6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog: Ishii Bad? I'll Say! Angels 12, Mets 2

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Friday, June 10, 2005

Ishii Bad? I'll Say! Angels 12, Mets 2

Object lesson in evaluating pitching statistics: Ishii struck out nine, and walked two in 5.2 IP during tonight's game, yet he lost and fairly so. The bad numbers -- two home runs and five earned runs -- did him in, and in a hurry in the sixth. Normally, Ishii's line would translate to a 14.30 K/9 and a 4.5 K/BB, which would be good enough to make the front page of ESPN.com. Remember this game -- or former Angel Ramon Ortiz, who used to have great K/9 and K/BB rates but horrible WHIPs -- whenever you need a counterexample.

Vlad came back? I remember it; 3-5, a fine, fine night, though none for extra bases and nary an RBI, either, despite the hittage and on-baseage. Instead, Erstad, Finley, and most unlikely of all, Cabrera supplied the firepower. Anderson got on base four friggin' times. I still hate his contract, but man, at moments like this I don't really care.

You know it's going to be a good day when Colon gets his eleventh career hit -- with an RBI.

Colon was scary and good, giving up seven hits but no walks (70 of 88 pitches were strikes!), but it's easy to see how he could have fallen apart. Yet, he didn't, and so his ERA declines to 3.09, the best it's been since he's become an Angel. (Update: Josh sets me straight in the comments -- he's actually trending upwards with this mark, as his ESPN game log indicates.) And as for the pen:

I don't mind
Other teams batting 'gainst our pen
That's right
Peralta's set 'em down again
But I know sometimes I
Will watch balls as they fly
Better leave Yan behind 'cause
The kid is alright
The kid is alright

The Halos face Kris Benson tomorrow, and Sunday, Pedro Martinez. I'm laughing today, but far from certain what I'll be doing after the weekend.

Recap

I wanted to finally say something about the blogs Sean noted outside the normal sweep. They both deserves mention, so Haloblog (the Halosphere's answer to Dodger Blues, albeit not nearly as frequently updated), and das deutsche Engelsblog Bjoern's Baseball Blog. (How does one pick, of all the crazy teams, the Angels and Red Sox as teams to root for? And from Germany? God, I'm confused.)

Update: on some reflection: Haloblog isn't so much Dodger Blues as Idiots Write About Sports except for the appalling lack of permalinks. And only covering one team.

// posted by Rob @ 9:58 PM link // 1 comments