Garza

Garza had a rough outing on Friday. I think we all expected too much from him. I know I expected a lot from him. I never expect this from him: 2 2/3 IP 8 hits 7 runs 2 HR 2 W 2 K. No matter how you look at it, this was a bad start.

Obviously I think we can expect more from him. For 1 thing, who knows what would have happened if Hunter would have made that catch in the first inning? It really looked like it was a very easy catch that Hunter would normally have made. I think it was clear then that his injury is affecting him in the field.

Also, his DIPS ERA is 10.08, still very high but it should come down. 50% of the balls in play were turned in to hits, that will come down which will help him greatly. And his HR/Fly % is 41%. The average is about 12%, so that will come down too. His peripherals for 1 game are bad but they all should improve naturally. There is no way he is this bad.

Plus, it was just 1 game. It really doesn’t tell us too much except that Garza pitched poorly and also had a great deal of bad luck.

Since Garza had such a bad first start I wondered how the first starts of quality pitchers went. So I went back 20 years and looked at the first start of all Cy Young winners since 1985.

Here is what I came up with. The average first start went 5.56 IP allowed 5.32 hits, 2.04 runs, .48 HR, 2.48 BB and 3.88 Ks.For a 9 inning game it equals 8.6 hits allowed, 3.30 ERA, .8 HRs, 4.0 BB and 6.3 Ks. In 25 starts they went 10-5.

For the most part all were pretty good. Eckersley had the best start throwing a shutout and the only complete game. Cone, Glavine and Carpenter had the 3 worst starts. The shortest was 3 innings. Those 3 had a combined 14.00 ERA in their first start. So it is possible to turn it around. Garza may never win a Cy Young award but just because he had a bad first start doesn’t mean he never will. With that being said it was by far the worst start of all the pitchers in this study.