Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
September 18, 2007
Games of the Day

The Dodgers play two in the rare air of Colorado today, with the Rockies playoff hopes hanging in the balance. Basically, Colorado really can't afford to lose many as they take a shot at the wild card. And they have the opportunity as over the next ten days they play seven against the Dodgers and three against the Padres. Billingsley against Francis in the opener is the best of the two matchups. The Rockies have handled Chad this season, hitting three home runs against him in 10 2/3 innings. Francis has pitched well at home this season, and it's doubles, not home runs that bother him at Coors.

Detroit needs a win, too. They'll send ace Justin Verlander against Cleveland's Jake Westbrook. Westbrook's strength is keeping the ball in the park, otherwise he's not that good. Verlander does that better, and also posts good strikeout and walk numbers. This is a pitching matchup that favors the Tigers. If they don't win this one, they have Sabathia tomorrow, and it will be tough to walk away with one win in this series.

The Reds and Cubs match up their aces as Aaron Harang takes on Carlos Zambrano. With a win, Harang ties Penny for best winning percentage in the NL. Zambrano needs to return to his July form. Coming off a bad August he's allowed a 4.91 ERA in September.

And in a big game for the Phillies, Cole Hamels returns to the starting rotation. The Phillies starters were 9-8 with a 5.52 ERA without Cole in the rotation, but the team has gone 17-13 overall.

Enjoy!


Posted by David Pinto at 02:54 PM | Matchups | TrackBack (0)
Comments

That is some careless use of the stats there with Zambrano.

Zambrano had an awful run of starts in August, and continued with his first start of September. Giving the Sept. ERA is somewhat disingenuous being that he has had one really bad start to start the month and then two excellent starts. Here are his last two:

6 ip, 1 er
8 ip, 1 er

He has already returned to his July form - we just hope it continues.

Posted by: dave at September 18, 2007 03:44 PM

That is just normal Pinto, to put a negative spin on all things Cubs.

Posted by: Rick at September 18, 2007 04:01 PM

Predicting Zambrano is like predicting the next day in the stock market. It's been proven impossible. I give up with the guy. He can look like the best pitcher in the league, and he can look like he should never have been in the league.

Hamels will be interesting to watch tonight. If he can squeeze in a couple of good starts over the rest of the season, the Philly offense could get that team to the postseason...especially if Arizona eventually gets dumped into the wild card race. The D-Backs are a significantly worse team than the Padres - maybe run diff doesn't lie, after all - and should be easier to catch.

Posted by: Casey Abell at September 18, 2007 04:03 PM
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