« Um, could we have another baseball please? | Home | The Phils are a team of necessity — and if they can’t find any necessity they’re happy to make their own »
And not just that but you should see how good their numbers are when they don’t allow any runs
By egrissom | July 1, 2009
Today’s point is that you have better results as a starting pitcher in games when you don’t allow a home run. Really it is.
You probably would have guessed that’s the case. What you might not have guessed is how dramatic the difference can be. Here, for example, are the differences in results for the three Phillies pitchers who have made more than 10 starts this season in games when they have and have not allowed at least one home run in a game:
Starts where he allowed at least 1 HR in game |
Starts where he allowed 0 HR in game |
|||||
| Team record |
ERA | Ratio | Team Record |
ERA | Ratio | |
| Hamels | 3-5 | 5.73 | 1.50 | 4-2 | 2.92 | 1.30 |
| Blanton | 4-7 | 5.76 | 1.45 | 3-0 | 2.50 | 1.33 |
| Moyer | 5-6 | 7.56 | 1.68 | 3-1 | 2.52 | 1.12 |
The Phils are 22-21 in the games started by the trio — 10-3 in the 13 games where they didn’t allow a home run and 12-18 in the 30 where they did.
Here are the numbers for the three combined when they have and have not allowed at least one home run in a start for the season:
IP |
ER |
H |
BB |
SO |
ERA |
Ratio |
|
Allowed HR |
175.3 |
119 |
216 |
43 |
137 |
6.11 |
1.48 |
Didn’t allow HR |
80 |
24 |
78 |
22 |
66 |
2.70 |
1.25 |
In the case of those three so far this year, they’ve struck hitters out at a better rate and prevented hits at a much better rate in the starts where they’ve allowed a home run. What’s a little curious to me is that they’ve walked hitters at a higher rate as a group in the starts where they did not allow a home run than the starts where they did. In the starts where they didn’t allow a home run they walked 22 in 80 innings or 2.47 per nine innings. In the starts where they did allow at least one homer they walked 2.21 per nine. Both Hamels and Blanton walked have walked more batters in their games this season when they didn’t allow a home run than in their games where they did.
It’s obviously a tiny amount of data, but, also curiously, Hamels also issued more walks in his starts in 2008 when he didn’t allow a home run. Here:
Hamels ‘08 |
||||
| IP | ERA | Ratio | BB/9 | |
| Starts allowed HR |
123.7 | 4.37 | 1.18 | 1.75 |
| No HR | 103.7 | 1.56 | 0.96 | 2.52 |
The numbers are way better overall in the non-home run starts, but he walked more batters per nine innings. Since his ratio was so much lower in the non-home run starts you can probably guess that he allowed a lot fewer hits. He did — 6.16 hits per nine in starts when he didn’t allow a home run and 8.88 hits per nine in starts he did.
Blanton is the other guy of the trio who is walking more guys this season in his starts when he doesn’t allow a home run. He’s had kind of a brutal transition from Oakland. In 2008, between his starts for Oakland and Philly he allowed 22 home runs in 197 2/3 innings. So far in ‘09 he’s allowed 17 in 83 2/3 innings. His numbers weren’t as dramatic as Hamels’ for last year, but he did walk batters at a slightly higher rate in his starts when he did not allow a home run:
Blanton ‘08 |
||||
| IP | ERA | Ratio | BB/9 | |
| Starts allowed HR |
112 | 5.06 | 1.38 | 2.97 |
| No HR | 85.7 | 4.20 | 1.42 | 3.05 |
This says that Happ will start tomorrow, Ibanez and Eyre are rehabbing and that Lopez, Carrasco or Carpenter could start on Friday against the Mets.
Topics: pitching |
July 2nd, 2009 at 9:25 am
You know its going bad when you turn the game on in the 7 inning, your team is down by 8, your ace got shelled, and your team has scored a run while being no-hit…
July 2nd, 2009 at 9:36 am
Believe me, it’s much worse when you’ve actually listened to the whole game up to that point!
July 2nd, 2009 at 10:57 am
At least Hamels didn’t allow a home run. See how much better he pitches when he doesn’t allow a home run?
July 13th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
hopefully phils get Halladay