AL Cy Young?

Shaggy, when you started this thread on Aug 26, Greine was 12-8 with a 2.35 ERA.

In five starts since then, he has given up one earned run in 35 innings, a 0.26 ERA, while striking out 32 batters. He has given up 18 hits and eight walks, for a 0.74 WHIP. Of course, he is only 3-0 because the Royals suck. Freddie Patek had a line from the AP story above mentioning most of those stats, but I thought they were worth repeating.

In those five games, he has faced the Angels, Tigers and Red Sox, all playoff teams if the season ended today. Reusse should be embarrased. So should anybody who doesn't vote for Greinke.

 

Probably worth pointing out the obvious, that was a strike-shortened season. His last start that season came on Aug. 7. Cone was 16-5.

 

That definitely wasn't obvious to me.

Good point. I forgot all about that.

 

Strike year, indeed.

Poor Expos fans ...

 

I think I recall a George Steinbrenner meltdown after Cone won it. Jimmy Key was 17-4 that season, though the rest of his numbers were significantly worse than Cone's.

 

Jimmy Key? I could hit him.

(That is the guy, right?)

 

You must have been a hell of a ball player then, because Key was a very good pitcher.

 

Woops, Stupid Canadian!

 

Oh, I sucked. After I took a once-hopper off the nose when I was in little league, I never played again, at least not at 2B.

But yeah, that was a great commercial.

 

I played LL for 2 years. I wasn't a horrible batter, but at the start of my second season, my older brother thought that perhaps I was swinging the wrong way, so he tried to teach me to hit lefty. On the first pitch of my first at-bat of the second season, hitting lefty, I got beaned in the neck. I actually became a decent switch-hitter, though my power is from the right side.

 

I only played one game as a switch-hitter, when I was 12. Practiced it for weeks, finally faced a left-hander halfway through the season. I got up there and hit a double right-handed in my first at-bat. Got plunked in the butt my second at-bat. They switched pitchers, and I went back to hitting lefty. Never tried it again.

 

Jim Rice is just an old curmudgeon, isn't he? To summarize his postgame comments on NESN last night ...

"This is the first time I really watched him, and he didn't impress me like a Ron Guidry, a Nolan Ryan, a Frank Tanana, something like that. He has good stuff, and he showed he has an arsenal of pitches. He didn't really dominate the Red Sox, but he made pitches when he had to."

... He made pitches when he had to ... isn't that what you saw when Paul Byrd puts two men on every innings and escapes trouble with double plays? Doesn't seem like the right line to describe Greinke last night.