Rog -- I believe you even criticized Madison Bumgarner's consistency, even though since his 8th start of the season his ERA has been between 2.80 and 3.27. It stands at 3.15 entering tonight's start.
Dood - 4 runs in 3 innings...putrid
Rog -- Except as a hitter, Mad Bum's outing last night truly was bad. It raised his ERA to 3.32, his highest since the season's third game. That's four straight bad outings, which is damaging his consistency. That consistency is still good over the season, but it is declining.
That said, when you criticized Madison for his lack of consistency, he had suffered through only two of the four bad outings, and had a 3.07 ERA. At that point, he had 18 quality starts in 27 games, which placed him among the league leaders.
Even more impressively, in only ONE of those 18 quality starts had he yielded more than two earned runs. Thus, 17 of his 27 games could be considered HIGH quality starts.
Last year's Cy Young winner, Clayton Kershaw, at that time also had 17 high quality starts. Roy Halladay, the 2010 Cy Young winner, had 10, although he had missed a month and a half of the season due to injury. The previous two years' Cy Young winner had 6 high quality starts.
I would think the top two contenders for this year's NL Cy would be R.A. Dickey and Johnny Cueto. Dickey had 18 high quality starts, and Cueto also had 18.
You also criticized Matt Cain, who had 16 quality starts, and Ryan Vogelsong, who had 15.
You can say, "Look at how they have done since then," and with both Mad Bum and Ryan, you would have a very good point. But your comment wasn't forward-looking. It merely spoke to their inconsistency AT THAT POINT.
And at that point, the Giants' top three starters HAD been quite consistent. In fact, they were among the league leaders in various measures of consistency. Still are, for that matter.
So let's get down to the most important part from here on. How will those guys fare the rest of the season, and perhaps even more importantly, how will they do in the postseason?
And frankly, there is no real way to know. At the end of August, 2010, Tim Lincecum didn't look at ALL like the guy who would go on to be the best pitcher the rest of the season and postseason combined.
Vogelsong is the most worrisome. Prior to his last six starts, he had EASILY been the most consistent NL pitcher and in fact led the league in ERA. Three of those last six outings have been real stinkers, and none has been very good.
With four bad outings in a row, Mad Bum is still a concern. Still, he had a rough patch that lasted all the way from May 11th through July 4th, and bounced back iwth eight straight quality starts prior to this funk.
Matt Cain seems to have already pitched himself out of his slight slump in his nine outings immediately following his perfect game. He has now been very good in five of his last six.
After a below-the-charts first half, Tim Lincecum now has the best 2nd-half ERA among the Giants starters.
Even Barry Zito, the Giants' worst starter, had an excellent outing under pressure Sunday against the Dodgers.
The Giants' top three starters still rank #6, #12 and #13 in NL ERA. Their fourth, Tim Lincecum, has the best 2nd-half ERA of the bunch. The rotation still isn't concern-free by any means. But money aside, there are still few teams that wouldn't trade their own rotation for that of the Giants.
Put another way, if Lincecum keeps up his second half, and the top three continue to pitch at the level they had pitched when you questioned their consistency, the Giants could well have THE best starting pitching in the postseason.
Why are you such a worry wart these days, Randy. That's Boly's job.
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