I wanna believe you, but they won a world series with Weaver and Reyes. and a legitimate ace and a red hot jeff suppan. they don't have one pitcher this year that matches Carpenter or second-half Suppan from last year.
still, his HR/FB rate is way down this year compared to the last 3 years. he's probably going to allow a few more home runs in the coming weeks. the question will be whether he can limit the damage by continuing to not allow many baserunners. Can he maintain his stellar K/BB ratio, or is he doomed to regress to his career norm? If he can maintain that, I'm not worried about him giving up a few homers.. he should be able to. that's something that's really difficult to determine whether it's a "fluke" or not. it seems to me that he turned a corner with his control.
still, his HR/FB rate is way down this year compared to the last 3 years. he's probably going to allow a few more home runs in the coming weeks. the question will be whether he can limit the damage by continuing to not allow many baserunners.
Well thanks for that addition - I'd think that would seem to change everything and suggest there may be no move? No? Not thru 3 innings. You don't pull guys after 3 innings, no matter what the score. 6 runs with 6 innings left is plenty of time. especially considering that they had a run in that inning already. that's awfully early to give up, especially considering the offense iowa has right now.
Ha, didn't Prior leave that game in the 5th with a no hitter but had an insane amount of pitches and quite of few walks. yep, 103 pitches, 5 BB, 3 K, 0 H.
One of the things I've noticed is that he seems to be laying off pitches he use to swing at. I think he actually walked twice the other day (1st game in Stl.). The other thing is his BABIP is currently at .286 for the season but I don't know what it is for July. It is probably much higher, whether it is sustainable is anybody's guess. 381 in july