Does this city still have a baseball team? Seriously, I'm tempted to say "screw it" and just change this page's colors to green and silver and replace that big "P" over there at the top of the sidebar with some sort of flying creature.
Think T.O. could play center field?
Oops. So I guess this is me eating my words. I'm still not convinced that Cory Lidle is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but I will admit that perhaps yesterday's post ragging on Lidle was overdoing it a bit.
Anyway, I actually spend most of last night watching the Oregon State vs. LSU game on ESPNHD. Wow. I won't go into the details because chances are you've seen the highlights on SportsCenter a million times by now. I'll just say this -- I'm 20 times more the baseball fan than I am the football fan, so when a game like this is enough to draw me away from my Phillies, it's probably pretty damn good. Today, though, they'll have my unfettered attention (which means they'll probably lose again)...
Wow. You know, every now and then, this team puts together a game last night and it makes you think about what might have been this season.
Cory Lidle takes the hill tonight and for some reason I doubt we'll have a repeat of his last performance, which was somewhat of a surprise. In fact, after the game, someone left a comment on one of my past entries asking if I "still think Cory Lidle is crappy". Well, yeah, I do. One shutout does not an excellent starter make (talking like Yoda now I am, eh?).
47 major league starters have pitched at least one complete game shutout this season. The average ERA of these 47 pitchers? 4.23, which is a mere .25 runs better than the league average (4.49). Their aggregate won-loss record is 464-382, a mediocre .548 winning percentage. Anyway, if you're curious, here's their average line:
W L CG IP H R ER HR BB K ERA WHIP BAA 10 8 2 156.0 160 79 74 19 49 109 4.23 1.33 .266
This list of pitchers includes such luminaries as Scott Elarton (3-10, 6.52), Darrell May (9-16, 5.61) and Sean Burnett (5-5, 5.02). Pitchers that haven't pitched a shutout this year? How about Cy Young candidates Curt Schilling (17-6, 3.39) and Ben Sheets (10-10, 2.94)?
Anyway, there's no doubt that Lidle is a workhorse, with 4 complete games so far this year. He's also had 10 outings (out of 28) with 5 or less innings pitched. That's not what I'd call consistency. Maybe he'll prove me wrong tonight, I don't know. What I do know is that if he's part of the team's rotation next year, we're in trouble.
I didn't even watch the game tonight and it doesn't look like I missed much. Ryan Howard debuted and, in true Phillies fashion, struck out. Let's hope Gavin Floyd does a little better on Friday night.
Tomorrow's an off day, which shouldn't make much of a difference for most of the Phils as it seems like they've been mailing it in for a couple weeks now.