So, that was the first half. Plus a little bit more.
An interesting weekend at the local ball yard. The Celeveland Indians brought the second highest scoring lineup in the majors to town. On Friday, they cuffed Roy Halladay around for 9 hits and 5 runs in 5.1 IPT, although it wasn't quite enough to actually win the game. Then on Saturday they absolutely pummelled Shaun Marcum, who has only been one of the best pitchers in the American League over the last two months.
So naturally, yesterday they submitted meekly to the Mastery that is Josh Towers.
It was a Getaway Day of course, which was much on my mind - the strike zone has been known to expand in these situations, and hitters have been known to come up to the plate swinging as soon as they hit the on-deck circle. There may have been a little of that going on - each pitcher was able to record four outs on the first pitch of the at bat (and Hafner had a base hit on the first pitch he saw in the seventh.)
But while I was indeed looking for those Getaway Day signs, I didn't really see a lot of them. For the most part, both pitchers were simply getting ahead of the hitters. Towers threw first pitch strikes to 22 of the 27 hitters he faced - but 12 of those 22 first pitch strikes were called strikes. Byrd threw first pitch strikes to 20 of 29 hitters, and 13 of the 20 were called strikes.
Towers' primary virtue as a pitcher has always been his ability to throw
strikes, of course. Meanwhile Paul Byrd this year has been the
stingiest pitcher in baseball in issuing the base on balls. So it's not too surprising that neither starter walked a hitter. Neither really came all that close. Towers went to Ball 3 just twice in his eight innings - he struck out Sizemore on a full count pitch to end the sixth, and Shoppach grounded out on a full count pitch to end the eighth. Byrd went to Ball 3 just once, falling behind Thomas 3-1 in the seventh before getting him to ground out on a full count pitch.
Anyway, I was looking through the Cleveland Game Notes, where it was brought to my attention that C.C. Sabathia, now 12-3, is trying to become Cleveland's first 20 game winner since Gaylord Perry in 1974.
And I thought, 1974? Man, that's a long time. Has any other team played that many seasons without someone winning 20 games?
Maybe not. I can tell you for sure that it's the longest current streak. Here's the last 20 game winner for everybody - everybody that's actually had one, anyway:
2005 Florida (Dontrelle Willis 22)
2005 St.Louis (Chris Carpenter 21)
2005 Houston (Roy Oswalt 20)
2005 LA Angels (Bartolo Colon 21)
2004 Boston (Curt Schilling 21)
2004 Minnesota (Johan Santana 20)
2003 Atlanta (Russ Ortiz 21)
2003 NY Yankees (Andy Pettitte 21)
2003 Toronto (Roy Halladay 22)
2003 Chicago WS (Esteban Loaiza 21)
2003 Seattle (Jamie Moyer 21)
2002 Oakland (Barry Zito 23)
2001 Arizona (Randy Johnson 24, Curt Schilling 23)
2001 Chicago Cubs (Jon Lieber 20)
1998 Texas (Rick Helling 20)
1993 San Francisco (John Burkett 22, Bill Swift 21)
1991 Pittsburgh (John Smiley 20)
1991 Detroit (Bill Gullickson 20)
1990 NY Mets (Frank Viola 20)
1990 Los Angeles (Ramon Martinez 20)
1989 Kansas City (Bret Saberhagen 23)
1988 Cincinnati (Danny Jackson 23)
1986 Milwaukee (Teddy Higuera 20)
1984 Baltimore (Mike Boddicker 20)
1982 Philadelphia (Steve Carlton 23)
1978 Montreal/Washington (Ross Grimsley 20)
1978 San Diego (Gaylord Perry 21)
1974 Cleveland (Gaylord Perry 21)
NEVER
Tampa Bay
Colorado
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20070708194253348