Marquee match-ups

u forgot that the Philthies are in total punkass mode.

Which of the three words in "could go anywhere" didn't you read?

Hard to get a more statistically even match-up in the most basic columns than Bumgarner vs. Kershaw:

ERA -- 2.97 (B) / 2.90 (K)
IP -- 164 (B) / 171 (K)
H/9 -- 7.4 (B) / 6.9 (K)
K/BB -- 4.7 (B) / 3.9 (K)
W/L% -- .650 (B) / .647 (K)

And they have identical WHIPs of 1.014.

who wouldve thunk - david price vs.............luke hochevar

... and the mighty Royals come out on top!

Cueto/Miley = Cy Young/ROY?

It was a good matchup. Johnny Cueto pretty much did what he has done all year. Cueto is so much more efficient than he was in past years and seems to have another gear he can get into later in the game. He was filthy in his last inning which was the 7th.

Wade Miley pitched a pretty good game. He works really fast and throws strikes. I don't know if it is his motion, but there is something about his motion that seems to confuse hitters on where the pitch is going to be located. He got quite few swings and misses for a guy that tops out around 91-92. Really just gave up some singles and lost one run on an error by the D-back shortstop. Chris Welsh was impressed stating he reminded him quite a bit of former Red left-hander Tom Browning.

Verlander-Sale, a game separating their teams at the top; best match-up since Dickey-Sabathia a couple of months ago.

If you were watching the ESPN broadcast, you caught an amazing statistic: other teams are hitting .131 against Verlander after he passes 100 pitches. (Not that small a sample, either, seeing as he's exceeded 100 every start this year.)

Hell of a dugout tantrum from Sale. He looked psychopathic after he gave up that HR to Delmon Young.

Verlander-Sale again

Rained out

Verlander and Sale ended up crushing the Twins and Indians (no runs allowed by either) instead of facing each other ... too bad.

Verlander/Anderson (on ESPN tonight) qualifies, right?

The best starter in the NL is going tonight, if anyone's interested. vs. Josh Johnson, but still.

I had to think for 30 seconds on who Anderson is.

"Mister Anderson"

Darvish-Greinke in a few

Scherzer-Harvey on TV today.

Aargh--looking forward to Scherzer/Harvey/Cabrera all day, I've got the Red Sox-Dodgers instead. I guess the reasoning is that the Jays are actively pursuing the Red Sox for a divisional crown.

scherzer!

through four:

harvey 8 H, 2 K
scherzer 1 H, 8 K

two pretty good rookies about to get going, Fernandez vs. Teheran

Good call--lead story on cnnsi.com this morning.

http://mlb.si.com/2013/08/31/mariners-taijuan-walker-wins-debut/?sct=mlb_t11_a2

Didn't realize it was Scherzer-Sale tonight.

Cliff Lee vs. Kris Medlen right now is a real beauty. Scoreless, 3 hits total, 11 Ks for Lee and Medlen just gave up his first hit in the 6th.

Lee's final line: 8 IP, 3 hits, 13 K, 0 BB, 1 run. May qualify as a tough loss.

Game time 2:07

almost feel bad for clifton, but then not

Game scores: Medlen 83, Lee 85

Hell of a game, nice heart-attack moment from Janish in the 9th.

less sympathy for a guy who can't decide whether to pitch in Philly or Arlington, two shitholes of the universe.

tbf he didn't go to miami/the bronx, but yeah

Kershaw and Fister tomorrow night could be great.

?

doug fister's having kind of a ho hum season right?

his peripherals suck, but 12-5, 2.55 always looks nice

in any case, he's hardly a match for kershaw, who will now probably give up nine straight hits

Posnanski had an interesting column on Fister a week or two ago--basically that the Tigers traded him because of a baseball-wide "deep suspicion and profound lack of confidence in pitchers who cannot throw 90 mph."

http://joeposnanski.com/joeblogs/the-need-the-need-for-speed/

I look at Buehrle's collapse here and I think, "There's good reason for that--eventually, your unimposing stuff catches up with you." But for the moment at least, Fister's year looks pretty good to me (I'll call the ERA and K/BB ratio a trade-off with a hit-per-inning). He's not Kershaw, no.

(Related note on how different things once were. I started watching Mark Fidrych's famous Monday night game in 1976--someone sent me a DVD of the complete game a few years ago, but it wouldn't play on my old DVD, so I let it sit there; it plays on the newer one. Holtzman was starting for the Yankees; it was his third start for them after coming over from the Orioles. They flashed his stats before the game: 5-5, 2.92, 114 IP, 116 H, 36 BB, 29 K. That's 2.2 K/9. Science-fiction.)

fister's strikeout and hr rates are of concern, but he's a solid 'back end' starter, and at the moment probably rather better than a combination of buck farmer and robbie ray

those are two names you made up, right?

http://www3.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/David+Dombrowski+Jim+Leyland+Announces+Retirement+NahGKx-AzFpl.jpg

Farmer and Ray are now out of the picture. Enter Kyle Lobstein.

"Lobstein's the fifth guy right now," Ausmus said. "We'll see how Lobber, how Kyle throws and we'll go from there."

the ol' lobber

btw i saw a guy at a leather street fair in June wearing a FISTER 58 shirt

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BwjU7PmCMAAyWji.jpg

lance lynn and johnny cueto are ~dealing~

lol good jinx *pats self on back*

Sale/Kazmir is a good battle right now.

no shame in gettin shut down by Sale, but damn, poor A's.

They used up all their runs in the second game of the series.

Johnny Cueto has had a heck of a year one of the best pitching seasons in Reds history but it is kind of lost in Kershaw's big shadow.

Per fWAR Cueto's 2012 was better.

I was looking at the Red Sox schedule to gauge if I'm going to see Sale, and it looks good; he's scheduled to go on Tuesday, Aug. 29, and I'm down there on the 28/29/30.

Also noticed how close a Sale/Kluber match-up this Thursday is; it would require a Cleveland rainout or, as a gift to the world, holding back Kluber an extra day.

Greinke-Bumgarner...who still looks marquee to me, abbreviated season and terrible team aside.

Severino-Price? Price is having a pretty good year--probably not marquee-level anymore, though.

Kluber/Seve--never mind.

against all odds, scherzer/hamels is a good battle so far

Kershaw-Bumgarner tonight (almost nostalgic)

Need David Letterman: Noah, Nola; Nola, Noah.

Scherzer-Nola tonight

scherzer with 83 pitches through four innings -- 24 of them fouled off

lol Neshek

lester and nola dueling rn

deGrom-Sale scheduled for Sunday at Fenway. (tho i guess Sale will go 2 innings)

3-4 innings, Sox say

Besides the Sale-deGrom partial match-up, there's Verlander/Greinke.

Kershaw-Freeland.

Scherzer-deGrom; definite Cy Young implications.

Freeland? I should stick with actual marquee match-ups.

Well played, Hyun-jin Ryu.

Scherzer-Verlander! I rarely root against either of them, but I want the Astros to win 1-0 tonight. (The game is free on mlb.com.)

I want anyone but the Astros to win.

I have to admit, I have been very impressed with Altuve lately.

Realistically, I think any Jays fan assumes Texas will be easier to stay ahead of.

How's this for complicated wording?

Justin Verlander & Max Scherzer will be the 1st former Cy Young winners to be teammates earlier in a season and THEN face each other later in that season, with both pitching for different teams than where they were teammates

h/t @EliasSports pic.twitter.com/M86VZcw9tm

— Sarah Langs (@SlangsOnSports) September 6, 2023

I'm not sure the last bit is even necessary--I would think "1st former Cy Young winners to be teammates earlier in a season and THEN face each other later in that season" would be enough.

So much for that--Scherzer's getting hammered.

from reddit:

This was the 19th straight Rangers game without a starting pitcher W. The last time their starter recorded a win was August 15.

Cole vs Burnes yesterday did not disappoint.

Verlander-Castillo, and two nose-diving teams trying to hang on.