Maddux Sports Blog

White Sox pitcher Gavin Floyd just can’t buy a break. The guy has come very close to a no-hitter twice in a month, and both times he has come up short. Tonight he had an out in the ninth against the Twins  before Joe Mauer found a massive gap in left center field for a double. Against the Tigers on April 12 he had an out in the eighth before giving up his first hit to Edgar Renteria. Those two games are closer to a no-hitter than most guys will come in their lives. Floyd is handling his near-misses with a sense of humor, but that’s the kind of thing you’ll see when you close your eyes for the rest of your life iunless you finally do get one.

Though Floyd missed the magical no-hitter, I started thinking about no-no’s as I was watching Floyd’s progress. More specifically, I was wondering what the right thing to do with the White Sox tomorrow would be if they did get a no-hitter today, and what I should do in Floyd’s next start if he got it done. That made me want to look back at recent no-hitters to see how the teams and pitchers bounced back. Is there a trend? Here’s a look at the last 10 no-hitters. (Keep in mind that this is a painfully small sample so it is pretty much meaningless, but it’s late and it’s raining and I’m bored so bear with me):

September 1, 2007 - Clay Buchholz, Boston - Boston won 3-2 the next day against Baltimore. In a truly bizarre move, Buchholz was rewarded for his amazing performance by being moved to the bullpen.

June 12, 2007 - Justin Verlander, Detroit - Detroit lost to Milwaukee as favorites the next day. Verlander had a stellar outing next time out - four hits, one run and 11 strikeouts in seven innings.

April 18, 2007 - Mark Buehrle, White Sox - Chicago beat Texas the next day as favorites. Buehrle was solid in winning his next outing - three earned runs in seven innings.

September 6, 2006 - Anibal Sanchez, Florida - Florida was blown out by Philadelphia the day after this game. Sanchez through seven solid innings (three earned runs in seven innings) in his next start.

May 18, 2004 - Randy Johnson, Arizona - The D-Backs won on the road as favorites in their next game. Johnson allowed two earned runs in seven innings in his next game.

June 11, 2003 - Six pitchers, Houston - The Astros lost to the Yankees the next day, but they were heavy underdogs. No pitcher lasted three innings, so that’s not relevant.

April 27, 2003 - Kevin Millwood, Philadelphia - The Phillies won against the Dodgers the next day as mild underdogs. Millwood was okay in his next start - three earned runs in six innings - but he ended up without a decision.

April 27, 2002 - Kevin Lowe, Boston - The Red Sox lost to Baltimore in their next game as very heavy favorites (-190). Derek Lowe had what seems to be the typical game post-no-hitter - three earned runs in seven innings. He didn’t get a decision, but the Sox did win.

September 3, 2001 - Bud Smith, St. Louis - The Cards won the next day as favorites. Smith didn’t appear again for two weeks, but he was very good - a shutout over seven innings.

May 12, 2001 - A.J. Burnett, Florida - Florida won easily the next day at even money. In his next start (which was just the third of his career) allowed just one run in six and a third to earn a win.

So, what have we learned? Nothing conclusive, but a couple of interesting things. First, there seems not to be a consistent way for a team to respond - the teams were 6-4 in the following games, but were probably only barely profitable because of the lines. On the other hand, it seems like a pitcher is a pretty solid bet coming off a no-hitter. All eight starters that were given a chance to start again in their next start were decent. None lost, and all managed to maintain some of their momentum from the previous game. Definitely worth a bet.

I’ve been sidetracked by the draft for a few days, but it is time now to get back to thinking about baseball. Here are a few of the things that caught my attention as I was getting caught back up:”

• Barry Zito makes $126 million and now he is heading to the bullpen. That’s ugly but not surprising - he’s o-6 after all. Still, this is a massive fall from grace for a guy who was supposed to be one of the elite arms in the league. A lot of bettors are probably pretty happy to see him go, too - he’s been an underdog in every game he has played, and at some juicy prices, so a lot of people have probably been sucked in by thinking that his next game could finally be the one in which he turns it around. When he’s in the bullpen that temptation is eliminated.
• James Shields had a ridiculously good game against the Red Sox - a two hit complete game shutout with seven strikeouts and just one walk. It was no fluke, though - this guy can pitch. He was 12-8 last year for a team that only won 66 games, and his strikeout to walk ratio was better than 5-to-1. This year he has allowed just 11 runs in six games, and he hasn’t allowed more than three in a game. His ERA dropped a full point from his first year in 2006 to last year, and it has dropped more than 1.3 points so far this year. Best yet he’s only 26, so the best is still ahead of him.
• Since we’re on the topic of pitchers, I owe a mea culpa to Chien Ming Wang. At the start of last year I was positive that this guy was a half-weight masquerading as a top-of-the rotation starter. He’d gone 19-6 the previous year, but I had no faith in his ability to recreate it. He didn’t - he went 19-7 instead. Now he has started out 5-0 on a team that is otherwise struggling, He has had one disastrous start - eight earned runs in four innings against the Red Sox - but in that one his team managed to bail him out and win 15-9 to leave him without a loss. I still can’t say that I’m in love with his stuff or that he’s a guy I like to watch pitch, but I really have no choice but to admit that this guy is an elite starter. Now if only the Yankees had another one to join him.

I know that I spend more time talking about the AL Central than anything else in baseball, but it is just so darned fascinating that you can’t look away - it’s like simultaneous car crashes. I was just about to sit down and right a comment of some sort about how the Tigers were finally showing some signs of life - they had won three straight after all, and their offense was hitting on all cylinders. I was also going to throw in a comment about how troubled Cleveland was - they were supposed to be neck and neck with Detroit, and they were, but it wasn’t supposed to be at 5-10. I had been busy all day, and I hadn’t checked out the scores all day, so I took a quick look before making my comments. So much for that article. After Detroit blew away the Indians 13-2 yesterday, they are now trailing Cleveland 11-1 in the 8th.

Cleveland’s best pitcher is C.C. Sabathia. Supposedly. You’d never guess it from the mess that he put out yesterday - nine earned runs in four innings. That moves him to 0-3, and raises some real concerns for backers of the team. I probably would have talked about that for a while, and then tried to find a comparison with the Tigers that made Detroit look better - you know, to build the the argument that Detroit was getting better. So much for that. Justin Verlander, Detroit’s best pitcher, went out tonight and threw out another stinker. He allowed five earned runs in five innings, and unless the Tigers make a miraculous comeback in the ninth he will move to a matching 0-3 record. To confound my problems, I probably would have made some comment about how Fausto Carmona signed a rich new contract and promptly went out and sucked badly in his first game as a rich man. That argument is pretty irrelevant now that Carmona went out and allowed just one run in six and two thirds tonight.

The point is that I have given up trying to figure out what is going on in this division. To make it more confounding, the teams that were supposed to be fighting for the spot at the bottom of the league - Chicago and Kansas City - are instead dueling at the top. It’s things like the start this division is enjoying (some of the teams, anyway) that are good for sports bettors - they remind us that logic isn’t an infallible tool. Sometimes things just don’t make sense, so you might as welll just sit back and enjoy the ride. Enjoy the car wreck, and just make sure that you don’t get caught in it.

I’m sitting here watching the Diamondbacks pound the life out of the Giants. That’s not much of an accomplishment, of course - I could take all the guys that live on my block and probably play the Giants tight. What is pretty clear, though, is that the D-Backs are a pretty fine team. I’m not exactly going out on a limb to say that - the win they are pretty much guaranteed to get this afternoon will move them to 10-4, which is the best record in the league (tied with the surprising Cardinals if they beat Milwaukee tonight). Unlike some of the teams that have jumped out to fast starts (that means you, Baltimore), Arizona has the look of a team that will be there until the end. This doesn’t come as a huge surprise - they are the third choice in the National League behind the Cubs and the Mets to win the World Series in the futures market.

The thing I like most about this team is that, with the exception of Justin Upton (ore about him later) the team isn’t hitting at an unsustainable level. Many of the other frontrunners are hitting out of their minds, but the D-Backs only have two players hitting over .300. That means that they can basically keep doing what they are doing, and keep winning as a result. They aren’t wining a lot of games by just one run (just one of their ten wins), so there is room for their offense to struggle a bit more than it is and still be sufficient to keep them competitive.

Back to Justin Upton. This rightfielder is just 20 years old and in his first full season in the big leagues, but you would never guess it by the way he is playing. He is hitting .388 with a ridiculous OBPS of .1143. It’s always a gamble when you pass the reins over to a guy so young, but he is certainly holding up his end of the bargain so far. He’ll obviously slow down from this ridiculous pace, but he has so much natural talent that the fall shouldn’t be extreme. This guy is the real deal, and he will be a big part of this team for as long as they keep him.

There isn’t a team out there that has a rotation any more effective in the top three spots than Arizona. Brandon Webb is obviously an elite starter, and his 3-0 start with a 2.14 ERA shows that he is right back in his own habits. Micah Owings has matured nicely, and looks as if he will live up to the potential he showed in his first year last year. He’s 2-0 to start, and will move to 3-0 when today’s game is finished. Danny Haren is also 2-0, the addition from Oakland who is making the switch of leagues look as  easy as it can possibly be. Add in Randy Johnson, who looked pretty good in his first action in a long time yesterday, and you have a solid rotation.

So, what’s my point? This is one of those teams that you will be able to rely on when you need a win over the season. They aren’t going to pay a lot because they are no secret to the public, and they won’t present a huge amount of value very often, but they are just a well built, reliable, solid team. A bettor needs a few of those in their repertoire.

When the Mets acquired Johan Santana from the Twins in exchange for mostly underwhelming talent it was seen as a steal - a major coup. The conventional wisdom was that he was the most dominant pitcher in the American League, so he would dominate in the weaker National League. He’s only three games into his new career, so it is far too soon to draw any conclusions yet, but if he plans to be dominant then he is easing into it. He’s just 1-2 after a loss on Saturday against Milwaukee, and as such he has burnt a fair bit of bettor money up so far. That’s not going according to plan, but is it time to panic yet? Of course not. Here are six reasons why:

1. K/BB ratio - One of the most glaringly impressive stats that Santana consistently puts forth is his strikeout to walk ratio - between 4/1 and 5/1 the last four years when he has been at his best. This year he has 18 strikeouts and just four walks - a 4.5/1 ratio. I love that stat as a solid indicator of quality, and Santana is at a significantly high level of quality this year as he always is.

2. Run support - Simply put, he hasn’t had any. The Mets have scored just two runs while he has been in the game during his last two outings. The lovechild of Sandy Koufax and Cy Young would struggle to win under those circumstances. The Mets have scored more runs than 18 other teams in the league, and they have the real potential to do much better than they are, so the problems that Santana has faced will be less of a problem as the season continues.

3. Schedule - His losses have come against Atlanta and Milwaukee. Those are two of the better teams in the league - they should both be competitive right to the end in their divisions. If he stays healthy then he will pitch against Washington twice and Pittsburgh once in his next half dozen starts. He’ll look much better in those games. The schedule will soften up and he’ll get his chance to shine against lesser competition through the season. His first start was against Florida, and he had by far his best start of the year.

4. Not typically a fast starter - Santana has won the Cy Young twice - in 2004 and 2006. He has stumbled at the start of both seasons. He had no decisions in each of his first starts in 2004, and was just 2-4 at the beginning of June, but he only lost twice after that point. He wasn’t nearly as bad in 2006, but he did go 0-3 in his first four starts before finding his stride. If he is still underwhelming two months from now then we should be concerned, but not now.

5. It’s not as easy as it seems - Moving from the AL to the NL has been proven to be very hard time and again in recent years. Tim Hudson has looked no better in the lesser league - he has had the same number of wins in his first three years in Atlanta as he had in his last three in Oakland. Barry Zito seemingly forgot how to pitch when he crossed the bay from Oakland to San Francisco. Derek Lowe was lousy in his first year in L.A., and it took Andy Pettitte a year to find his way in Houston. Interleague play and better video technology mean that new pitchers aren’t as mysterious as they used to be when they switch leagues, and batters aren’t as lost as people may think. Santana is going to be fine, and it probably won’t take a whole season, but if it does that’s just fine.

6. It takes time to love a catcher - For the last 3+ year, Santana has been throwing to Joe Mauer every time out. Mauer is among the best in the league, and they obviously worked well together. Now he has to get used to another catcher, Brian Schneider. There are signs that the comfort isn’t there yet - Santana has never had more than seven wild pitches in a season, and he has three in his first three games this year. Schneider has to get used to a new team as well, and he is struggling mightily at the bat, so he isn’t comfortable or at his best yet, either. On top of all that, he has never caught a pitcher anywhere near the caliber of Santana before - he spent his whole career in Washington until this year - so he can’t help but be a bit intimidated. When Schneider finds his stride and he and Santana build a relationship then they will be fine.

So, if you are one of the guys that has lost money on Santana this year and you are trying to figure out what is going on, just don’t worry about it. You may want to lay off him for a while while he gets comfortable, but there is no reason to believe that he is anything other than the Santana we have come to know and love. Maybe we have been watching too much football and college basketball, so we have forgotten just how long the baseball season is, and how meaningless one game is.

The AL Central has been fascinating so far this year, and I’m not just talking about how bad the Tigers have been. The Royals are a team that I was relatively optimistic about. I’m not crazy enough to love the team - by relatively optimistic I mean better than they have been in four years, but that only means that they need a win total that starts with a seven. Even though, I liked them, though, I certainly didn’t see them jumping out to a 6-2 start and a perch at the top of their division. They swept the Tigers to start the season, faltered lightly against Minnesota, and now they have a chance to sweep the Yankees tonight. That is two presumed playoff teams that have fallen to the Royals. It’s unexpected, but can it be sustainable? How are they doing it, and can they keep doing it?

I liked this team for three main reasons - they have a pitching staff which is better than they get credit for, they have a couple of incredible young hitting talents, and they hired themselves a very good first time manager. So far, things have been going as hoped.

Gil Meche hasn’t been great, but Zack Greinke seems to have his mental problems under control, and he has been almost unhittable. Brian Bannister and Brett Tomko have been almost as good. The rotation is full of talented but underappreciated guys, and they are working well. They won’t stay as strong as they have been, but they don’t have the look of a group that are just counting the seconds until their inevitable collapse, either. There are several teams out there with much more to worry about on the pitching side than the Royals.

The young bats - Alex Gordon and Billy Butler - have been every bit as good as expected. Better, even. Butler is hitting .406, while Gordon is at .303 and leads the team in home runs and RBIs. Besides them you have a couple of guys who are better than they get credit for. First baseman Ross Gload has bounced around a bit in his career, but he has a .295 career batting average in almost 370 games. He’s hitting .345 so far this year. Mark Grudzielanek is seen as a journeyman by most people, but the 37 year old has hit a very solid .290 on his career, and better than that in each of the last five seasons. The fact that he is hitting .407 is a bit of a surprise, but that he is leading the team in batting average isn’t.  It all boils down to this - he team has benefited from hot bats, but they haven’t been overachieving to such an extent that the team will be significantly worse down the road.

Trey Hillman, the new manager, is the third and perhaps biggest element in the big start. The guy is a born motivator - just listening to the guy for two seconds makes you want to jump up and do something. Whatever he is doing is working.

This team has been wildly profitable so far - they have been favored just once, and a $100 bet on each game would have generated a total profit of $698 in just eight games. That pace won’t keep up obviously, but I do suspect that their rate of improvement this year significantly exceeds thepublic perception of the team, and that means that they could provide serious value this year. The last time they were any good - in 2003 when they won 83 games - the public never really caught up to them, and they ended the year as the fourth most profitable team in the league.

This is the second week in a row that I have written this same type of article. It’s almost as if it is a recurring feature or something.

Here’s what is bouncing through my mind on this hump day:

1. Memphis is still favored? - I am shocked. It’s not that I don’t think that they should be - I have them narrowly favored to win it all. It’s just that I never thought that the public would go this way. It goes to show just how short the attention span of people is - a week ago Memphis was doomed and UCLA was the power.

2. Did Tom Crean get a huge raise? - I sure hope so. I understand the allure of a major program like Indiana, and I know that coaches have gigantic egos that will make them believe that they can do anything - including turning around a broken program. I just can’t imagine the headaches that he is exposing himself to by going from Marquette to Indiana. He probably has no returning starters, he may very well have sanctions to deal with, and his program is as tarnished as one can be. He’ll turn it around eventually, but not before he drives himself insane.

3. Sean Sutton ‘resigned’ from Oklahoma State? - I’m sure that that was a decision that he came to by his own free will. You’ll be able to knock me over with a feather if Bill Self ends up there.

4. What is wrong with the city of Miami? - It’s not just the Heat that are disgusting - The Marlins are a disgrace, too. Mark Hendrickson was their opening day starter. I am fairly surprised that he even made a roster, never mind that he is at the top of a rotation. Of course, you don’t get much when you are paying 33 players less combined than the Yankees are paying A-Rod. That is wrong on so many levels.

5. The Royals are 2-0 and the Tigers are 0-2?!? - Need any more proof that it is a long season and true trends take time to emerge?

6. Are the Mets doomed? Cursed? - Pedro Martinez left his first game with a hamstring injury. He needed the dreaded MRI. Fragility - that’s why I am not as high on the Mets as I am apparently supposed to be. Pedro is far from the only one on the team who is a longshot to last the season unscathed.

7. Did you see the display of closing power put on by the Cubs and the Brewers on Monday? - Both Kerry Wood and Eric Gagne were dishing up meatballs that I KNOW I could have hit. It was as bad as two pitchers not named Brad Lidge can look in their role. I sure don’t like the chances of either of those guys being the answer for their teams.

8. Can anyone get past Denver? - I sure like the Nuggets right now - They have won six of seven, they have a pretty easy remaining schedule, and they are currently in a playoff spot. If they can hold on, and I think they will, then they will be incredibly dangerous. I loved how they bounced back from a lousy loss to the Suns to beat the the next game. A.I. may be a freak, but he’s ridiculously good.

9. The closer I get to Saturday, the less I like Kansas - That’s not a question, just a statement of fact. They could certainly win, but they will have to really surprise me to do so.

10. Is Pau Gasol ready? - He’s not 100%, but he is due back tonight. Think maybe Kobe is just a little happy about that? The last ten days have not been pretty for the heroes of Hollywood.