Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
April 01, 2008
Games of the Day

Yesterdays' summary of the Blue Jays/Yankees game still stands:

The New York Yankees open the House that Ruth Built for the last time, facing division rival the Toronto Blue Jays. Chien-Ming Wang faces Roy Halladay and the worms are in full retreat. Wang leads the majors in wins since the start of the 2006 season with 39, while Halladay ranks seventh with 32. Alex Rodriguez sits just three home runs behind Ted Williams and Willie McCovey on the all-time home run list, and a 45 home run campaign ties him with Reggie Jackson for eleventh.

Baseball Musings roving reporter Jim Storer will be at the game, supplying photos from his camera phone.

The Mets and Marlins continue their series, this time with Pedro Martinez taking on Rick VandenHurk. You couldn't ask for a bigger contrast in the first two games of this series. Two of the best pitchers of their generations taking on two pitchers with career ERAs over 5.00. VandenHurk, however, does strike out tons of batters, 82 in 81 1/3 innings last year. That's a sign that he could be good. Pedro pitched impressively in his five starts for the Mets in 2008, not allowing a home run in 28 innings. Like Santana yesterday, he's getting an easy assignment to start the season.

Oakland plays their real home opener tonight, and the pitching matchup is the same as game one of their Japanese opener. Joe Blanton host Daisuke Matsuzaka. Joe showed the effects of the early season start when he tired in the sixth, allowing his first extra-base hits of the game and three runs. Dice-K suffered control problems early, but the A's couldn't get the big hit. Once his control returned in the third inning, Oakland did not get a hit big or small.

The Giants and Dodgers play game two in Los Angeles as the real ace of the San Francisco staff takes the mound. Matt Cain improved his ERA, home run rate and walk rate in 2007. His 7-16 record is a perfect example of what happens to a good pitcher when his team doesn't score many runs. He may be in for a similar fate this season. Derek Lowe can feel his pain. His 12-14 record in 2007 seems harsh for a 3.88 ERA. He's been consistently good since joining the Dodgers, but posted losing records in two of three seasons. They both can't lose tonight.

Finally, Felix Hernandez takes the mound for the Mariners against the Rangers and Vicente Padilla. Hernandez started off like gang busters in 2007, allowing four hits and no runs in his first two starts, a total of seventeen innings. He never quite got that back after missing a month due to an arm injury, posting a 4.16 ERA from the middle of May on. His control in that time was great, however, as he walked just 2.4 per nine innings. Padilla, too suffered an injury last year, but his walk rate had deteriorated before he hurt his triceps.

Enjoy!

Visit Bodog Sports for the lastest betting lines.


Posted by David Pinto at 08:30 AM | Matchups | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Thanks for the betting line!

Posted by: Pete Rose at April 1, 2008 10:28 AM

Joe Torre--fresh from having announced that Juan Pierre will not be the starting left fielder for the Dodgers--puts him in the lineup in left tonight in place of Matt Kemp, hitting him in the #7 slot. Joe, you f***ing idiot, if he belonged in the lineup you wouldn't be batting him 7th. You certainly wouldn't have Kemp batting 7th if he was playing tonight. Do your job and bench the loser, please.

Posted by: M. Scott Eiland at April 1, 2008 10:54 PM
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