Some years ago, Lee Trevino said, "two things don't last very long -- dogs who chase cars and pros who putt for pars." Had it rhymed, Trevino could have added, "and starting pitchers who walk a lot of batters."
Entering last night's contest in Denver, Robinson Tejeda had an ERA of 2.90*, which if he had enough innings under his belt to qualify, would place him tenth in the big leagues. The two pitchers that would be ahead of him on the list, Kenny Rogers and Andy Pettitte, have each pitched approximately 130 innings and have walked 36 and 26 batters, respectively.
Trailing Tejeda in ERA would be Mark Buehrle and Dontrelle Willis. Buehrle has pitched 155 innings and has walked 26 while Willis has walked 29 in 143 innings of work. All four of these pitchers walk a batter -- roughly -- every four and a half innings.
But not Robinson Tejeda. In his 49 [or so, see below] innings, Tejeda has walked 36 batters. For those of you scoring at home, Tejeda is walking 6.5 batters per nine innings pitched!
But somehow, despite chasing cars all over the big leagues, Tejeda is getting by. For one thing, he is striking out his share of batters, 6.89 per 9 innings. Plus, opposing batters are hitting only .197 off Tejeda. And when batters do manage to get a base hit, it's often a single -- he's allowed only 2 home runs and a slugging percentage of .291.
Last night, when Tejeda left the game with the lead, he had managed to pitch another 5 and a third innings while walking 3 more batters (often the inning's leadoff hitter), striking out 4, and scattering 5 hits. I admire Tejeda's ability to dig himself out of a hole, something many of his teammates could take notice of, but I tend to think that it is only a matter of time before Tejeda's control issues catch up with him on a regular basis.
But until that happens, Robinson Tejeda is one of the reasons the Phillies remain in contention.
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Scandal!
* I'm finding more and more ambiguity as I examine statistics on various websites. For instance, when I began to write this post at 11:30 PM last night, ESPN listed Tejeda as having a 2.85 ERA in 53.2 innings on Tejeda's "profile page", but on his "stats page" he was listed with a 2.90 ERA in 50.2 innings. On The Hardball Times, Tejeda is given a 2.90 ERA in 49.7 innings and MLB.com's version of the truth is a 2.90 ERA in 49.2 innings, which is the same as CBS Sportsline.
ESPN's unreliable park factor page has been well-documented, but now we have more ambiguities, and this time across websites...
...Has anyone else noticed such issues?
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Ugly American
Yesterday, the streaking Atlanta Braves swept the Washington Nationals in a three game series to take a three game lead in the National League East. The Braves Thursday victory was due in large part to 21 year old rookie Jeff Francoeur, who hit two homeruns. Shortly afterward, I received this email from my good friend Chip, a long-time Braves fan:
Jeff Francoeur is causing me to reevaluate my views on the French.
