Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
April 02, 2008
Games of the Day

It's premier Wednesday as four pitchers who changed teams over the winter hope to make an impact for their new teams.

Matt Garza makes his first start for the Rays as he faced Daniel Cabrera in Baltimore. Matt's 3.69 was helped by his great pitching with runners in scoring position last year. He allowed just a .213 batting average. The key for Cabrera is control. His 108 walks in 204 1/3 innings was an improvement over 2006, but still not very good. He also allowed as many home runs last year as he did in the two previous seasons combined.

Jair Jurrjens came over to the Braves in the Edgar Renteria deal. He's 3-1 in his brief major league career, but his minor league numbers show a young pitcher with great control. He's walked 2.2 batters per nine in the minors. Tom Gorzelanny takes the hill for the Pirates. Tom's easy to run on as opponents were successful in 17 of 22 attempts against him in 2007.

Arizona picked up a second ace when they traded the farm for Dan Haren. He'll make his first start as a Diamondback against Bronson Arroyo and the Reds. Haren upped his strikeouts and lowered his home runs allowed to bring his ERA down over a run in 2007. Arroyo went in the opposite direction, as fewer strikeouts made him more hittable, and he saw his ERA balloon by almost a run versus 2006.

Finally, Andrew Miller premiers for the Marlins. One of the two top prospects in the Cabrera/Willis deal with the Tigers, Miller hosts the Mets and Oliver Perez. Miller's had little seasoning. He only pitched 140 2/3 innings in the minors with a 4.22 ERA. At the major league level, he's pitched 74 1/3 innings with a 5.69 ERA. Florida fans may have to content themselves with watching on the job training. Oliver Perez returned to the form that tantilized us in 2004. He kept his walks and home runs under control to post a 3.56 ERA after two seasons around 6.00. Now we get to see if he can repeat a great performance.

Enjoy!

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Posted by David Pinto at 07:54 AM | Matchups | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Haren also moves from the AL to NL this year, which should further improve his ERA. It will be cool to see what this Webb-Haren combo can put up this year.

Posted by: DbacksBuzz at April 2, 2008 10:40 AM

what happened to the earlier post on baseballmusings about matt garza's pitching mechanics?

Posted by: matt garza at April 2, 2008 02:17 PM
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