Always Split Aces

The prevailing logic is that you always split aces, but even though Mike Peters (as portrayed by Jon Favreau) splits them, Cito Gaston and Mike Scioscia will not tonight. This is just a quick heads-up for all the Leatherheads out there with nothing to do on a Saturday night that two of my favorite pitchers (and, indeed, two of the best the American League has to offer) square off tonight at 9:05 EDT in Los Angeles of Anaheim (or wherever the hell the Angels play) when the big Coloradan, Roy Halladay, faces the big Texan, John Lackey, a great pitcher with a ridiculous name.

Halladay (9-6; 2.90 ERA; 1.04 WHIP) has already authored six complete games this year (including his last start, where he shut out the Mariners) and has been even better than his 9-6 record and 2.90 ERA suggest in striking out 106 and walking just 19 on the season in 130 1/3 IP (leading the league in IP, K/BB and BB/IP ratio). According to my calculations, the Doc's average PQS this season has been 3.88 and he's had a Dominance/Disaster Rate of 41% - 0% (this is amazing compared to anyone but John Lackey) over his 17 starts. He has not faced the Angels this year.

Lackey (6-1; 1.44 ERA; 0.89 WHIP) has been completely absurd since returning from the disabled list. I posted about him a few weeks ago (like I said, he is one of my personal favorites) and he hasn't missed a step since then. Over 68 2/3 IP, Lackey has struck out 54 and walked 13 for a 4.15 K/BB ratio, which would be good for 5th in the AL if he qualified for IP. He'd also be leading the league in both ERA and WHIP. He averages a completely ridiculous PQS of 4.667 per start, with a Dominance/Disaster Rate of 88.9% - 0%. The dude has literally PQSed a 5 in 7 of his 9 starts, with a 4 and 3 in his other two. Unreal. He is also 2-0 against the Blue Jays this year, yielding 3 Runs (2 ER) over 13 IP and 13/4 K/BB.

If you pitching fans out there are not already salivating, consider this: the Angels are 11th in the American League in Runs/Game and the Jays are 13th.


Photo: http://sportsmed.starwave.com/i/magazine/new/swingers_blackjack.jpg
All statistics courtesy of http://baseball-reference.com/
All errors in statistics are the result of sloppy arithmetic on my part

I went to sleep in Shreveport, Woke up in Abilene

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Just a quick AL West update to note a couple of great games last night. This will also be a good time for me to bring up the idea of Pure Quality Starts (PQS for short). PQS is a system of scoring a pitcher's starts, based on a number of factors (longevity, hit and homerun prevention and dominance of the strike zone) and is quantitatively scored between 0 and 5 for all starts. A score of 4 or 5 indicates a "dominance" start, whereas a score of 0 or 1 indicates a "disaster" start. For more information on how to score PQS, please go to http://baseballhq.com/tour/pqs.shtml.In my opinion, it is a much better way of looking at a pitcher's performance than the more traditional Quality Start stat (which measures simply how long he pitches and how many runs he has yielded).

In a marquee (sort of) matchup (first and second place teams with their #1 starters), John Lackey and the California Angels took on Joe Blanton and Connie Mack's Kansas City Athletics. Personally, I am not a huge fan of Blanton, but I do love Lackey, who has been brilliant since returning from the disabled list (1.70 ERA, 0.946 WHIP over 5 starts). The Angels took this one 3-1 in just over two hours.

Lackey (2-1) PQSed a 5 with a 7 inning gem (7 IP; 4 H; 5 K; 0 BB; 1 ER), yielding a homerun to Jack Cust and not much else.

Blanton (3-8) also pitched very well through 7 innings (7 IP; 7 H; 1 BB; 3 K; 3 R - 2 ER), PQSing 4, but took a hard-luck loss.

K-Rod also notched his 25th save.


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Felix Hernandez (4-5) PQSed a 4 with a 6 inning performance (6 IP; 6 H; 3 BB; 5 K; 0 R) and Sean Green and Ryan Rowland-Smith relieved him to finish the shutout of the Red Sox 8-0.

Finally, Scott Kazmir (6-1) dominated the Rangers for 8 innings (8 IP; 6 H; 0 BB; 6 K; 2 R), PQSing a 5 in the process as well. He's been brilliant since beginning the season on the disabled list as well (7 starts, 1.40 ERA, 0.911 WHIP).

All in all, a pretty exciting night for pitching fans in the AL West.

On another note, what are anyone else's thoughts on the Quality Start vs. Pure Quality Start topic?

1-http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/03KN64GaYN8Oc/610x.jpg
2-http://blogs.dailyillini.com/justbaseball/files/2007/04/felix.jpg