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3-9, 5.18 |
11-10, 3.94 |
I have to say that I'm very impressed w/ Looper's season so far this year. LB did a superb job the other day detailing his improvement and there's not much really that I can add. Sure, there might be a little luck involved w/ his high strand rate but I think it's fair to say that, at worst, Looper has become an average major league pitcher or so. Seems to me to be a good candidate for an arbitration offer and a bad candidate (at age 34 in October) for a long-term contract offer.
Jo Jo Reyes just isn't good...period. He walks nearly 4.5 per 9 innings, gives up too many homers and doesn't strike enough batters out. A lefty, he has been pretty tough on lefties in his brief career so I'd expect to see Skip on the pine today. He's been bad on the road and worse at home over parts of 2 seasons. He has started twice against the Cards in his career and given up just 3 ER in 11.1 IP. We're due. It's time for some "regression to the mean."
This, simply, is a game the Cards have to win. The Brewers lead us by 3.5 games -- 4 in the loss column -- and are trying to finish off their sweep of the Pirates today. They've got that Sabathia guy pitching today also. We need this one before we have our 3rd off day in 8 days tomorrow. Brilliant scheduling, Bud.
Overflow to go up around 2:45.