posted on Monday, September 17, 2007 12:47 AM
by
Jim
Nine lives
Jon Garland has allowed two earned runs over his last 15 innings, and he has two losses to show for it.
Sound familiar? Well, I wrote
a similar thing about Mark Buehrle roughly 10 days ago. Like Buehrle, who failed in his bid for his 10th win today, Garland is also stuck at nine wins, and they'll each only have a couple more starts to try to crack double digits.
Garland's a less tragic case -- his ERA is nearly a full run higher than Buehrle's, and he sports an edge in run support (4.56 to 4.20 runs per start) -- but considering
he won 12 games three straight seasons with worse performances, it'd be nice if the Sox could give him some help to extend his streak of seasons with 10 or more wins. Garland has done it in five straight seasons, while Buehrle has done it in six.
The real kick in the nuts is that Jose Contreras -- the man who was on pace to lose 20 games until a few weeks ago -- could beat them to that mark. I suppose that's as good of evidence as any when talking about how much win total represents the quality of the pitcher.
At any rate, regular posting will resume starting Monday night. I spent most of the weekend outside or out of town, which explains why I've written fewer words over the last three days than at any other point in this site's brief history. At least during the regular season. Sorry about that.