Zack Greinke Dazzles Once More
In a season of grand performances, Zack Greinke added one more to the portfolio with his outing last night. The line: 8 innings pitched, 5 hits allowed, 1 home run, 1 walk, and 15 strikeouts; with 11 swinging strikes coming on 117 pitches for a modest 9.4% whiffs.
It may not even be Grienke’s best performance of the season, as ridiculous as that sounds. if you use Bill James’ Game Score as a reasonable summarizing metric, then the start registers as a 78, good for the fifth best start on the year. Yes, fifth best. How many pitchers are capable of striking out 15 and walking one, and then having that be their fifth best start of their career, don’t even think about seasonal ranks.
I don’t want to say Greinke’s flown under the radar for the past month, but, our last post on him was in early July and not much since. He still possesses a 2.45 FIP, a 2.93 tRA, and only a 11-8 record. Entering last night the Royals were averaging 3.66 runs of support per Greinke start and had lost eight of the last nine games started by Greinke, including defeats by the scores of 4-2, 1-0, 2-0, 4-2, and 3-1.
Run support is like oxygen for starting pitchers; you don’t realize you need some until you have none. In this case, Greinke was gasping while taking hacks that would make Miguel Olivo blush in order to get a few runs on the board. The Royals obliged last night and planted him four by the fourth.
Justin Verlander, Jon Lester, Roy Halladay, and Felix Hernandez are having fine seasons, but Greinke is still the class of the American League when separated from his putrid supporting cast. Enjoy his last few starts folks, this is one special season.
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I counted 13 swinging strikes and one caught foul tip…
But Joe Morgan told me on Sunday Night Baseball that Greinke has had a nice season but shouldn’t win the Cy Young award because he doesn’t have enough wins. He told me that CC has to win!
What a joke…
Oh Joe Morgan.
Even thinks Teixeira is a better MVP candidate than Jeter. I truly love that one.
Greinke is mvp.
I disagree, but he’d be a way better selection than Teixeira and his pop fly HR’s into the little league RF bleachers of Yankee Stadium
@JoeR
Agreed. According to hit tracker, Tex has 3 really cheap shots to RF. I’m not familiar with the layout so I don’t know where a “true” RF bleacher would be, but it looks like there are a few more homers to right that are “new yankee” assisted.
Overall, 5 of his 31 HR have been judged as “just enough” by hit tracker, which isn’t too bad in and of itself.
Still, even if we say, 4 of his HR’s are “lucky” and the rest would be a HR regularly, what’s his season total, 35 HR?
Really want to hang our MVP hats on a 1B with 35 HR? Bill effin Hall once hit 35.
I know Teixeira’s a better hitter than Hall was in that fluke year, but still, if he wins, it’s because the MVP voters are either too lazy to see how a player actually performed, or too moronic to understand that this is a regular Teixeira year and he isn’t “elevating” his teammates any more than he has before. If anyone deserves “elevation” points, it’s Bobby Abreu for teaching Mike Scoscia and Co. that’s it’s okay to take a walk.
ummm….ur all idiots!!!! hb the fact tht no pitcher will win an mvp in years b.c thy only play evry 5th game and not eve nthe entire gmae?!? and the fact u thnk tex has more of a shot thn jeter…. i luv jeter i thnk hes gr8. but tex duz hav a better shot. altho no1 from the yanks should win it but of course thyl get it cuz thyr the yankees.
Hey! I have 12 wins now…
Joe Morgan thinks it should be CC and Harold Reynolds says Mariano.
That sound you just heard is my head exploding.
Oh, how I miss the boys at firejoemorgan.com.
and unfortunately, 99.5% of baseball fans still think this way.
Believe me, I’ve attempted posting on Yahoo answers before, most of them still think W-L record and BA are useful stats. And that baseball games are won with “Heart”.
“Professional analysts.”
updated definition of analyst: a person who takes a stance on an issue, and then develops an argument for it.
Example:
nerd: Mauer should be MVP
journalist: No, Teixeira should.
nerd: But Mauer leads in…
journalist: YEAH WELL MAUER DOESN’T CARRY HIS TEAM AND PLAYS SELFISHLY JUST TO COMPILE.
nerd: /leaves
BUT TEXIERA DRIVES IN MORE RUNS BECAUSE HE’S A CLUTCH CLUBHOUSE GUY!!.
No but seriously my older brother tried to explain to me why Dayton Moore still had a job and when I lambasted him he called me a nerd and said I was born to prefer sabermetrics. I may never have been happier.
well done Jarrett, well done