Can't do last night's Royals justice here. The Royals' win expectancy as charted by FanGraphs gave the Royals less than a 5 percent chance of winning into the fifth inning.
My only thought, before we get on with it here: can you imagine what this town would be like if the Royals were contending and won a game like that?
Anyway, today is Greinke Day, and this blog's stance on Greinke is fairly clear. He is the best pitcher in baseball, the 2009 AL Cy Young winner if the voters get it right.
This issue is not above debate, of course, and we here at Ball Star always like debate. Previous arguments we've heard against Greinke are that his candidacy is built too heavily on his fast start*, and that he doesn't have enough wins**.
* Zack's ERA before the break was 2.12, best in the league. His ERA after the break is 2.17, best in the league.
** Every day, more and more people understand that wins for a pitcher are perhaps the most misleading stat out there. Joe Saunders has a 4.75 ERA -- worse than league average -- but he's 13-7 because he gets 9.62 runs of support -- second in the AL among pitchers with 120 or more innings.
Greinke is getting 4.71 runs of support, which is not only last among 48 pitchers with 120 innings, but 1/3 of a run less than Cliff Lee, who ranks 47th, and more than 3/4 of a run less than Dallas Braden, who ranks 46th.
The run support of the other pitchers talked about as Cy Young contenders: Halladay (5.99), Felix Hernandez (5.62), Justin Verlander (6.09), CC Sabathia (7.97). Not even close.
In the coming weeks, we will write more about Zack's 2.14 ERA being 1/3 of a run better than anybody else's in the league, and the lowest in the American League since Pedro Martinez in 2000.
We will write more and more about how Greinke is not just the best pitcher in the American League this year, but the best pitcher the league has seen in quite some time, since Predro was at the height of his powers.
His Cy Young argument is an easy case to make, a difficult one to poke holes in, but there's one strange argument that's come up recently against Zack that says because he hasn't faced the Red Sox or Yankees* we don't really know how good he is.
* It's been pointed out before, here and in other places, that Zack also doesn't get to pitch against the Royals. The other Cy candidates have taken advantage:
CC Sabathia and Roy Halladay are each 1-0 with a 0.00 ERA against the Royals. Felix Hernandez is 1-0 with a 3.86 ERA, and Justin Verlander is 2-1 with a 1.89 ERA and 27 strikeouts in 19 innings.
He pitches against the Red Sox tonight, so we'll have that soon enough, but this is such a silly argument I wanted to get it out there. This argument drives me crazy for a number of reasons, mostly having to do with the Sox-Yanks bubble that so many seem to live in, where if it happens outside New England, it must be treated with suspicion.
This is also important to dispel the notion that Zack is some sort of mental midget who can't handle pressure. It feels like this thought lingers because of the mental/social issues he's overcome, even as every bit of evidence screams against it. At its best, that thought is just factually wrong. At its worst, it's insulting.
Greinke pitched his best early this season, when the Royals were in first place, he was dominant in the All-Star game, and then there are the following numbers that really blew me away.
We can do this any number of ways, even beyond pointing out that Greinke faced the Yankees three times last year, giving up four earned runs in 19 2/3 innings, a 1.83 ERA.
The sentiment behind the argument seems to be that Zack hasn't faced the best competition, here are a few different ways of measuring Zack against the best competition he's faced:
Against teams that are above .500, he has 21 walks and 96 strikeouts in 89 innings with a 1.31 ERA. That, you might notice, is pretty good.
Against teams in the top five in the AL in scoring, he has eight walks and 44 strikeouts in 61 1/3 innings with a 2.35 ERA. That, you might notice, would lead the AL.
Guys who made this year's All-Star team* are 23-for-119 (.193) with 47 strikeouts against Zack. Also pretty good.
* I did my best to include everyone, but I probably missed a guy or two. You get the idea, though.
Sabathia is a fine pitcher and all, but as long as we're talking about who everybody's faced, he's 4-1 against the Orioles, and thrown more innings against them than any other team.
This is the crap we keep doing that drives me crazy. Don't bring in crap to replace crap. I'm quoting a book, but the key to organizational success is getting the right people on the bus. I don't know much about Bradley, but I would say he is absolutely not the right person to put on the bus.
In fact, I'd be more tempted to simply dump Guillen and write it off as a mistake--ship him out. Especially, if they decide to keep Jacobs (which I also think is a mistake), then you've already got your poor hitting DH lined up because Guillen should not play the field again. Lousy OBP DH--mark that box checked.
THel