Jack Bauer Squared needed a rebound after the sweep in Dodger Stadium, and though you wouldn’t generally think a trip to Yankee Stadium is a way to make things better … well, in this case it worked out well enough.
The opener saw Mike Cuellar do typical Mike Cuellar things for us. He gave up 5 runs in 6.2 innings. In his 16 starts now, here is a breakdown of runs allowed (earned and unearned combined):
- 0 runs: 1 time
- 1 run: 0 times
- 2 runs: 1 time
- 3 runs: 2 times
- 4 runs: 3 times
- 5 runs: 4 times
- 6 runs: 3 times
- 7 runs: 2 times
That’s pretty much how you end up with a 5.35 ERA and ongoing scorn in these posts. When 75% of the time you give up at least 4 runs, you are not helping your team win games. The underlying code that represents our maligned Mr. Cuellar is better than that, otherwise I wouldn’t have drafted him in the second round. He’s doing worse than pitchers who aren’t as good, so he’s suffering some bad luck. In theory, the law of averages should catch up and he should fill the top half of that list up as the season progresses. In theory anyway. The reverse jinxes aren’t helping any, clearly.
As it happens we pulled out the series opener anyway with a couple runs in the top of the 9th on Kal Daniels’ RBI double and a wild pitch. That gave us a 7-5 win and the end of the little three-game losing streak.
The second game featured an excellent start from Bert Blyleven, who despite being drafted as a fourth starter has performed the best so far. He pitched 7 shutout innings to improve to 8-4 with a 3.21 ERA. We won 5-0 to take the first two games of the series.
Seems like a good time to compare Blyleven’s 15 starts to Cuellar’s:
- 0 runs: 3 times
- 1 run: 3 times
- 2 runs: 2 times
- 3 runs: 1 time
- 4 runs: 2 times
- 5 runs: 3 times
- 6 runs: 1 times
- 7 runs: 0 times
In contrast to Cuellar’s only yielding 3 or fewer runs in 25% of his starts, Blyleven has done in 9 out of 15 times, or 60%. I think my inner geek is showing a bit here, so let’s move on.
The final game of the series started with each team scoring twice in the 1st inning and then zeroes until A Rod broke through with two more in the 7th. We squandered scoring opportunities in the 6th, 7th, and 8th and couldn’t get a run home. So the 4-2 loss ended the road trip and left us at 27-34, 8 games out of 1st place but only 5 games out of the wild card.
Next up: Another divisional battle against $24 and Some Change, who sit just above us at 29-32. A good showing here could put us a step closer to contention. At this point, the first goal is to get to .500 on the season, hopefully by the halfway point in 20 games. We’d have to go 14-6 to do that, but that’s possible to be sure.
