Stats

A casual Cleveland Indians fan flipping through the sports section would let his face fall if he noticed Justin Masterson's numbers so far this year.

At 0-3 with a 5.68 ERA, his basic stats are bad enough to make Joe Six-Pack put down his coffee, stare into space, and mumble something about the good old days.

After surrendering seven runs in four innings Sunday against Oakland, even diehard Tribe fan Samantha Bunten was compelled to ask, "What on earth is wrong with Justin Masterson?"

            “That won’t continue.” A new motto for Pittburgh Pirates fans to live by.

            During last night’s game, FSN Pittsburgh commentators Tim Neverett and Greg Brown stressed this point over and over again.

Vazquez has now pitched 20 innings, just under half of Wang's 42 last year. Otherwise, their statistics are eerily similar. Both of them have ERAs in the 9s. Vazquez's FIP, or sabermetric ERA, is 6.32, actually higher than Wang's 5.38 was. (FIP is a formulated "ERA" that uses home runs, strikeouts, and base on balls as inputs.)

The 2010 Astros can be best summed up by this stat: through 15 games, the pitching staff have more extra base hits (2) than left fielder and cleanup hitter Carlos Lee (1).

Certainly, Lee will snap out of it. Right?

Right?

It's not just Lee that has suffered offensive atrophy in the first three weeks of the season. The Astros managed nine hits in Thursday's 5-1 loss to Florida, but all nine were singles.

Four of the hits came with two out, which didn't get the 21,802 fans giddy for a rally most knew wasn't going to happen.

I know that is a weird title for an article, but I didn't know what else to call it.

It is a subject most of us never think about or simply didn't know about them.

I am referring to the RBI that are left after a ball caroms off the wall with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 9th or extra innings walk offs in a tie-game or come from behind.

So far this season, the Pittsburgh Pirates have given up 75 runs and scored only 53.

That (negative) differential is better than only those of the cellar-dwelling Baltimore Orioles and Houston Astros. So you wouldn't expect the Pirates to be 7-5, or above the .500 mark. But they are.

That's because their six most recent victories have come with scores of 5-3, 5-4, 4-3, 6-5, and 6-3, and 4-3.

Only the opener against the Los Angeles Dodgers wasn't "close." This represents the most close games with which the Pirates have opened the season since at least 1996.

This kind of scenario happens all the time.

Go back to 1997 for a minute. The Minnesota Twins dealt All-Star second baseman Chuck Knoblauch to the New York Yankees for Christian Guzman, Eric Milton, Danny Mota, and Brian Buchanan.

Eric Milton, who was an All-Star and pitched a no-hitter for the Twins, was traded to Philadelphia for Carlos Gomez and Nick Punto.

Brian Buchanan was traded to the San Diego Padres for Jason Bartlett, who was then sent to Tampa Bay for Delmon Young and Brendan Harris.

The Texas Rangers have always been prominent on one side of the baseball equation—hitting. This was the team, after all, that signed A-Rod and drafted Mark Teixiera (who are now playing for tonight's opponent, the high-budget Yankees).

What is up with Jorge Cantu?

He now has at least one hit and one RBI in each of the Florida Marlins' first nine games.

That is a record. That's right, he is the first player to accomplish that in the history of Major League Baseball.

Mike Piazza of the New York Mets has the longest streak of a hit and an RBI. On Jun. 14, 2000, Piazza went 2-for-5 with three RBI against the Chicago Cubs. Then for 15 consecutive games, ending on Jul. 2, he managed to get at least one hit and at least one RBI. 

The Giants are six games into the regular season and look good at 5-1 (compounded by Tim Lincecum being 2-0, with another brilliant, seven-inning, 10-strikeout performance in a 6-3 win tonight ).

However, while the Giants' pitching has been solid so far, it has been a very different story offensively after the first two series of the year against the Astros and Braves.