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Zach Stewart tossed a near-perfect game Monday in his 10th career game, allowing 1 hit and no other baserunners in 9 innings.

Since 1919, here are the 11 pitchers with a start of at least 9 innings allowing no more than 1 baserunner, within their first 20 games:

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Barring a collapse by one of the Big Three, the Phillies will become the 17th team since 1893 to have 3 pitchers with at least 5 Wins Above Replacement (using B-R's WAR formula).

If you believe that pitching is the main key to championships, this list might give you pause; only 2 teams with this kind of "big three" have won the World Series, and none after 1912. Read the rest of this entry »

-- Cliff Lee, who was lifted after 8.2 scoreless innings in last start, got his 6th shutout of the year Monday (as first noted by Andy), stopping Atlanta on 5 hits and no walks in exactly 100 pitches. That matches the most shutouts since 1989; Randy Johnson also had 6 in 1998.

• Lee's surge since July 30 -- 7 straight wins, 0.96 ERA -- has pumped intrigue into the NL Cy Young race, with Lee and Halladay virtually tied in ERA, IP and Wins Above Replacement. Meanwhile, Clayton Kershaw leads the league in Strikeouts and IP, has a slight edge on Lee and Halladay in ERA, and is a solid 3rd in WAR; and rounding out the pack, Cole Hamels leads the league in WHIP, Ian Kennedy leads in Wins and W%, and Johnny Cueto remains the ERA leader. (Kennedy's advanced stats don't compare with this bunch, but he deserves to be in the mix for stepping up his game as the #1 starter on a division winner.) Things may shake out a bit over the final 4 weeks, but will a clear-cut winner emerge?

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Sorry for a third straight post involving the Phillies, but I see that Cliff Lee has thrown 7 shutouts innings so far tonight and might get his 6th shutout of the season.

If he does, he'll be the first pitcher since Randy Johnson in 1998 to record 6 shutouts in a season:

In a long-relief stint in Sunday's 14-inning game, David Herndon of the Phillies issued 5 intentional walks (and 7 walks in all) in 3.2 innings. That tied the known relief record for IBBs in a game,* and fell 1 shy of the game record in any role: Read the rest of this entry »

The Yankees and Phillies are both outscoring their opponents by at least 1.3 runs per game in 2011. That translates to about 200 more runs scored than allowed over an entire season.

In the Steroids Era of 1993-2009, this was an easier feat since 1.3 runs was a smaller fraction of the overall elevated levels of run scoring. The last teams to have a differential of at least 1.3 over the course of a season were the 2007 Red Sox, 2001 Mariners, 1999 Diamondbacks, 1998 Yankees, 1998 Astros, 1998 Braves, 1997 Braves, 1995 Indians, and 1993 Braves. Even still, a lot of these teams were powerhouses.

Run-scoring in 2011 is 4.28 runs per game, which is the lowest since (you guessed it!) 1992, when it was 4.12 runs per game. So which teams before 1993 managed a 1.3 differential for an entire season? Going back, the last several were the 1986 Mets, 1976 Reds, 1976 Phillies, 1975 Reds, 1974 Dodgers, 1971 Orioles, 1970 Orioles, 1969 Orioles, and the 1961 Yankees. Those were all really good teams.

Taken from the B-R Bullpen page:

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[No emery-ball specialists on the mound tonight -- that I know of -- but there was a "Cy" in action....]

-- Justin Verlander won his 9th straight start, 8-1 over the White Sox. The last longer streak within one season was in 2004, 12 games by Johan Santana.

• Austin Jackson (5-2-3-2, HR) has 9 hits and 7 runs in his last 3 games.
• Detroit maintained a 5.5-game lead over Cleveland, who held on for a 5-4 win in KC, snapping Bruce Chen's 5-start win streak despite Alex Gordon's 20th HR.
• Since 1919, just 6 pitchers have more wins as a starter in their first 195 games than Verlander's 104: Dwight Gooden (109), Vic Raschi, Juan Marichal, Roger Clemens, Tom Seaver, Mike Mussina. Verlander tied CC Sabathia with 58 wins over the last 3 years.

-- Brett Gardner might not get big love from the Win Probability Added scores, due to the early timing of his heroics. But anyone who saw the game knows that he had the biggest hand in New York's 3-2 win over Toronto, which put them back in 1st place. Read the rest of this entry »

It ain't rocket science.

Here are the top 5 teams in MLB this year in terms of pitches seen per plate appearance:

The full list for all 30 teams is here.

On top of that, guess who the top 2 AL teams are for plate appearances per game? Boston is #1 with 39.49 and New York (A) is #2 at 39.02. Across all of MLB, Cincinnati edges the Yankees slightly at 39.06 and the ML average is 38.16.

So that's more plate appearances per game AND more pitches per plate appearances. You do the math. When the two top teams in these categories get together, it makes for a long game.

Incidentally, the Pirates and Twins, while they see a lot of pitches per PA, are at the bottom of MLB in terms of PA per game. The Twins are way down there at just 37.04. And the Reds get a lot of plate appearances but only see 3.78 pitches per PA, below average.

Yeah, those Red Sox-Yankees games take a long time and involve a lot of pitches.

Last night, Andruw Jones received 36 pitches over his 4 plate appearances. That included a 14-pitch walk he worked ahead of Russell Martin's go-ahead 2-run double.

That seems like a pretty high number for 4 PA's...can anybody find a higher total?