Matt Morris suffered his 6th loss of the season, allowing the Cubs 8 runs, 5 earned in 4.2 IP on 12 hits, and a walk without a strikeout. He falls to 7-6 on the year and his ERA chins over 4.00 to 4.08. Matt’s trends of lowering K rates, and rising BB rates are in their third season. Matt’s 4.5/9 K rate is a career low and his 2.8/9 BB rate is his highest since 2000. His indicators seem to look a lot like what we have seen the last couple of years and the variance in his numbers has come from his strand percentage and HR rates. He is not a real mystery to hitters these days and Matt’s WHIP tells you where his ERA is headed. Multiply his WHIP by three and you arrive north of 4.20 and that seems to me like a pretty good prediction. You have seen the best that Matt has to offer this year. He is a good sell high if your league is in its deadline stretch.
Ted Lilly won his 10th game of the season, working just 5 innings against the Giants allowing 3 runs on 6 hits and a walk with one strikeout. He improves to 10-4 with a 3.58 ERA. You gotta figure based on history alone that his ERA is going to set a course for 4.00 in the second half. True he is out of the AL East and pitching in the NL this year and he has limited his walk rate to 2.0/9 as opposed to 3.4 career. But opponents are hitting just .227 off of him, 26 points lower than his career OBA and he’s benefiting from a .270 BHIP%. He had a .301 BHIP% in 05 and a .300 BHIP% in 06 as well as a .291 BHIP% career. That smells like market correction to me. Overall you are going to end up with what you bargained for with Ted and you will probably even finish the year with better numbers than you paid for, but don’t expect a repeat of the first half.
Yovani Gallardo tossed 6 shutout innings at the D-backs on Thursday allowing just 3 hits and two walks while striking out 4. He collected his second win of the year, improving to 2-1 with a nifty 2.34 ERA. In his four starts for the Brewers this year Gallardo has given up 6 runs in 25.1 IP (2.13). Overall he’s fanning 8.0/9 while allowing 2.8 BB/9. Opponents are managing just a .197 average off of him due in large part to a .256 BHIP%. He is also standing runners at 74.4% clip. Yovani’s GB/FB ratio is level at 1.0 and he has given up just 1 HR in 34.2 IP (0.2/9). All of his peripherals are very solid and only his very favorable .256 BHIP% jumps out at you. Gallardo seems to be all that was promised. He will not finish the year with a 2.34 ERA but it looks like he is ready to make a very significant contribution.
Sergio Mitre scattered 9 hits over 6 IP against the Reds on Thursday, allowing 3 runs, 2 earned with a walk and 4 K. He did not figure into the decision but he hiked his ERA a couple points to 2.82. This is his 5th QS in his last 6 outings and he is doing all the things a less-than-dominant starter has to do to be this successful. Sergio is fanning 5.4/9 which is fine … mediocre … but fine. He only walks 1.7/9 though and he is sporting an outstanding 2.8 GB ratio. He has also cut his HR rate this year to 0.4/9. Last year his HR rate was 1.5/9 and it was 1.6/9 in 2005. That was in many ways the last piece to the puzzle. While giving up HRs on 24.4% of his FBs in 2005 and 19.4% of his FB in 2006, Mitre has it down to 7.0% of his FB allowed this year. Here’s the rub though. His BHIP% is a very average .311 and because he is allowing balls to be hit in play opponents are hitting .271 off of him. That leaves a 1.25 WHIP despite the low walk rate. About 30% of all runners score normally so that WHIP should produce about a 3.75 ERA. Sergio’s strand % is a little favorable at 72% this year as opposed to 69.3 career so a good chunk of that difference is there. And pitchers like Sergio survive on slim margins. If a GB is too slow to turn a double play one night or squeaks through for a hit this time that could add runs to his bottom line. The message here is that Sergio is pitching well. He is unlikely to maintain this pace all year, and he is not as comforting as a guy who fans 8 every night, but he is a viable starter who is paying big dividends compared to what you probably paid for him.
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