so much for the all-star break; let's get back to mark mulder. he starts friday night, so why not. . . . . here's jeff gordon in today's p-d (scroll down near the end): "Mulder offers a massive upgrade over [Woody] Williams."
data:
| inn | h | w | so | w/9 | k/9 | opp ba | opp slg | era | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| mulder 05 | 114.1 | 123 | 34 | 67 | 2.7 | 5.3 | .279 | .442 | 4.34 |
| woody 05 | 79 | 80 | 21 | 48 | 2.4 | 5.5 | .262 | .410 | 4.10 |
clarification: i'm not suggesting woody is a better pitcher than mulder, i'm not suggesting the cardinals should have resigned woody, and i'm not bitching about the loss of haren and barton. i'm merely testing gordon's assertion: is mulder an upgrade? a massive upgrade?
more data:
| inn | h | w | so | w/9 | k/9 | opp ba | opp slg | era | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| mulder 04 | 226.1 | 223 | 83 | 140 | 3.3 | 5.6 | .264 | .417 | 4.43 |
| woody 04 | 190 | 193 | 58 | 131 | 2.7 | 6.2 | .262 | .424 | 4.18 |
is mulder an upgrade over woody? no, he is woody. but we should take encouragement from that. in postseasons past, we always felt good when woody was on the mound for us, right? he pitched great in five of his six postseason starts for stl over the last four years -- one of them a game for the ages. take away the awful game 1 Series start vs boston, and woody's postseason era with stl was 2.81. if mulder can come within a run of that era this postseason -- and do it as the cards' third-best starter -- stl will stand a good chance in any series.