posted on Tuesday, May 13, 2008 2:37 AM
by
Jim
Mark Buehrle needs help
If you ignore the big three stats -- wins, losses and ERA -- Mark Buehrle is not having a bad year. Consider:
No. 1: He's striking more guys out than ever before. He's averaging 6.19 strikeouts per nine innings, and he hasn't come close to 6.00 in his last three seasons.
No. 2: He's getting a ton of ground balls. 52.5 percent of batted balls have been hit on the ground off Buehrle; his previous high was 49.4.
No. 3: Line drive and home run rates are right around his career averages. He's actually giving up homers at a slightly lower rate, because he's not giving up nearly as many flies.
No. 4: His fastball is still rebounding. He's averaging over 86 m.p.h. on his heater for the first time in a couple years.
Really, the only thing out of whack is his walk rate, but not ridiculously so. As a result,
his fielding-indepedent ERA is 3.89 (or 3.91, if you're looking at
The Hardball Times), which is below his career average, which FanGraphs pegs at an even 4.00.
Of course, baseball isn't fielding-indepedent, as Buehrle discovered once against in
Monday night's 10-7 loss to the Mariners. He gave up eight earned runs, was only charged with six, and should've only been charged with three if the scorers were honest.
Thankfully, there's a number for this, too. Entering the game, the Sox defense behind Buehrle had converted only 65.2 percent of balls in play into outs. That number will drop after Monday, as Buehrle allowed 21 balls in play, and only 11 were turned into outs. That's going to hurt any pitcher, and Buehrle more so considering
his defense has converted outs at an average rate or better nearly his entire time in the league.
Buehrle gets rightfully criticized for not being able to pitch around errors, but he actually pitched around two tonight. Juan Uribe botched a double play ball in the first, and Buehrle stranded the runner in scoring position. In the fifth, Buehrle pitched around a leadoff error by Orlando Cabrera by getting another double play ball -- but Uribe couldn't start it again. By that point, the Sox should expect to get punished.
And they did. When you throw those errors on top of the weakly hit balls, like Erick Aybar's RBI double off the end of his bat and Gary Matthews Jr.'s soft liner through the left side (one Juan Uribe may have caught, since he's better at going to his right), it's hard to reconcile the harsh realities of the 1-5 record and the 5.81 ERA.
The next time you hear about how a fast-working pitcher keeps his defense in the game, you can point to this post. And whimper. He'd probably be better off giving up more flies at this point, if they weren't such a danger to leave the yard.
The Cheat has more on Buehrle's "luck" issues ... and neither of the gamers in the
Trib and
Sun-Times even mention the defense.
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You what else is difficult to reconcile? Mark Gonzalez's piece about Orlando Cabrera after Cabrera's stinker of a game today: One costly non-error, another ball not gotten to, and seven left on base.
"I think these guys last year, they didn't handle it well because [look
at] all of the talent they have here," he said. "It was just a matter
of putting it all together and knowing how to win ballgames without
having to score a lot of runs.
"I don't think I'm the only one [who could help], but you can ask me
that same question in a couple more months and we'll see where we are."
The Sox needed to score 11 to win tonight.
The good news is that "he views himself as a hired gun." The bad news is that if he continues to play this poorly, he's in danger of accepting the Sox's arbitration offer, which would nullify the one real bonus of having Cabrera around -- that his leaving would mean the Sox would gain two draft picks.
Since the Sox offense gave up producing runs consistently on Tax Day:
- Cabrera: .218/.248/.238
- Uribe: .231/.306/.385
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that's not going to cut it.
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Minor league roundup:- Toledo 6, Charlotte 5
- Brad Eldred and Royce Huffman hit solo homers off Dontrelle Willis.
- Chris Getz and Thomas Collaro each had run-scoring doubles.
- Tomo Ohka met the bare minimum for a quality start.
- Jerry Owens went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts, and is now hitting .236/.317/.309.
- Birmingham 7, West Tenn 2
- Dave Cook had a perfect day at the plate -- 3-for-3 with a triple, homer, walk and two RBI.
- Victor Mercedes had three hits, and Noah Hall and Javier Castillo had two.
- Justin Cassell got back on the winning track, with two runs on three hits over six innings.
- Shaun Babula (2 IP) and John Lujan (1 IP) combined for three scoreless innings.
- Winston-Salem 4, Lynchburg 2
- Aaron Poreda threw six scoreless innings, allowing three hits and two walks while striking out five.
- John Shelby went 2-for-4 with a double and an RBI.
- Brandon Allen had two hits, and Lee Cruz drove in two.
- Kannapolis 17, Delmarva 3
- Ronnie Gaines led the way with five RBI on a 3-for-4 day. He fell a triple short of the cycle.
- Jim Gallagher hit his second homer of the year, a three-run shot.
- Jose Martinez went 3-for-4 with a walk and four runs scored; Logan Johnson had three hits and three runs scored.
- Sergio Morales hit a pair of doubles, drew two walks and scored three runs.
- Levi Maxwell worked six innings of one-run ball, allowing three hits, three walks and striking out four.