Kind of a Must Win Tonight, Eh?

You've got this guy going for Minnesota, as we all know.

And this guy going for Baltimore.  I mean, really, an ERA over 36?  Dear lord.

Good news is that it's a favorable matchup for the Sox, with Ace going against Esty.  Quick bit of peculiar information--did you know that despite giving up 19 HR in the first half and 4 HR in the second half, Garland has actually given up a higher ratio of flyballs in the second half?

It's odd.  Garland has struck out a few more people and walked a few less people during his Ace run.*  But that just explains the improvement at the margins.  The sole reason that he had the Wright stuff in the first half and the right stuff in the second half has been a lot more flyballs going 300 feet, rather than 375 feet.  This does not bode well for the game tonight--Oakland plays like a homer-friendly park these days.

* Actually, the standard numbers are a little misleading.  Although Garland's K/9 didn't go up THAT much (4.54 to 5.09) pre- and post-ASB, there is a lot of noise masking a more substantial improvement.  Basically, he was giving up a lot more hits in the first half, meaning he was facing a lot more batters, meaning that when he was striking out about the same number of batters PER OUT (which is essentially what K/9 measures), he was striking out substantially fewer PER BATTER FACED.  Indeed, doing the math, Garland was striking out 11.7% of batters faced pre-ASB, but 14.0% of batters faced post-ASB.  So his lower hit rate made a "true" 19.7% increase in K rate look like a less impressive 12.1% increase.