this season.

The pitching match up of the day takes place in Anaheim, with Felix Hernandez faces Jered Weaver. Since his return from his injury, Hernandez continues to strike out batters at a high rate, but he's also giving up many more hits. It took Weaver a while to recover from his injury as well, but he's 3-1 in May with a 2.93 ERA, along with 30 K in 30 2/3 innings.

Enjoy!


Posted by David Pinto at 10:45 AM | Matchups | TrackBack (0)
Comments

"Dice-K baffles left-handed batters with the movement of his pitches, but righties seem to hit him just fine."

Righties have a higher BAA, but I'm not sure it's fair to say they're hitting him 'just fine.' Righties have a 33/8 K/BB against Matsuzaka, compared to the southpaw 31/13. Further, the opponents SLG is nearly identical; .378 for lefties and .385 for right-handers.

Posted by: the other josh at May 30, 2007 05:39 PM
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