I'll cop out to the change,
but a stranger
is putting the tease on.
If I had told you, before the season started, that by the time September rolled around, the Blue Jays pitcher with the most Quality Starts and the most Innings Pitched would be Josh Towers - you would probably have sent for the men in the white coats.
And if you contemplated what that statement implied about the type of season it had been in Toronto - I imagine there would have been widespread Gloom and Gnashing of Teeth.
You would have been afraid. Very, very afraid.
But here we are. Roy Halladay will not win the Cy Young, of course. At the moment the new favourites seem to be Mariano Rivera and Mark Buehrle. Although I myself predict that Johan Santana will go something like 6-0 with an ERA of about 1.25 down the stretch and snap it up again.
Halladay will stop leading the league in ERA on September 11, when the Blue Jays play their 142nd game. Right now, Buehrle is second at 2.99 - Santana is tied for third with Kenny Rogers at 3.15. I think Johan will move through the pack and lead the league here as well.
Random notes... Jeff Francouer drew a walk for the second straight game yesterday, after drawing no bases on balls since his July 7 callup (his one walk prior to this weekend was unintentional)... it's been done before, but it still must be unusual for a player's first major league walk to be an IBB... Mike Maroth's place in the record books as the last 20 game loser is in serious jeopardy, as Zack Greinke is now 3-16... Jason Giambi's big day (2 HR, 7 RBI) included the 1500th hit and the 1000th RBI of his career... Oakland has suddenly righted the ship (Baltimore can do that for you), and have won five straight to slip past the Angels into first place... Yankees lead the AL Wild Card by .5 over the Angels, 1 game over Cleveland... the Bombers have also cut Boston's division lead to 1.5 games....Philadelphia trails the Braves by 4 in the closest NL division,and have a 1.5 game cushion on Houston for the Wild Card.
The Game of the Day comes to you from south Florida, and features two of the hottest pitchers in baseball.
The Monday schedule:
AL
OAK: Saarloos (9-6, 3.92 ERA) at
BAL: Bedard (6-5, 3.20 ERA)
TAM: McClung (5-7, 6.40 ERA)at
BOS: Clement (11-3, 4.35 ERA)
DET: Bonderman (14-10, 4.27 ERA) at
CLE: Elarton (7-7, 4.74 ERA)
CHW: Buehrle (14-6, 2.99 ERA) at
TEX: Dominguez (1-3, 4.40 ERA)
MIN: Baker (1-1, 2.77 ERA) at
KAN: Carrasco (5-7, 4.88 ERA)
NYY: Mussina (12-8, 4.21 ERA) at
SEA: Franklin (6-14, 5.29 ERA)
NL
CIN: Ortiz (8-9, 5.33 ERA) at
PIT: Wells (7-13, 4.66 ERA)
STL: Carpenter (18-4, 2.34 ERA) at
FLA: Burnett (12-7, 2.90 ERA)
WAS: Patterson (8-4, 2.43 ERA) at
ATL: Sosa (9-2, 2.56 ERA)
LAD: Houlton (4-7, 4.86 ERA) at
CHC: Williams (4-6, 4.74 ERA)
ARI: Ortiz (4-8, 6.95 ERA) at
SDG: Williams (6-10, 5.14 ERA)
COL: Kim (3-10, 5.12 ERA) at
SFO: Cain (0-0, 0.00 ERA)
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20050828004700427