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PLAYOFFS

Note that all other clubs are .500 or worse, including Cleveland at 18-18, Minnesota at 15-18, and the Orc Horde.  6 teams have terrible records and several teams have records worse than .333.

Note well that Houston is technically behind LAA.

Note carefully that of the four teams in "pennant" contention, one is Toronto.  Whose clock we just cleaned!  On the road, with the 2 wins being Paxton's no-hitter and Thursday's "tripling" of the score on them.  Let them try to forget that one any time soon.  Next time, schedule UNLV and Hawaii, you hosers.

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MIKE LEAKE, INSIGHT STAGE ONE 

Leake has always been an average-solid pitcher.  For years.  In the NL, which had booked him in about 1998.  Dr. Detecto surmised that Leake might have a season or two of nice performance, having switched over to the league that hadn't booked him.  Well, at least to the league not so used to him.  You can buy books fairly cheaply at the Winter Meetings.

Dr. Detecto, as so infrequently, was wrong.  True, Leake was great last fall, but his first 7 starts for us this season retched up a 3-3, 6.28 mess.  In which many of his component stats, notably BB and GB/FB, were ruinous.

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STAGE TWO

It's actually a positive to note that Leake's negative results were due to Leake's own negative pitching.  For instance, click through to his card and scroll over to BB/9.  See if you can, um, detect anything out of alignment.

His groundballs are also way off, as is his HR/F (usually groundball pitchers cough up lots of gophers per [rare] flyball).

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STAGE THREE

Leake threw the ball great on Thursday.  Just trust me.

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STAGE FOUR

Leake threw tons of fastballs Thursday.  Just trust Brooks.

Leake, the 3-3 6.28 guy, had been throwing a crazy low 36% fastballs.  His fastball sinks, very very hard.  Thursday he threw 55% fastballs.  He got his normal groundball rate.

Everything's aright!  And Leake's beard is growing in quickly, compensating for the hair loss that the Philistine shrew inflicted on him.

No, "everything's aright" would be section three above.  Section FOUR notes that Leake threw all these fastballs in response to a Jabba-sized, bloated early lead.  

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Leaving us where?

:: shrug ::  "You can't cheat this game," said Bill James or Pete Rose or somebody.  Leake is who he is.  It was nice to see him pitch like it, but it doesn't change his projection.  Which is average-solid.

.... I really like the daffy ways his pitches move, by the way.

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JAMES PAZOS

Threw a great inning.  "He'd be a real shot in the arm for our bullpen," sighed Scott Servais surreptitiously.  How soon will he start to throw strikes?  I dunno.  His mechanics (including his CG) are as good as the next LOOGY's.

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BABVA,

Dr D