Kyle Lohse just had his best career start
Posted by Andy on April 22, 2011
Yesterday Kyle Lohse pitched a 2-hit shutout and it yielded the best game score of his career:
| Rk | Date | Tm | Opp | Rslt | App,Dec | IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO | HR | Pit | Str | GSc |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2011-04-21 | STL | WSN | W 5-0 | SHO9 ,W | 9.0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 0 | 111 | 72 | 87 |
| 2 | 2009-04-12 | STL | HOU | W 3-0 | SHO9 ,W | 9.0 | 3 | 0 |
0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 112 | 71 | 85 |
| 3 | 2007-04-15 | CIN | CHC | W 1-0 | GS-8 ,W | 8.0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 12 | 0 | 114 | 79 | 85 |
| 4 | 2002-08-20 | MIN | CHW | W 5-0 | SHO9 ,W | 9.0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 8 | 0 | 124 | 78 | 85 |
| 5 | 2003-04-03 | MIN | DET | W 3-0 | GS-8 ,W | 8.0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 92 | 63 | 83 |
| 6 | 2004-07-07 | MIN | KCR | W 12-0 | SHO9 ,W | 9.0 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 118 | 82 | 82 |
| 7 | 2009-05-23 | STL | KCR | W 5-0 | GS-8 ,W | 8.0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 98 | 67 | 80 |
| 8 | 2003-05-08 | MIN | TBD | W 5-0 | SHO9 ,W | 9.0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 101 | 73 | 80 |
| 9 | 2007-07-06 | CIN | ARI | W 8-1 | CG 9 ,W | 9.0 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 105 | 73 | 78 |
| 10 | 2007-05-28 | CIN | PIT | W 4-0 | SHO9 ,W | 9.0 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 105 | 75 | 77 |
He's got 3 straight games with a Game Score of at least 63, which ties for his longest career streak:
| Rk | Strk Start | End | Games | W | L | GS | CG | SHO | GF | SV | IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO | HR | HBP | WP | BK | Tm | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2011-04-10 | 2011-04-21 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 24.1 | 13 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 17 | 0 | 1.11 | 1 | 1 | 0 | STL |
| 2 | 2006-08-11 | 2006-08-22 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 21.1 | 15 | 2 | 2 | 6 | 18 | 1 | 0.84 | 0 | 0 | 0 | CIN |
I tend to love guys like Lohse. He's no star, but he's shown he can be a fairly consistent average major-league starter. His ERA+ has been between 86 and 113 in all of his full seasons and he occasionally throws a gem like he did last night.
April 22nd, 2011 at 4:15 pm
Kyle Lohse is pretty awesome if you're a huge fan of overpaid #4 starter-types.
April 22nd, 2011 at 4:48 pm
Jiffy-
I think criticisms like that are a little bit unfair. Lohse didn't hold a gun to anyone's head and demand that they overpay him. Taking salary into account when judging a player's value and impact on a team is legitimate, but I don't think it's fair to hate on Lohse because he happened to get paid. Blame the team who was dumb enough to sign him, blame the market for bearing out his salary, blame MLB for their salary structure... but don't blame a guy for going out and doing what anyone else would have done and happily signed a contract for millions of dollars.
April 22nd, 2011 at 5:31 pm
@2
When he was with the Twins, Lohse was the type of player that drove fans nuts. Andy's comment about "consistently average" may be true on a year to year basis but it certainly wasn't true from month to month.
As I recall, he had "great stuff" and would periodically have great games which would provide promise that he was about to "click" and "turn some sort of corner" and become the top-of-the-rotation type of pitcher we all thought he could be. But then enter these rough patches where he'd get knocked around a lot and you'd want to send him back to the minors or perhaps even give up on him completely.
It looks like it was after an extended good patch (2008) that he signed a nice multi-year deal.
He's 32 now, so I suppose people have learned not to project greatness from him after a few good starts in a row.
April 22nd, 2011 at 5:40 pm
The 2004-07-07 game was the third game of a three game sweep of KC that featured three CG shutouts by Twins pitchers. This small streak pops up in these forums from time to time:
B.Radke (4-83-W)
J.Santana (4-92-W)
K.Lohse (4-82-W)
The Lohse game had the lowest game score (barely) of the three.
April 22nd, 2011 at 6:50 pm
I'm sure Lohse didn't feel overpaid in 2008. As I recall he received a one-year contract from St. Louis at the last minute, paying him $4.2M. That same off-season, Carlos Silva had received a $48M contract over 4 years. From 2005-7, Lohse had a 4.77 ERA (95 ERA+) in 498 IP. Silva had a 4.49 ERA (98 ERA+) in 571 IP. Lohse had a much better K-rate and a good BB-rate (albeit not as amazing as Silva's). They were about the same age. Why did Silva get a multi-year contract and Lohse was begging for scraps?
Of course, Lohse had a very nice season in '08 and finally got that multi-year deal, which so far has worked out marginally better than Silva's.
April 22nd, 2011 at 7:48 pm
JT @5, I'll suggest a couple of reasons why Silva got a multi-year deal before 2008 while Lohse settled for a one-year deal:
1. Silva had a career 4.31 ERA and 102 ERA+, Lohse 4.82 and 95.
2. Silva arguably had more upside, having produced ERA+ seasons of 130 and 112 within the last 4 years. Lohse's career best ERA+ to that point was 107.
3. Silva had two signature traits -- extreme control and a very high GIDP rate. Lohse has good control, but not exceptional, and is basically average in everything else.
I'm not saying that any of those are objectively valid reasons for the difference in their deals, but I do think those things factored into GMs' thinking.
April 23rd, 2011 at 12:49 pm
"He's no star, but he's shown he can be a fairly consistent average major-league starter. "
Cardinal fans would have killed for Lohse to have been average the last two years.
April 24th, 2011 at 1:46 am
Good for him. He was unfairly "baptized" in the steroid era and his career was on the ropes for awhile. It good to see him succeed.