The Stats Geek and the Phenoms

The Stats Geek takes time today to break down the amazing phenomenon that has been "Zach Paul" as he calls in. In fact, if the two of them were one pitcher, they'd be the best pitcher in the bigs since the second half began (statswise). Maybe it's relative as compared to the rest of our rotation which has been an pathetic, putrid, pitiful 7-27 since the second half began, with an ERA of FIVE POINT NINE EIGHT. That's so bad I felt like I had to type the words out for emphasis. It's not all brilliant stuff though, opponents are hitting almost .250 against Duke and Maholm has a pretty ugly looking 19/12 strikeout/walk ratio. The Stats Geek asks himself what all of us want to know:

Can it last? If Maholm keeps throwing ground balls (his ground ball/fly ball ratio is 2.30 compared to a league ratio of 1.63) and Duke continues to do nearly everything right, they can be good pitchers for a long time.

But this? No, this is special. This just doesn't happen very often. Enjoy it while it lasts and hope the Pirates can build on it in 2006.

This leads me to what's kind of been my problem all year with the team. In order for us to win, we need to be a good pitching team. Sure, we haven't hit well for a large part of this season, but our pitching has been unacceptable. We have the arms, but for some reason we don't do it. Pitchers seem to get worse the longer they pitch for us. That is currently highlighted by the two guys that were supposed to be our dual aces this year, Kip Wells and Oliver Perez, two guys that have both been AWFUL this year. Maybe a new leaf in the coaching is needed and whoever our next pitching coach will be can provide that (assuming whoever DL hires as manager won't be named Mackanin and will want to bring in his own staff). Whatever it is, we need Snell, Duke, and Maholm to be good. We don't need them to be as good as they've been (including Snell's start last night) because frankly that's impossible. We do need them to progress as pitchers because that's the only way this team is going to win.

But is it too much to hope for a little magic from Gorzelanny against Pettite tonight?