Longtime manager Dusty Baker said it best: “That generally is what wins a series — pitching and defense.” In the Year of the Pitcher, the 2010 baseball season has shown that phenomenal pitching almost always leads to a win.
Injured starting pitchers derail a team’s season. The staff ace can end a slide, and a few All-Star hurlers can create a winning streak. Supposedly, good pitching wins championships — which is exactly why the Yankees are pining after Cliff Lee, the closest thing to a guaranteed winner there is in this free-agent pool.
Pitching, largely, is the reason that the AL East boasts three of the top four teams in the American League.
The Red Sox have battled pitching injuries all season, but when healthy, their hurlers produce. All-Stars Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz drive Boston’s rotation, each owning 10 wins and sub-3.00 ERAs. Lester’s strikeouts (118) nearly triple his walks (42), which is almost unheard of. John Lackey has been a solid No. 3 pitcher, turning in a 9-4 record but only a decent 4.40 ERA.
But then the injuries begin to take their toll on the Red Sox. Daisuke Matsuzaka has been nagged by neck and forearm tightness, impacting his accuracy and creating a disappointing 5-3 record and 4.71 ERA. Tim Wakefield, filling in for the injured Josh Beckett for much of the season, is 3-7 with a 5.22 ERA and a team-high 15 homers allowed. When Beckett returns, it should immediately bolster Boston’s beleaguered staff.
The Yankees, meanwhile, have blended expensive free-agent acquisitions with homegrown talent to produce the AL’s second-best pitching staff. CC Sabathia (11-3, 2.70 ERA, 87 strikeouts to 35 walks) has pitched like the workhorse the staff hoped he would become, lasting 7 2/3 innings or more in each of his last three starts. The young Phil Hughes has transitioned from the bullpen to the starting rotation with flying colors, going 10-2 with a 3.83 ERA, matching Lester by nearly tripling his strikeouts (86) against walks (29). Andy Pettitte hasn’t been half-bad, either, set to replace an injured Buchholz in the All-Star Game after an 11-2, 2.70 ERA first half. A.J. Burnett and Javier Vazquez have struggled, relatively speaking, to round out the starting five, both sitting at 7-7 with an ERA above 4.75.
The Rays got by on stellar pitching in 2008 to make the World Series, and they’re doing it again in 2010. David Price is the AL’s only 12-game winner, looking down on the rest of the league with a 12-4 record and 2.42 ERA. Jeff Niemann isn’t far behind in terms of ERA (2.65), but owns more no-decisions than he should at a 7-2 record. James Shields, Matt Garza and Wade Davis all own ERAs above 4.00, and Shields and Davis have both given up at least 17 home runs and hold losing records. Even so, Garza has shown he still occasionally has his mystifying stuff from two years ago, and Shields has struck out 100 batters. The Rays own the best ERA in the AL, and it’s not all because of their bullpen.
