Number One vs. Number One?
Opening day is supposed to be just loaded with brilliant pitching matchups. Sometimes they’re not the pitchers duel as advertised, as we saw with last night’s 9-7 Sabathia vs. Beckett matchup, but I wouldn’t bet on a similar result in today’s Zack Greinke–Justin Verlander showdown or even the Josh Johnson–Johan Santana duel to be seen at Citi Field.
For the most part, the opening day games have at least one great pitcher (Roy Halladay vs. John Lannan at Washington), or maybe some young up-and-comers (Ubaldo Jimenez vs. Yovani Gallardo at Milwaukee), or at least a couple of above average pitchers who have had good years (Shaun Marcum vs. Scott Feldman at Texas). One matchup, however, just makes you wonder about how it could possibly happen.
The Dodgers will be taking on the Pirates at PNC park at 1:35 PM Eastern time this afternoon. The probable pitchers as of this morning are Vicente Padilla and Zach Duke, two pitchers with K/BB ratios below 2 and FIPs above 4.00. Combined, CHONE projects these two to be worth only 35 runs above replacement, or just over half of Zack Greinke’s projected value.
What makes this matchup especially egregious is that Padilla and Duke are nowhere near the best pitchers on their respective teams. Padilla’s ability as a pitcher doesn’t approach that of either Chad Billingsley nor Clayton Kershaw, and he’s not better than Hiroki Kuroda, either. Paul Maholm of the Pirates is a proven 3-win pitcher, and he actually projects at a similar level to Kershaw, whereas Duke is projected at the level of Carl Pavano.
Now, there could be very good reasons why each pitcher is starting the game over other, more deserving candidates. All I know is if I had a ticket for this game, I wouldn’t be too happy with either manager.
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There is just not that much of a difference between Duke and Maholm…
and the Dodgers are lining up their starters for opening day in THEIR stadium, not in pitsburgh. come on, i know its monday but… come on!
What makes Maholm a “proven 3 win pitcher”? The fact that he did that once? or the fact that the “fans” project him there?
Yeah, Duke and Maholm are pretty same-ish. Morton has a higher ceiling than either of them.
Torre loves veterans.
Kershaw probably isn’t experienced enough in his eyes yet to go opening day. And he probably doesn’t think that Billz can handle the pressure considering his 2nd half performance/collapse. And Torre doesn’t understand how to communicate with Kuroda. So Padilla was the unfortunate choice for him. He is such an overrated manager. He just got super lucky in NY with being given a great group of players.
Torre lines his rotation up for home openers, not opening day. this was publicly announced, by torre, like 3 days ago…
But today is a good day to complain about it.
Then again, folks are in Pittsburgh, watching baseball. On the list of things they have every right to complain about, this ranks pretty far down. I suspect, however, that at this point the mule is just resigned to being beaten.
It’s hard to determine what Pirate pitchers are better than the others. Usually one of them goes on to have an impressive breakout season, then just falls back into mediocrity and the other will pitch well. They can’t all pitch well the same year. This season, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Oly and Duke regress while Maholm and Morton have stellar seasons.
The opener will be the biggest crowd/most pressure of the Pirates season and they want to use a pitcher who has proven he can handle it. Duke pitched a shutout in last year’s home opener and also pitched well in a road Opening Day start a few years ago.
Kind of like Derek Lowe getting the Opening Day ball for the Braves as their fourth best starter. Basically a “We’re sorry we tried to trade your albatross contract. We still like you,” decision.
It would be funny if this game turned into a classic pitcher’s duel.
both gone after 5
Duke threw okay, though. Seemed like Padilla left a lot of pitches up in the zone.