May 03, 2008
Embarrassing Loss
Lookout Landing found the Mariners loss to the Yankees humiliating:
Mike Mussina has a little league fastball. Mike Mussina has a little league fastball and an assortment of slop that he throws in an effort to screw with the hitters' timing of his little league fastball. Through his first six starts he struck out all of 12 batters in 32.1 innings while putting up a swinging strike rate of six percent. SIX PERCENT. In middle school one of my English teachers taught me her little rule of thumb that you should spell out numbers up to ten and then switch to numeric form for higher ones. If I'm spelling out your swinging strike rate, that's bad. That's almost impossibly bad.
And yet there goes Mussina, whiffing five - all swinging - over six effective innings.
It's not always the speed of your fastball, it's the change of speed off your fastball. Mussina finally figured that out.
Posted by David Pinto at
06:19 PM
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Yep. Any team losing to Mussina should be embarrassed. With the Ms starting King Felix that is one that definitely should be in the win column.
The Yanks dented the king's crown a bit today. The six runs he gave up over 5 1/2 innings drove his ERA up by almost a full run (2.22 to 3.04). The top of the Yankees order (and Melky) each got two or three hits today, but what drove home how much Hernandez was struggling was watching him walk Jose Molina (!) with four straight fastballs out of the zone.
Mussina's swinging strike rate is on par with the Mariners' ability to field a ball.
Uh, Mussina's last three starts have been first rate. 2.5 ERA, 1.11 WHIP over 18 innings. That's much better than Beckett or Matsuzaka. Buchholz has a WHIP of 1.2, and Jon Lester's is over 1.5.
Emains, do you actually watch any baseball? You appear to have no idea what you're talking about.
Good point, let's focus on the smallest sample possible.