Coming into the 2008 season the National League East had been reduced to a three-team race between the Braves, Mets, and Phillies. Nobody pegged the Marlins as potential contenders even with Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis; their subsequent trade to the Tigers did nothing to help the cause.

Looking at the standings right now might require a double take because the three pre-season contenders currently rank 2nd, 3rd, and 4th in the division. The first place team? Well, none other than the pesky fish from Florida, who currently sport a 15-10 record and a 1.5 game lead over the Mets and Phillies. This isn’t likely to continue but they have had a good first month and deserve some recognition. One of the major reasons for their early success is the stellar production from leftfielder Josh Willingham. He will not make headlines as a fantasy or statistical superstud, like teammate Hanley Ramirez, but Willingham has quietly become a very solid hitter.

His 2006 and 2007 seasons were pretty consistent, evidenced by the following breakdowns:

• 2006: 142 GP, .277/.356/.496, 56 XBH, 109 K, 21.7 K%, 0.50 BB/K
• 2007: 144 GP, .265/.364/.463, 57 XBH, 122 K, 23.4 K%, 0.54 BB/K

Though we are still suffering from some small sample size issues, Willingham has seemingly increased his production levels relative to the previous two seasons. In fact, his RC/27 has vastly increased:

I would love to say that Willingham will keep this up, as I draft him for my fantasy team every year, but his balls-in-play rates just do not seem to point in that direction. Now, this is not to say he will not have a productive year, but rather that his production is very likely to level off in the coming weeks or months. Here is a look at his GB/FB/LD rates:

As you can see, his percentage of grounders has increased upwards of ten percent. Due to this increase, his BABIP currently rest at .348, much higher than the .310 and .308 posted in the last two seasons. Another so called red flag is the fact that his HR/FB % has increased from 12% to 23%; while his percentage of flyballs has decreased by about ten percent he is hitting a little over ten percent more of them out of the ballpark.

He could defy the odds and put up an incredible season but it would come with the potential stigma of having high luck-based indicators, IE, a fluke. His numbers should improve from those posted last year but not along the lines of what would occur should we extrapolate his current statistics over the rest of the season.

While Tom Gorzelanny may have had a no-hitter through 4+ innings on Thursday, John Danks threw five perfect innings this afternoon before his bid at history came to an end. Two major roadblocks stood in the way of a potential perfect game coinciding in the form of Brian Burres completely shutting down the White Sox offense. Burres went eight innings, giving up three hits and no walks, while striking out four en route to his third win of the season. He threw 98 pitches, two-thirds of which were strikes. Danks lost the perfect game but still had a very effective outing, lasting 6.1 innings while giving up just four hits; he did not walk a batter and struck out four. Of his 92 pitches, 64 were strikes (69.5%). The game looked completely even through the first five frames as evident by the steady polygraph pace in the game graph:

After five innings, no runs had scored, nobody had been walked, and the only two hits had been singles off the bats of Jim Thome and Carlos Quentin. Danks quickly lost his perfect game and no-hitter when Adam Jones singled to start the sixth inning. Jones swiped second base and came around to score on Guillero Quiroz’s first major league home run. A tad rattled, Danks gave up a single to Luis Hernandez; after giving up nothing for five innings he surrendered three consecutive hits. He settled down after the Hernandez at-bat, though, retiring Brian Roberts, Melvin Mora, and Nick Markakis. Heading into the bottom of the sixth the Orioles had staked Burres to a 2-0 lead.

A Toby Hall single in the bottom of the sixth broke Burres’s streak of 12 consecutive batters retired but he would not allow another runner to reach base for the rest of his time on the mound. After inducing a Juan Uribe groundout to the end the eighth inning his day came to an end. The Orioles provided three insurance runs in the top of the ninth off of Octavio Dotel before Matt Albers and George Sherrill closed the game out in the bottom half of the inning. Though the White Sox did score a run on a bases loaded hit by pitch from Carlos Quentin, it was too little, too late. Joe Crede flied out to end the game as the Orioles won 5-1.

Coming into this start, Burres’s numbers (2-1, 3.63 ERA) were a bit deceiving, as his K/9, BB/9, K/BB, BAA, and WHIP were all below the league average. In fact, he had a K/BB of just 0.90, surrendering 10 walks to go along with just nine punchouts. This helped to translate his 3.63 ERA into a 4.82 WHIP. Despite all of these below average rates he completely dominated a first-place offense simultaneously bringing the Orioles into a first-place tie with the Red Sox.

Earlier today I wrote about Tom Gorzelanny’s interesting and less-than-accurate game last night, when at one point he had a line of 4.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 7 BB, 4 K. What I did not realize is that Blue Jays righty Dustin McGowan had a very similar game against the Rays. While discussing some of our favorite young pitchers, Fangraphs reader and Tampa Bay Rays blogger Tommy Rancel said, “…if you thought the Gorzelanny game was weird, you should have seen McGowan against the Rays. He struck the first two batters out on six pitches and ended up walking 7 in just four innings.”

Facing 22 batters in 4+ innings, McGowan gave up 4 hits and 4 runs, striking out 6 and walking 7; this topsy-turvy performance in part led to quite the streaky game graph:

He threw 88 pitches with a perfect split of 44 strikes and 44 balls. As Tommy mentioned, his first inning was strong: He struck out Akinori Iwamura and Carl Crawford on six pitches and induced a groundout from BJ Upton with another three pitches, ending the frame with eight strikes out of nine pitches. In the second inning, McGowan’s accuracy took a hit, throwing just nine strikes out of 17 pitches. Despite this, he still managed to strike out Carlos Pena, Evan Longoria, and newcomer Gabe Gross; a walk to Eric Hinske was his only blemish.

The Blue Jays scored two runs off of Andy Sonnanstine in the top of the third, but McGowan could not shut the Rays down in the bottom half of the inning. After walking Dioner Navarro and surrendering a single to Jason Bartlett, Iwamura sacrificed the runners to second and third. Crawford knocked in Navarro on a groundout, to get one of the runs back, before Upton went down swinging. Again, McGowan’s accuracy was subpar, throwing just 11 strikes out of 20 pitches. Through three innings, he had a 2-1 lead and had compiled the following line: 3 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 6 K. Of his 46 pitches 28 were strikes.

He fell apart in the fourth inning but managed to limit the damage. With one out, Evan Longoria tripled and promptly scored on an Eric Hinske single. After Hinske unsuccessfully attempted a steal of second base, McGowan proceeded to walk Gross, Navarro, and Bartlett to load the bases. Luckily, Iwamura flew out to leftfield to end the threat. The inning saw him throw 32 pitches, just 11 of which were strikes. The game was tied 2-2, but McGowan’s line now stood at: 4 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 5 BB, 6 K.

The Blue Jays jumped back on top, 3-2, in the fifth but McGowan again went walk-crazy in the bottom of the inning. After Carl Crawford singled and stole second, he walked Upton and Pena to load the bases. John Gibbons had seen enough and brought in Brian Tallet to potentially record a “Houdini.” Things did not go well for Tallet as all three inherited runners scored; the Rays went onto win 5-3.

From 2000-2007, there have been 200 games in which a pitcher walked 7+ batters; this averages out to 25 games per season. With 30 teams and 162 games per team there are 4860 games in a year (give or take). On average, a miniscule .005 percent of the games this decade, or 0.83 games per team, have seen pitchers walk this many batters. Last night there were two games going on at the same time that accomplished this statistical rarity.

In the comments thread on my post about obscure pitching lines, colleague Dave Cameron pointed out AJ Burnett’s quite memorable no-hitter as evidence of a pitching line very unlikely to ever repeat itself. Burnett gave up no hits in nine innings, but walked nine batters. While his bid ultimately proved unsuccessful, Tom Gorzelanny threw his hat in the ring, name in the sand, or any other phrase suggestive of the Pirates pitcher having a legitimate shot at Burnett-dom last night. Through four innings his line looked like this: 4 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 4 BB, 4 K. The Pirates also led 1-0.

He started the fifth inning by inducing a groundout off the bat of Aaron Miles. With one out he walked opposing pitcher Joel Pineiro to give him 5 BB. He followed that up with a walk to Brendan Ryan (6) and a walk to leadoff man Skip Schumaker (7). At this juncture he had gone: 4.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 7 BB, 4 K. Extrapolated over the course of a nine-inning game this would shatter the Burnett line. Things went downhill from there. After an inexperienced Brian Barton swung at the first pitch–I can only imagine what must have been going through LaRussa’s head–he roped a 2-run single to rightfield. Albert Pujols then followed with an RBI single of his own before Gorzelanny “settled down,” retiring Ryan Ludwick and Troy Glaus to end the inning. His end line: 5 IP, 2 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 7 BB, 4 K. Here is a graph of the game:

Though his line began as something along the lines of comical, in approaching Burnett, it ended up just looking bad. Gorzelanny was not squeezed, either, as most of his pitches that missed were nowhere near the realm of causing a batter to chase. 2008 has been very rough on Gorzelanny in the early going as, even before last night’s accuracy debacle, he had given up 15 BB with just 9 K; now he has 22 BB and just 13 K.

According to the gameday and Pitch F/X data, Gorzelanny’s pitch breakdown and accuracy looked like this last night:

• Fastball: 68 total, 29 K, 29 B, 10 BIP
• Changeup: 19 total, 5 K, 12 B, 2 BIP
• Curveball: 6 total, 3 K, 3 B, 0 BIP
• Slider: 1 total, 0 K, 1 B, 0 BIP

He has gone from throwing 11% sliders in 2007 to 5.8% this year, while his curveball has jumped from 11% to 14%. Last night, he could not locate anything and his changeup, a potential out pitch, definitely suffered from being out of the zone. He has increased his groundballs this year from 42% to 50% which has apparently resulted in some luck issues, represented by his FIP being over two full points lower than his ERA.

Looking at release points from last night, Gorzelanny’s fastball was pretty inconsistent, and his changeup, though consistent, was consistently different than the fastball. He’s had to answer questions regarding injuries all month and last night did nothing to ease the minds of those worried. A few more starts will provide us more of a sample size with which to examine but, based on accuracy and release points, it seems his mechanics were out of whack last night.

Being a magician myself I am very familiar with the work of the legendary Harry Houdini. A masterful illusionist and escape artist, Houdini ruled the magic world from 1899 until his untimely 1926 death. His name continues to live on in magic lore but apparently has found its way into the game of baseball. At Bill James’s website a statistic is kept, titled “Houdinis.” Much more of a list than a stat, persay, it keeps track of every pitcher that finds himself in a bases loaded, no outs situation, and escapes unscathed. In terms of technicalities, the pitcher cannot be charged with a run at all in the inning, regardless of whether or not it scored as a result of the bases being loaded; if I give up a home run, then load the bases and escape the situation, it does not count.

This year, the following pitchers have recorded Houdinis:

• Rafael Betancourt, 3/31, Top 8
• Rich Harden, 4/2, Top 1
• Michael Wuertz, 4/2, Top 7
• Jamie Moyer, 4/3, Top 2
• Tony Pena, 4/5, Bot 8
• Dustin McGowan, 4/9, Top 5
• Jamey Wright, 4/14, Top 8
• Jesse Carlson, 4/16, Top 11
• Franklyn German, 4/21, Bot 6
• Nelson Figueroa, 4/22, Bot 2

Seeing as Fangraphs specializes in win probability data it seemed natural to look at the WPA of each situation. This will enable us to determine which Houdini act was the most magical. There is a potential problem right off the bat, though, in that a pitcher inheriting the bases loaded and escaping without damage will always have a higher WPA; they would not be debited at all for loading the bases. Due to this, Jesse Carlson’s performance of +.479 would completely dwarf everyone else; the other nine pitchers, who began their inning, came in at +.112 or below. We could revert to WPA/LI to get a context-neutral feel but, since Carlson is alone in terms of inheriting the bases loaded it is easier and just as WPA-effective to simply exclude him. Here are the results:

• Betancourt, .112
• McGowan, .072
• Figueroa, .052
• Harden, .049
• Moyer, .017
• Pena, .015
• Wuertz, .013
• Wright, .010
• German, .001

German got in and out of the jam while trailing 8-0 to the Red Sox; they were not very likely to win prior to his efforts and had not really increased their chances regardless of his magical escape act. Betancourt’s WPA leads primarily due to the fact that his Houdini occurred in the 8th inning of a 7-7 game and recorded three outs on a fielder’s choice (out at home) and double play to end the inning. Still, though, Carlson entered the top of the eleventh inning, in a tie game, with the bases loaded, and struck out the side to end the threat. Pretty darned impressive.

With one out in the top of the third, and a 2-2 count, Felipe Lopez made a futile effort to hit a filthy, down and in John Smoltz slider. With the whiff, Smoltz earned a lifetime membership to the 3,000 Strikeout Club, a group that previously consisted of just fifteen pitchers. Making this feat even more remarkable are the facts that Smoltz missed a little over a year due to Tommy John surgery and, upon returning, found himself closing games for 3+ seasons. He became the fifth pitcher this decade to join the club, joining Randy Johnson, Greg Maddux, Curt Schilling, and Pedro Martinez.

Smoltz gave a phone interview to Baseball Tonight following the game in which he admitted to downplaying the milestone as much as he could until the reaction of the Atlanta crowd proved too much to simply brush aside. Later on the show, Kruk and Showalter answered e-mail responses to the posed question: What active pitcher has the best shot at 3,000 strikeouts? Kruk went with CC Sabathia and Showalter went with Johan Santana. Some of the e-mails suggested the likes of Carlos Zambrano, Felix Hernandez and Cole Hamels. This got me thinking: Which current pitchers really do have solid shots at joining Smoltz and the others in this illustrious group?

In order to help answer that question I called upon Bill James’s Career Assessments formula; this used to be known as his “Favorite Toy.” ESPN set up a page on which you can type in numbers corresponding to the appropriate fields and generate the current total a given player will amass based on the projected length of his career, as well as the probability said player reaches a specific target. For instance, I used Sabathia, who is currently 27 years old with 1142 career strikeouts entering this season. Plugging those numbers in as well as his strikeout totals for the last three seasons, the system projects Sabathia to pitch 7.5 more seasons averaging 188.5 strikeouts per year. This would give him 2,557 strikeouts for his career with a 26.2% chance at reaching 3,000.

I repeated this for every pitcher that currently has at least 900 strikeouts and was born during or after 1975. Pitchers like Mike Mussina and Jamie Moyer have upwards of 2,600 strikeouts but they are not likely to pitch much more after this season and do not quite rack up the K’s anyway. It is also difficult to plug King Felix and Hamels in because parts of their prior years are not likely indicative of what is to come. Of the 22 pitchers assessed only eight actually had a chance at 3,000; everyone else came out as having a 0.0% chance. Here are the eight, with their projected career total and chance at 3,000:

• Johan Santana: 2961, 47.6%
• Javier Vazquez: 2941, 44.9%
• Jake Peavy: 2827, 40.8%
• CC Sabathia: 2557, 26.2%
• Carlos Zambrano: 2510, 24.6%
• Josh Beckett: 2216, 11.3%
• Roy Oswalt: 2170, 4.0%
• Chris Carpenter: 2106, 1.3%

Of course things can change, and this system is not completely perfect, but it does shed light on just how hard it is to strike 3,000+ batters out. For fun, I plugged Felix Hernandez in and he came out with a projected total of 2,066 K with a 13.4% chance. After adjusting his 2005 season to be closer to what he may have gotten in 30+ starts, though, he comes out with 2286 and a 21.1% chance. Another interesting case is Aaron Harang, who has seemingly learned how to strike out guys as of late; Harang currently projects to 2210 with a 13.1% chance.

If you had to pick just one pitcher, in the above list or not, who would it be?

In his inaugural post here Dave Cameron wrote about Gabe Kapler’s return to the major leagues and how his production had more than made up for slow starts from Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder. Last night, Kapler again came through as his 12th inning heroics propelled the Brewers to a walk-off victory against the Cardinals. With one out and the score tied at eight, Gabe Gross walked and promptly stole second off of Jason Isringhausen. Kapler lined a single to centerfield allowing Gross to race home with the winning run. Thrilled with Gross’s efforts to get into scoring position the Brewers quickly traded him to the Rays following the game. “Some day,” Gross remarked.

In a game where both managers utilize the pitcher batting eighth strategy, convention goes by the wayside before the first pitch is even thrown; however, this game had a number of odd occurrences. For starters, Albert Pujols made his first-ever major league appearance at second base when Cesar Izturis left the game. Apparently, Pujols lobbied Tony LaRussa to let him play shortstop but had to settle for second base. He made two plays in the field: a forceout at second as well as catching the throw on Gross’s stolen base in the 12th.

As mentioned in the opening, two guys named Gabe won the game for the Brewers. This brought Gabe White to his feet.

A few days ago I wrote about Brian Shouse and his success in stranding runners. Well, Shouse entered the seventh inning last night with the bases loaded and allowed all three inherited runners to score as well as a run of his own. Thanks, Brian. Combine that with Corey Patterson’s results following Dave’s article and we might be in the midst of a Fangraphs Jinx.

Eric Gagne blew his fourth save in ten chances. This might not seem too odd to many people, though. This particular blown save could have been avoided if Rickie Weeks makes a better throw or Prince Fielder scoops up a ball in the dirt to complete a tailor-made double play.

Three starting pitchers pinch hit in this game: Adam Wainwright hit a sac fly, Braden Looper laid down a nice sac bunt, and Jeff Suppan popped up a bunt attempt. Additionally, reliever David Riske batted for himself, fouling out to the catcher with a runner on second in the sixth inning.

Seth McClung recorded the win after pitching in the 12th inning. The win is his first since September 20, 2006, when he was a member of the Tampa Bay Rays. To see how topsy-turvy this game was check out the game graph:

The sixth and seventh innings are fun to look at in the graph; after the Brewers scored four runs in the bottom of the sixth the Cardinals responded with four of their own in the top of the seventh. In terms of WPA, Guillermo Mota and Kapler led the Brewers while Skip Schumaker and Ryan Franklin contributed the most to the Cardinals. Rick Ankiel and Isringhausen each finished at -.358.

From here, the Cardinals head to Pittsburgh to face Ian Snell while the Brewers host Cole Hamels and the Phillies. Based on the last two games for the Phillies and last night’s Brewers affair this has the makings for one wild series.

On April 17th, John Smoltz and the Braves shut out the Marlins by a score of 8-0. Still being closely monitored Smoltz lasted just five innings. These five innings were all the Braves needed from Smoltz, though, as he twirled a tremendous game; he did not give up any runs and struck out ten en route to his third win. On Baseball Tonight, Tim Kurkjian mentioned that this was the first time in over 100 years that a pitcher recorded a win while going for the exact line of 5 IP, 0 ER, and 10 K.

Though Retrosheet and the B-R Play Index do not have the game-by-game data capable of checking this assertion it is definitely true that Smoltz is the only pitcher to record this line since 1956. With that in mind I thought it would be fun to look at some more obscure pitching lines. To qualify as obscure there could be no more than three owners of the pitching line in question.

WINS

• 5 IP, 8 ER, 0 K: Andy Pettitte, 9/29/07 at BAL
• 5 IP, 8 H, 6 BB: Dan Reichert, 7/31/99 at TEX
• 6 IP, 4 HR, 5 K: Jeremy Bonderman, 6/15/07 at PHI, Jim Brower, 9/24/99 at TOR, Mike Mussina, 5/19/96 vs SEA
• 9 IP, 8 BB, 12 K: Nolan Ryan, 5/19/77 vs MIN AND 5/19/74 at MIN

That is not a typo: Nolan Ryan, in the span of four years and against the same team, posted the same obscure line.

LOSSES

• 9 IP, 0 BB, 12 K: Roger Clemens, 6/16/97 vs ATL
• 10 IP, 1 ER, 5 H: Jerry Robertson, 8/21/69 vs SD, Don Sutton, 6/10/68 vs NYM, Catfish Hunter, 9/18/67 vs MIN
• 6 IP, 8 K, 2 pickoffs: Pat Zachry, 6/26/76 at HOU

Only three pitchers since 1956 have recorded the 10 IP, 1 ER, 5 H line and all three came in consecutive years between 1967 and 1969.

These are just some examples of interesting and obscure pitching lines. If anybody else has some good ones post them in the comments. We can have a contest to help discover the most obscure pitching line.

In a mock fantasy draft a few weeks prior to the season I drafted Nate McLouth of the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 23rd round. Numerous competitors laughed at the selection and, honestly, it was made with little conviction from my end. I needed to fill my outfielder quota and his numbers from a year ago made him look better than, say, Dave Roberts. Judging by the reactions upon making my selection it is safe to say that next to nobody thought McLouth would be the answer to the question: Who is the only player in the major leagues to have a hit in all of his team’s games?

Some might answer Hanley Ramirez, a statistical wunderkind quickly developing into a super-duper-star. Or, perhaps, Chipper Jones, who currently boasts a .453 batting average. Maybe even Chase Utley, who has an impressive home run streak, let alone a hitting streak. But Nate McLouth? Really? A guy who admitted in an FSN interview prior to the season opener that he was told he had very little job security coming into spring training?

Coming into tonight’s game against the Marlins, McLouth is riding the waves of a 19-game hitting streak. His slash line currently rests at .375/.444/.639, resulting in an OPS of 1.082 and an OPS+ of 184. After creating 91 runs in 243 games (0.37/gm), over the last two seasons, he has already created 23 (1.21/gm). His streak is the longest to open a season since 2006, when Edgar Renteria opened with a 23-gamer. Renteria’s streak came to an end against a Marlins combination of Josh Johnson, Ricky Nolasco, and Randy Messenger.

As chance would have it, not only does McLouth face the pesky fish tonight, but he faces Ricky Nolasco! Ah, baseball.

How has McLouth, a guy with a pre-2008 slash line of .249/.319/.429, been so stellar? A quick look at a few graphs will help illustrate this answer:

McLouth has drastically cut down on his strikeouts, from 23.4% in 2007 to just 12.5% this year. His BABIP has gone from .274, .275, and .301 in prior seasons all the way up to .403 at this juncture. The final graph, detailing his groundball, flyball, and line drive rates, shows that McLouth has increased his frequency of putting the ball on the ground while decreasing his percentage of balls in the air.

It is not very likely that he, even with his speed, will maintain anything in the vicinity of a .403 BABIP all season but his performance thus far has been nothing short of remarkable.

This is the fourth installment in a series of articles detailing Matt Cain’s starts. Based on the quality of his games pitched and his decisions or no-decisions earned, Cain’s 2007 was the unluckiest season of at least this decade. Seeing as the Giants have a bleak outlook this trend should continue.

His first three starts followed an extremely simple pattern of: good, bad, good. In pure Cain fashion, he did not receive a decision in either good game but earned the loss in his poorly pitched game. To get caught up on his season visit any of the following links:

• Cain Watch #1
• WPA, 4/1/08
• Cain Watch #2
• WPA, 4/7/08
• Cain Watch #3
• WPA, 4/12/08

He made his fourth start on April 18th, a game in which bad luck never had a chance to interfere due to Cain’s poor performance. His line of 3.2 IP, 8 H, 9 ER, 3 BB, 4 K led to the following lopsided game graph:

For the season, Cain is averaging the following rounded numbers per start: 5 IP, 4 H, 4 ER, 4 BB, 5 K. There has been quality as he has had two very good starts; however, his bad starts have had much more of an effect on his season to date. Let’s compare this to last April, when, through four starts, Cain had the following averages: 7.1 IP, 2.8 H, 1 ER, 3 BB, 5 K. The only stagnant number is the strikeouts; everything else is worse now than a year ago. So what’s the difference?

He is throwing 57% first-pitch strikes, which is the same as last year and higher than his previous two years, but his overall percentage of strikes has dipped from 63% to 60%. Batters are swinging at 73% of his pitches, down from the 75% last year, however they are making contact 84% of the time; last year the contact rate was at 81%. Putting this together, Cain is throwing a lower percentage of strikes while maintaining his rate of first-pitch strikes, but batters are swinging less and making more contact. This helps to explain why his baserunners allowed have increased.

I’m currently building my own Pitch FX database and will begin to incorporate his data in that area into future looks at his starts. His next start is scheduled for April 23rd, when he will face-off against Greg Maddux for the second time this season, this time at the spacious Petco Park. His flyball and groundball percentages have lowered this year while his line drive percentage has risen. Though he has not given up a ton of home runs in his career, three in his first four starts shows some susceptibility; limiting his walks will help reduce two-run and three-run home runs to those of the solo variety. If he cannot rebound from this start and get onto some type of consistency track then luck will not be a factor in what will amount to a poorly pitched season.