Monday was ridiculous. There were 10 games, so 20 starters, and 20 starting pitching lines. Of the 20, nine were brand new. This is absurd. I don't believe we've had a day with more than seven unique lines yet this year, and many have only two or three, and those are with full schedules. Forty-five percent of Monday's games were historic! And, strikingly, many of them look unstriking:
- Bartolo Colon’s 5.2/11/7/6/0/4
- Colby Lewis’ 5.2/7/0/0/2/8
- Brad Peacock’s 6/8/4/4/2/11
- Tyler Lyons’ 4/9/9/9/1/2
- Jordan Zimmermann’s 5.2/10/5/5/0/4
- Cesar Ramos’ 6.2/11/9/5/2/6*
- Felix Hernandez’s 6.2/8/4/4/0/7
- Gavin Floyd’s 6.1/7/4/3/0/8
- Tim Lincecum’s 7.2/2/1/1/4/11
There are, technically, infinite possibilities for a starter's pitching line, but realistically, almost all will:
- Be between two and nine innings;
- Have a Hits total that is no greater than IP plus seven;
- Have a Runs total that is no greater than Hits plus one or Hits minus eight;
- Have a Runs total that is no greater than Earned Runs plus four;
- Not have a BB total greater than eight;
- Have a Strikeout total that is no less than BB minus three and no greater than BB plus 10;
That’s still a huge range of possibilities, but with even with those broad boundaries (which would include such unlikely events as 2.2/9/5/2/7/4) it limits us to about 1.5 million pitching lines.
So there are two different kinds of new pitching lines. The ones that break those limits, lines that exist out in the infinite space of the multiverse, the infinite possibilities of which will never be exhausted. And the earthbound lines that fall within those parameters, and that, eventually, if we play enough baseball, we will use up. Eventually, we will plug all the holes and everything baseball could be expected to do will be done. Every one of these nine lines is a hole-plugger. What about the rest of the new lines this week? We'll skip to
The Rest
- Jake Odorizzi’s 5/5/0/0/2/11
- Julio Teheran’s 8/1/1/1/2/9
- Yu Darvish’s 8.2/2/0/0/2/12
- Brandon McCarthy’s 3.1/9/7/7/0/5
- Doug Fister’s 4.1/9/7/5/0/2*
- Brandon Maurer’s 7.1/14/6/4/0/0
- J.A. Happ’s 2.1/7/4/4/1/4
- Martin Perez’s 3.2/9/6/6/4/4
- Tanner Roark’s 7.2/2/1/1/0/5
- Drew Hutchison’s 4.1/3/3/3/4/5
- Robbie Erlin’s 6.1/5/0/0/0/7
- Roenis Elias’ 5/9/5/3/1/5
- Shelby Miller’s 5.1/4/2/2/4/2
- Cliff Lee’s 7/6/4/0/1/7*
- Vidal Nuno’s 3.1/4/7/5/4/1
- Jake Arrieta’s 4/4/1/1/5/5
- Josh Beckett’s 6.1/4/1/0/3/6
- Brandon Maurer’s 3.2/2/2/2/4/3
- Julio Teheran’s 3.1/7/5/4/5/4*
- Nick Tepesch’s 5.1/2/1/1/3/8
- Paul Maholm’s 3.2/11/10/5/3/0
- Clay Buchholz’ 6/10/3/3/3/6
- Matt Cain’s 7.2/6/4/4/3/7
- First time: 4
- Third time: 2
- Fourth time: 1
- Eighth time: 1
- 18th time: 1
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