Game 58 Open Thread: June 8, 2007, 7:10 CDT

So Reyes is to blame for the rest of his team NEVER scoring runs when he's on the mound?  Would you say that's caused by his "negative energy" or his "bad karma"?  

Perhaps he just needs to wear a certain crystal around his neck or make regular offerings up to Jobu when he's pitching, right?

Looks like I'm off to a watering hole.

That's mean. Shame on me.

I bet Kozma would've turned that into an out.

Kip Wells might be the biggest enigma EVER.

Granted, Albert's second was legit, but dunc's was not.

I think he's just getting tired late in games...

and the bullpen implodes.

One QS in 10 starts can't be sugarcoated. And he's partially responsible for the 7th inning meltdown because, as a starter, the 7th is supposed to be his.

Last year Suppan started 32 regular season games for us, and fully EIGHTEEN of them were Quality Starts.   He then gave us 3 out of 4 more Quality Starts in the post season.  That's 21/36 QS's, or 58%.

This year Kip has 4 QS's in 12 starts.  That's a very weak 33%.

As for Avg # of IP, my data shows that last year Suppan's regular season AVERAGE was 6.125 IP, with a MEDIAN of 6.0 IP.

Kip Wells this year has an AVERAGE of 5.8 IP, and a MEDIAN of 6.0 IP.

So I would argue that IP is not really the main issue.  The issue is Kip's tendency to succumb to the "Big Inning" and put the game out of reach.  Even though his average IP is nearly identical to 2006 Suppan's, his ERA is roughly 2 points higher.  That's really bad.

If Kip "Doesn't Pitch Very" Wells is supposed to be the replacement for 2006 Suppan, he is NOT measuring up.  Since he seems to have decent "stuff" but routinely falls victim to the "big inning", LaDuncan should seriously consider moving Wells to the pen (and recalling Reyes).  Perhaps in the pen Kip's tendency to suddenly implode could be more closely managed and possibly avoided without costing the club so many games.

As for the Soup-Wells comparison, can we at least agree that a guy who averages 5.2 innings/start with a 107 ERA+ is better than one with a 63 ERA+. Mark Mulder had a 62 ERA+ last year and he was one of the worst starters in the history of the franchise.