[blogguy]

Ouch on the early stuff lol...

Sabathia didn't allow runs early, but you could see he didn't have his good stuff. Through five innings he had only one K and had stranded some baserunners. Detroit got to him in the sixth. This is now two straight starts where he stopped mowing people down. Today was very important because Detroit was the worst K team on offense in the AL the last time I checked. EVERYONE strikes out Tigers hitters...so only having 1 K through five innings meant he was "throwing to contact" as Immanuel Kant put it the other day.

Fossum got rocked early, and didn't have a chance to get to his hurdle.

Also of note early, Capuano's troubles continued. a 1K effort vs. Arizona two starts ago signalled some problems. He's clearly lost whatever was allowing him to dominate during his peak starts awhile ago. Might mean an injury, or a tired arm.

Tonight's best convergences don't show the 1.5 run gradings that have been having the best success (when a 5.5 line has a guy who looks to have a good chance at 7...a 4.5 line has a guy who looks to have a good chance at 6).

So, let's just call these ones to look at:
*Johnson of Florida Over 5.5 -124 vs. Atlanta
*Smoltz of Atlanta OVer 6.5 -104 vs. Florida
(I get 6 and 7 as recent medians for those guys respectively...but the offenses are both strikeout prone)

Guys with huge moneylines:
*Pettitte of Houston over 4.5 -202 (8 and 10 h is last two starts...and he's got a history of finding his form whenever Clemens is around...and floundering otherwise...personally, don't want to lay 202, lol)
*Astacio of Washington Under 2.5 -182
*Rheineker of Texas Under 2.5 -211

Rheineker is tempting because his last 7 starts show 2-0-1-2-1-0-1...meaning ZERO times over 2.5 runs. Laying -211 isn't that scary in that light. But...as I said yesterday, not much margin for error with a number so low. And, as SP pointed out...it's always a grind to beat those pricey numbers.

Nothing I'm excited about tonight. Smoltz would probably be the most logical guy to consider given his consistency, a favorable home road split, and Florida's ranking in the top five of strikeout prone teams in the NL. Since I've been trying to post the one I like best each night...I'll go with Smoltz. Just checked, Johnson as a hitter has struck out 58% of the time in his at bats the last time I totalled everyone...so that might give us a boost of 1 or 2.

By the way...an EXTREMELY clear tendency is for young NL pitchers to strike out a lot when they have to try to bat. They've got very little experience versus major league caliber pitching. So...if you see a young guy on the mound, you should probably think immediately about asking the other guy's K's to go Over the total if any line value is apparent.