Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
April 23, 2008
Games of the Day

Daisuke Matsuzaka goes for his fifth win of the season tonight as the Red Sox continue their series with the Angels. So far this year, Matsuzaka lowered his ERA over a run by trading hits for walks. In 2007, his WHIP was 1.32. This year it's down to 1.22, despite a higher walk rate. We'll see how long that can last.

The Angels send Jon Garland to the mound. He was never much of a strike out pitcher, but his rate is dropping like a stone as he's only struck out three batters in 24 1/3 innings. I can't imagine it's good for a pitcher to allow lots of balls in play at Fenway Park.

Talk about taking Moneyball to an extreme, the Red Sox roster currently holds six players with over fifty plate appearances whose OBAs are over .400. I suspect David Ortiz will join them eventually.

Johan Santana and Tim Redding own nearly identical ERAs as they face each other tonight in Washington. Tim's done a great job of keeping runners off base this season, but once they're on he gives up extra base hits. The best time to get Santana is at the start of the seventh. He allows a .165 BA through six, but that jumps to .353 after that.

Greg Maddux makes his second attempt at winning his 350th game, this time against the San Francisco Giants. The struggling Matt Cain tries to keep Greg one short. Cain is simply wild, walking 15 batters in 20 1/3 innings. That gives the opposition a .375 OBA. Home runs are once again a problem for Greg. Moving to the big parks of the west coast helped keep those totals down, but he's already allowed four in just twenty five innings. Of course, when the cleanup hitter is Bengie Molina, he shouldn't worry about it that much.

Finally, a contrast in control in Seattle as Daniel Cabrera faces Carlos Silva. Since he entered the league in 2004, no one has walked more batters than Daniel Cabrera. In that same time period, only Brad Radke walked fewer batters per nine than Carlos Silva.

Enjoy!

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Correction: Garland is not a lefty.


Posted by David Pinto at 11:46 AM | Matchups | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Hey David.... Jon Garland is a righty

Posted by: Gabriel at April 23, 2008 12:32 PM
the Red Sox roster currently holds six players with over fifty plate appearances whose OBAs are over .400.
The Cubs have 7. Just saying. Posted by: dave at April 23, 2008 02:03 PM
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