Tonight's game

Tonight, Mr. Anna Benson makes his first against against his old 'mates. He's 8-4 with a 3.54 ERA and a 1.16 WHIP, putting him on pace for his best year by far, but he's still way under the vast expectations people around here had for him. Of course he's been much better than Mark Redman, the guy who ended up in his slot in our rotation, and he's contributed more to the Mets than Wigginton has to us. Of course, we'd have never paid him nearly what the Mets did in the offseason (and he hasn't quite been worth it), so I guess something's better than nothing (but still, Wigginton, *shudder*). So why has Benson been better than ever this year? Two stats tell the story. When he was here, he was more often than not like Kip Wells, always gunning for a strikeout as opposed to just getting an out. With the Pirates over his career he struck out 553 batters while walking 299. That's a 1.81:1 K/BB ratio. With the Mets he's struck out 127 while only walking 48. That ratio comes out to 2.6:1. Sure, it's a smaller sample size, but while with the Mets, Benson is striking out almost a full batter more between walks than he was with the Pirates. He's not striking more people out either as his K/9 with the Mets is 6.02, as compared to his 6.36 with the Bucs (not much of a difference, but certainly not higher). It's possible that he's just healthier, but then again, it's also possible that someone is actually teaching him how to pitch.