2010 MLB Season Discussion

[Cephius]

I feel like I'm watching little league games all over again, no one can throw strikes, runners all over the place, run downs, the whole 9!

[Viq]

Can we go to Pizza Hut after the game?

[Gregorio]

Welcome Back Jimmy Rollins!

[Cephius]

Daniel Nava has now single handedly scored more runs off Ubaldo than any TEAM. You can't be serious.

[Viq]

AL East > Ubaldo's ERA

Lackey just hit a double off Jimenez to top it off

[Gregorio]

It is kinda of relieving to see that Jimenez is human.

[Ohemgee]

Good. Now JJ's ERA ranking will push up to second if Jiminez fucks up more

[Cephius]

This is why I said no one is going to beat Gibson's ERA record. One subpar outing like this and his ERA balloons a full half-run.

[Conrad]

I don't think anyone expected sub-1.12 to be sustainable, but it's still ridiculous how good Jimenez has been so far and it'll be interesting to see how close he'll get.

In other news, second walk-off homer for the Phils, and from J-Roll no less. I was thinking right before it happened how awesome it would be if his first hit back was a walk-off homer, and then he goes ahead and hits one. Awesome.

[Reality]

paulie!paulie! :D 1-1

3-1 now, TCQ!

[Cephius]

Oh Giambi, I still love you.

Papelbon really sucks this year. Only a matter of time before Bard becomes the closer.

[Reality]

have a game Carlos. first time all year Tim Hudson has given up more than 3 earned runs, from what I'm hearing

[fren.]

Walk, Balk, Wild Pitch, ground out > run.

Our bullpen is fucking terribad.

[Ensam]

This is why I said no one is going to beat Gibson's ERA record. One subpar outing like this and his ERA balloons a full half-run.

Speaking of, I don't believe this has been posted, from Rob Neyer:

Greg Cote on a fantastic streak:

... [W]hat Josh Johnson is doing for the Marlins right now -- eight consecutive starts giving up zero runs or one run -- deserves more attention than it is getting.

Consider: That rare, hallowed and near-mythical pitching feat, the perfect game, has been accomplished 18 times since 1900. Johnson's streak since then has been accomplished eight times.

The only two men with more than eight consecutive gems have been Bob Gibson with 11 in pitching-dominated 1968, the surreal year when his ERA was 1.12; and Jack Coombs with 10 one century ago, in 1910. Fans drove Model T Fords to Coombs' games. The Titanic hadn't sunk yet; it was still being built.

Johnson's ERA of 0.62 during the streak has put his season ERA at 1.80. He is 8-2 despite losing four wins to the Marlins' exploding bullpen. His record is 30-8 since returning from surgery in summer 2008.


But is Johnson the new Jack Coombs ... or the new Josh Gibson?

Right: Neither. Josh Johnson is Josh Johnson.

Since returning to the rotation in 2008, in each season Johnson's

* strikeout rate has gone up,
* his walk rate has gone down,
* his home-run rate has gone down, and
* his ground-ball rate has gone up.


OK, so I made that last bit up. Johnson's ground-ball rate has hovered right around 50 percent in each of these last three seasons. What's really improved this season is Johnson's percentage of fly balls that have turned into home runs this season, which is probably the single best explanation for Johnson's drastic ERA improvement this season.

Can he keep it up?

No. I hate to rain on the parade, but Johnson's 1.80 ERA is just as illusory as Ubaldo Jimenez's 1.15 ERA (though less illusory than Jaime Garcia's 1.53 ERA). Like almost every player who's doing something historic, Johnson has benefited from more than his fair share of good luck. But he does seem to be getting better every year. While last year he was probably one of the five or six best pitchers in the National League, this year he's probably one of the three or four best.

And he's only 26 years old. We'll probably never see another streak like this from Johnson again. But that doesn't necessarily mean that we've seen his best.

[Byrd]

The Mariners have given up 3 runs in their last six games. Too little too late, presumably, but still impressive.

[Bozo]

I know I'm late to post this but...

JIMMMMMMMY ROLLLLLLLLINS

[Akiyama]

paulie!paulie! :D 1-1

3-1 now, TCQ!

You guys have been such a great team in that 8 game winning streak of yours. Props.

Braves lead in the NL East down to .5 games thanks to some streaking Mets though. They need to salvage this series and get a win tomorrow so they can have some steam going into a series with the Tigers since they'll see Scherzer (who's striking out seemingly everyone), Verlander, and then Strasburg (Ugh) that Monday against the Nats, or they could see a big losing streak coming.

[Gregorio]

Bottom of the 2nd inning of the Phillies game was one of the oddest innings I've seen in a long time.

[Akiyama]

Why, because they scored runs?

Now no offense to everyone, but.. we sure do have a bunch of overreacting baseball fans around here. Yankees, Phillies, etc. I mean sure.. Braves fans overreact, but we didn't see this sort of run after losing nine in a row, Haha. Pretty sure everyone was like "Don't worry about the Phillies/Yankees, they'll be fine."

Anyway, how that it's off my chest, what happened to allow them to score 5?

[Penthesilea]

I'm just going off what ESPN gamecast says, and it says the phils got 4 outs??