Starting Pitching Heads Success

Fresh off a successful 7-3 homestand, we have a day to recuperate and reflect on our recent accomplishment. A few things come to mind. First, we don't have Ryan Howard in the line-up, who's about ready to return from the DL shortly.

Second, is that our regular performers, really haven't been our regular performers. According to We Should Be GMs,

"...the Phils lineup has been slumping lately, with Rowand (5-24), Victorino (5-24), Rollins (5-32), Utley (1-11), Burrell (4-19), Helms (2-14), and Ruiz (4-22). collectively that's 26-146 for a pitiful .178 batting average..."

It is pretty pitiful. These numbers were posted before Sunday's game.

So what then is the reason for our recent success? For starters, it's the starters.

Remember all the complaints from the beginning of the year about how our starters were good on paper, and how they weren't performing... well, I think this kind of talk will be muffled for a little while. Our starters are keeping us in ball games.

Despite the fact that we've been see-sawing back and forth the last few games, W-L-W-L-W, we have still put up an impressive 8-3 record in our last 11 games. (I'm including 11 games in our recent up-surge, instead of the 10 games of the homestand).

The biggest reason for this 8-3 record is our starters. Here are the numbers.

We have definitely been getting Quality starts (QS). According to baseball statisticians, a quality start is awarded to a starting pitcher who completes at least six innings and permits no more than three earned runs. Incidentally, the QS statistic was invented in 1985 by John Lowe, who was a sports writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Of the 11 games, we had 8 quality starts. (Garcia was very close to another with 5.2 inn, and 2 ER).

A few other things have skewed these statistics... for example, Lieber's 8 innings with 1 ER ended in a loss. Bad luck. And Eaton's 7.2 innings with 1 ER on the next night, was nullified by a blown save which the Phils eventually won, taking another win from the starters. So that 5-3 record, could very easily by 7-3.

Here the breakdown of wins for each starter in this stretch. (Phillies' record is in parentheses), and then there ERA's over these games.

Moyer 1-1 (2-1) 8.10 ERA
Hamels 2-0 (2-0) 2.40 ERA
Garcia 0-1 (1-1) 3.85 ERA
Lieber 1-1 (1-1) 2.40 ERA
Eaton 1-0 (2-0) 0.66 ERA
____________

Starters 5-3 (8-3) 2.63 ERA

PS - It appears as if Jaime Moyer is about to go into a slump. His last two starts, he's accumulated 9.2 innings and given up 12 ER.