Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
August 18, 2008
Games of the Day

With both the White Sox and Twins breathing down their necks, the Red Sox send Jon Lester to the mound against Baltimore's Jeremy Guthrie. Lester is emerging as a legitimate ace. He's walking less than three batters per nine innings and keeping the ball in the park, both improvements over his two previous seasons. He's also going deep in games, averaging over seven innings per start since the all-star break. Guthrie is five innings short of his total from last season. His strikeouts are down, but so are his walks and home runs. He's emerged as the new ace of the Orioles staff with a 3.18 ERA.

The teams with the two best records in the American League meet in Tampa as the Angels visit the Rays. Jon Garland faces Andy Sonnanstine. The Rays have done a good job this year of shutting down LAnaheim's offense, allowing just 19 runs in six games while scoring 28. That's good for a 4-2 record. They've won all three games in Tampa Bay, tossing two 2-0 shutouts there. Garland was on the losing end of one of those as he pitched eight shutout innings against the Rays but did not get the decision. The next day Sonnanstine gave up five runs in five innings, but Tampa took home an 8-5 win.

CC Sabathia goes for his eighth win without a loss as the Brewers host the Astros and Randy Wolf. Randy is 2-0 himself since joining the Astros, posting a 3.63 ERA. Sabathia's most impressive stat with the Brewers is his four complete games in eight starts. He had three with Cleveland in 18 starts this seasons. In half the innings with Milwaukee he's allowed less than 1/6 of the home runs.

Finally, Justin Duchscherer and the Athletics travel to Minnesota to face Nick Blackburn and the Twins. Justin's faded since the All-Star break, his 1.82 ERA before the break ballooning to 5.34 since. Blackburn's ERA is about 1.5 runs better at home than on the road, although it's not clear that it's the park. He's allowed a .234 BA with men in scoring position at home, .284 on the road.

Enjoy!

Find World Series odds for all these teams at Bodog Sportsbook.


Posted by David Pinto at 08:19 AM | Matchups | TrackBack (0)
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