CHC --- 29 OFF SFG --- 27 Schmidt v COL Kennedy SDP 0.5 30 Peavy @ STL Suppan FLA 3.0 31 Pavano @ NYM Seo HOU 3.0 29 OFF
I have 52 minutes to do this before the games start. I like to do this in a more leisurely pace. You…don’t care.
This was Kerry’s best game of the season, and it came at a time when the club needed (gotta win this series) and he needed it (didn’t make it out of the 5th last two times out, gave up 8 runs last time out.)
It’s also one of those times where I can’t believe anyone who watches baseball on a regular basis takes pitcher wins and loses seriously.
Highly unlikely the Cubs are alone and in first place at the end of the night. Cardinals have owned the Padres this series, thus the (panic) short rest start for Jake Peavy. Peavy’d be ERA leader if he had enough innings (2.25 ERA in 120 – I believe it’s an 1 IP/G, so he could catch up by the end of the season.) Peavy’s only had one game where he’s given 4 runs, though he has a relatively low QS rate because he hasn’t made it thru the sixth a fair bit. The IP is the reason he’s not getting Cy talk
BPro doesn’t have a VORP/IP metric – it’d be really biased towards closers and situational guys – but my quick excel math says among starters with 50IP, the top 10 guys are
Orlando Hernandez NYA 0.382 Jake Peavy SDN 0.377 Ryan Madson PHI 0.359 Johan Santana MIN 0.337 Freddy Garcia SEA 0.329 Al Leiter NYN 0.329 Tim Hudson OAK 0.322 Jason Schmidt SFN 0.313 Curt Schilling BOS 0.306
Ryan Madson had one start and good bullpen work to make the list, in case you were wondering. I know I was. RJ isn’t on here despite having a nice huge VORP because he pitches so many innings. That’s kind of the reason I suppose this metric isn’t used; for batting, we theorize that a .200 VORP/PA guy is going to get around that number (plus or minus luck – environment is factored out), regardless of the at bats. Doesn’t work with pitching; Shingo the Frisbee Man’s VORP/IP is going to drop the more he pitches, just because more people will have shots at his wacky pitch.
Schmidt should beat these Rockies in SF nine times out of ten, with the tenth time perhaps being a reoccurrence of his groin injury. (Actual line is SFG -260) I kinda think he’ll be okay and kinda hope he won’t.
Cubs went home last night, instead of going to Miami for the series. If by some miracle, the hurricane misses land, they’d fly down Friday morning. No one really thinks they will. The Marlins game notes made it sound like they were going home, which was kind of a surprise to me until I realized they were a day game and had no real choice.
Weather.com says: “Present thinking puts landfall on the central or southern portion of the east coast of Florida, possibly as early as late Friday”. That’s a problem. If it was going to hit Saturday afternoon, you have the Cubs fly in tonight, play a doubleheader (starting at 9AM if they’d let you), and get them out of town before the hurricane hits. If it was going to hit Friday afternoon, you have the Cubs wait it out in Chicago, come in Saturday to play a late game, and do the doubleheader on Sunday.
In between Friday and Saturday’s really bad, because you can’t play Friday (no sense flying people into the path of a hurricane) and you probably can’t play Saturday (too many things shut down to get a team to the ballpark, and about 5 people will be in the stands.) You may not even be able to play Sunday, if the airport gets messed up or the storm is slow to pass.
I feel sorry for whoever’s got to figure this out. I’d bet heavily on the Cubs working out the stadium tomorrow, because there won’t be a game.
Done with seconds to spare.