Toady’s Games

Because it’s a Monday and MLB is anti-Monday, two thirds of the league is off today; just those teams who are getting in four game intra-division series this week.

Best Game Of The Day

LAD Odalis Perez (4-3, 2.88) vs SFG Kurt Rueter (3-6, 5.03)

Dodgers start the day 1.5 games up. With the Padres having dropped 8 of the last 10 and fallen back to 4 out, things might have finally sorted themselves out in the NLWest.

ERA
NYM T Glavine 2.07
CHC C Zambradno 2.25
SFG J Schmidt 2.26
MIL B Sheets 2.59
FLA C Pavano 2.81
FLA B Penny 2.83
HOU R Clemens 2.84
LAD O Perez 2.88

2.88 ERA gets you 8th best in the league, surprsingly, though another good start will move him up to at least 5th. Gange’s obviously being picked for the All-Star team, so even though Perez has been hot lately, he needs to pick up actual decisions if he wants to make it.

Best Game Of The Day (alternate)

OAK Rich Harden (3-4, 3.95) vs ANA John Lackey (4-8, 5.51)

Similarly, Oakland starts the day up 1.5 on the Angels – but Texas sneaks in between at half game out.

Given Oakland’s imploding bullpen the last week, it’s sorta weird to still see them in the lead. The other teams just have been losing with slightly less theatrics:

Last 10
OAK 5-5
TEX 5-5
ANA 4-6
SEA 7-3

Both these teams have problems (relief, starters – Lackey’s gotta do something here) where the most obvious solutions to them (Everyday Eddie, Garcia) aren’t likely, because Seattle won’t trade within the division. And even if they would, these two losing gives Seattle the impression they might catch up (they won’t), so they’ll hold on to their guys for a while longer.

I know starters are more important than relivers because they’re going to give you more innings over the course of a career, but in terms of things which can affect your team’s psyche, bullpen issues have to easily be worse than a fifth starter. You only have to deal with the bad guy in your rotation once ever five days, while you’ve got to worry about finishing the game any time you have a lead.

AL K/9 (100 PA min)
ANA F Rodriguez 14.09
BAL B Ryan 12.23
MIN J Rincon 11.50
DET U Urbina 11.16
MIN J Nanthan 11.02

Worst Matchup Of The Day
ARZ Casey Fossum (1-5, 6.62) vs SDP Ismael Valdez (5-3, 4.85)

Fossum’s last five starts
05/25 @SFG – 5.1 IP, 4R (L)
05/30 @LAD – 5.0 IP, 2R (L)
06/06 vLAD – 4.0 IP, 5R (L)
06/10 @BAL – 6.0 IP, 0R (W)
06/16 vNYY – 4.2 IP, 8R (L)

So I’m thinking the pen should start getting ready now. Partly this is because he’s still probably recovering from a shoulder injury, but I’d think he’d be getting better and he obviously had a big step back vs the Yankees.

Poor sad O’s. Way to kill Scott.

Looking again in at Petco’s effect:
Padres Home Batting: .316 OBP/.346 SLG
Padres Away Batting: .349 OBP/.417 SLG

Yow. Maybe it’s just the Padres?

Padres Home Pitching: .314 OBA/.393 SLG
Padres Away Pitching: .327 OBA/.427 SLG

See, that’s not nearly as bad. I think Padres the hitters are just behind the pitchers in figuring out what they can do there (or maybe it’s just the wrong group of hitters.)

Worst Matchup Of The Day, Alternate
PIT Josh Fogg (4-5, 6.57) vs Tim Redding (3-6, 5.00)

Pirates have the worst record over all today. If you total ’em up, PIT vs HOU is 61-72 and ARZ vs SDP 61-72, so whatever.

Astros have really tumbled, dropping 7 of the last 10, partially thanks to the Cubs, and probably aren’t in full panic mode today only because they got a game back in the standings on Sunday. Even though they’re fifth, they’re not so out of it that they couldn’t still make a run with all this time left…

However, coming in to this month, the Pirates were in a similar position, 6.0 out, thinking they might pull of a surprise run – and then the wheels came off, falling to a baker’s dozen out. Astros have a lot more talent than the Pirates, but with four teams ahead of you, you’re going to lose ground to someone every night you don’t win, so they’ve got to start figuring it back out quick.

Might As Well Do All Of ‘Em Game Of The Day

CLE C.C. Sabathia (4-3, 2.95) vs CHW Scott Schoeneweis (5-5, 4.30)

This kinda sorta means something, seeing as the White Sox are 1.5 out and Cleveland is only three behind them, but it’d hard to see the Indians making it any closer than it is right now (or maybe after this game, because this doesn’t seem to be a favorable matchup for the hometeam.) It’s taken a 7-3 run by the Indians and 4-6 by the White Sox (giving up 10+ runs to the Expos? How does that happen?) to even get it this far.

Plus, with Omar hurt, who do they have left to trade? Not that Omar should get you much, but most everyone else falls in either the “sucks” or “young and want to keep around” categories, so it’s tough to imagine them getting a midseason boost to get them past the Twins and the WSox

Your Chicago White Sox Starting Pitchers!
M Burehle 15 GS 4.07 ERA
J Garland 14 GS 4.64 ERA
E Loaiza 14 GS 3.82 ERA
S Schoeneweis 13 GS 4.30 ERA

D Wright 4 GS 8.15 ERA
F Diaz 2 GS 11.42 ERA
N Cotts 1 GS 5.70 ERA
A Munoz 1 GS 33.00 ERA
J Rauch 1 GS 12.27 ERA

The fifth starting monster known as WrightDiazCottsMunozRauch (counting Cotts in relief, which balances him out to 0) has a VORP of -21.8, the worst in the major leagues.

This comes up because Rauch, despite almost getting run out of town after his last start, got called back up gets the chance this time around. Lucky him.

The strange thing here is there’s no one hurt who should’ve been around for the fifth spot. Given Garland and Schoneneweist were both to some extent questionable as success coming into the season and none of the fifth starters, you would’ve thought there a vet would’ve been invited to spring training and been hanging around in AAA to fill in when/if someone went bad, but it’s just been a parade of rookies and AAA lifers. I wonder if they’d be interested DFA LHP Jimmy Anderson; Freddy Garcia would be a big boost, but right now anyone would be a big boost and they’re throwing away starts waiting for Seattle to deal.