Blogging About Baseball

And you probably don’t care what I’ve got to say about it! Well, fine then!

You can read about it here.

Or here.

And here.

Why not here?

And here (Or the place where they spelled “league” incorrectly! Chuckle!).

Or there?

So I woke up this morning to find my neighbor distraught. Sometime during the night, someone bashed in the small, blind spot window on the passenger side of his 14-year-old Cutlass Supreme.

But I have more bad news for him.

If the Royal’s Zack Greinke doesn’t win the American League Cy Young award, I’m going to be pacing the neighborhood taking vengeance upon small animals, i.e. squirrels and quail, and irreplaceable car windows.

I’ve already called Neighborhood Watch.

I don’t expect there to be as much competition in the American League Cy Young race as many of the popular media outlets prophesy. It’s going to come down to two guys: the Royal’s Greinke and Seattle Mariner’s ace Felix Hernandez. If anyone else wins, it’s official: I’m switching to football.

First, I think its important to put their numbers side-by-side. Here are their statistics, per order of ESPN’s Cy Young Predictor module:

At just 23-years-old, King Felix finally had the breakout that had tantalized many analysts since the beginning of his career. In 2009, Hernandez posted career highs in wins, innings pitched, games started, strikeouts, and earned run average. He kept lefties to a .228 average and righties to a .226 average using his dazzling fastball, 2-seamer, hard curve, slider, and change.

The campaign was good enough to earn him his first All-Star nod. His incredibly consistent season also placed him atop the leaderboards for Win-Loss Percentage, Wins, and Hits Per Nine Innings with marks of .792, 19, and 7.542, respectively.

Not too shabby, by any measure.

But Greinke’s 2009 was even better.

Sure, he started one less game and pitched nine less innings. Sure, his win-loss record of 16-8 pales in comparison to Hernandez’s 19-5.

But wins are slowly becoming an antiquated stat, one that will almost surely lose its significance one of these days (my guess being December 21, 2012). Simply put, pitchers don’t have much control over whether they win or lose. They can stack the deck in their favor by pitching well, but the statistic is almost completely reliant on potent offenses and capable late relief.

And Greinke played for the friggin’ Kansas City Royals; the fragile, anemic team with the 12th worst batting average among the 14 American League clubs, the team that slugged just 144 homeruns over the course of a 162-game season, good for 13th best in the same field.

But that’s not even the worst part. That dubious distinction would belong to the tremendously awful bullpen. In 2009, the Royal’s bullpen went 16-26 with an earned run average over 5.00. They let 45 percent of inherited runners score, 11 percent worse than the league average. Just one regular reliever, stud closer Joakim Soria, posted an ERA below 4.00.

In two starts where Greinke left the game without allowing a run, he got no-decisions. In two more starts in which he allowed just one run, he got a loss.

The team ended the season 32 games below .500.

Assumptions like this are almost always faulty and unfair, but it’s fair to proclaim that Greinke should have a markedly better record.

And let’s not forget that Greinke allowed 11 fewer runs than Hernandez in just one less start. And that he struck out 25 more batters in nine less innings.

Greinke’s season was part of history. Hernandez’s wasn’t.

Chances are that many of us have forgotten about this now, but his 6-0 record and 0.40 ERA through the season’s first six starts put him in the elite company of just two men: Walter “Big Train” Johnson and Fernando Valenzuela. Extend that through his first 10 starts and Greinke’s 0.84 ERA is a measure of dominance unseen since Juan Marichal’s historic run in 1966.

A Cy Young Award would be another notch in Greinke’s headboard.

And if he doesn’t win, well, watch out neighborhood: there’ll be hell to pay.

UPDATE: Everyone is safe.

No one should be surprised that Chicago’s Mark Buehrle just a set a record for the most batters retired in a row, setting down 45 consecutive en route to breaking teammate Bobby Jenks and old-time Giant Jim Barr’s mark of 41.

It’s what he’s been doing for years, quietly toiling away in that droll, other franchise in Chicago.

For the past nine seasons, Buehrle has started at least 30 games and pitched at least 200 innings. And outside of his rookie campaign and a lackluster 2006, Buehrle’s earned run average has been well-below the league’s mean, only passing 4.00 twice. One member of Baseball Think Factory puts Buehrle’s career into simple terms:

For a decade now, Buehrle’s been an Alpha version of an innings-eater, an uber-effective grinder that will never blow you away with a 100 mile per hour fastball or a slider that moves from the wrists to the ankles, but who, when dealing, is capable of pitching like Cy Young re-incarnate.

In 2007, he pitched a no-hitter against the Rangers. Last week, he threw a perfect game against the Rays. And during his nine full seasons, Buehrle’s finished among the top ten in ERA five times.

But still, that’s not the real story with Buehrle. Durability is his true m.o.

Buehrle’s finished in the top ten in innings pitched seven times, six times in games started, and five times in complete games.

Of those complete games, one-third of them have been shutouts. Over the last ten seasons, Buehrle’s tossed 8 complete games where he surrendered zero earned runs, leaving him in absolutely elite company.

Buehrle’s recent coming out party, if you will, has led to speculation about his chances of making it into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

And while I think the speculation might be premature, it’s hard to deny the strength of Buehrle’s resume. A 38th round draft pick by the White Sox, Buehrle has accomplished a lot in his young career (he’s just 30-years-old).

He has a World Series ring, which he won, while working as a starter and closer, with the Sox in 2005. He’s been selected to the All Star game four times, one of which he started and won. He’s led the American League in innings pitched twice. Now he’s set the record for most consecutive batters retired in a row at 45.

And with his no-hitter in 2005 and his perfect game in 2009, Buerhle becomes only the sixth player to throw a no-hitter and perfect game. The other five? Randy Johnson, Sandy Koufax, Jim Bunning, Addie Joss, and Cy Young.

They’re all Hall of Famers (or soon to be).

Will he be next? What do you think of his chances?