When you see a pitcher with a 2-7 record, what do you think?
Pirates’ Paul Maholm Looking For Some Luck
Bum. One more bad game away from a ticket to the Lickskillet League.
What about a pitcher with a 49-66 career record?
Journeyman. Innings-eater. Replacement-level.
Well, Paul Maholm -- scheduled to start Thursday afternoon against the New York Mets -- is no bum.
This season, anyway, he’s just unlucky.
There’s a common opinion holding that luck evens out over the course of the season. It doesn’t.
But even just a third of a way into the season, a lot of the luck has evened out. Case in point: Today there are only seven starting pitchers with adjusted ERAs (ERA+) better than league average and winning percentages .333 or lower. Generally speaking, if you pitch well in the first couple of months of the season, you win.
Not these guys, though. Listed in order of ERA+ ...
Jeremy Guthrie (2-7, 124 ERA+)
He's got the best ERA+ in the group and the best strikeout-to-walk ratio (4.45) and, yes, those two facts are distinctly related.
Paul Maholm (2-7, 119)
Maholm's really just doing what he always does. His 3.18 ERA is uncharacteristic, but his underlying ratios are all right in line with his career norms, so there's no reason to think he's become a different pitcher this season. He is a perfectly adequate major-league starter, perfectly capable of sucking up 200 innings per season and posting a league-average ERA. He's pitched in tough luck this season, obviously. Maybe Kevin Correia would be willing to spare just a small dollop of his luck.
Brandon McCarthy (1-4, 118)
McCarthy's luck -- just one win in nine starts, despite pitching the best baseball of his career -- turned worse when he suffered a shoulder injury, just the latest shoulder injury in a series of shoulder injuries that have essentially defined his career. If the Universe were a Fair Place, McCarthy might have at least gone 4-1 before hitting the DL.
Dustin Moseley (1-6, 109)
San Diego's Moseley has been unlucky, no question. But his 1.45 strikeout-to-ratio is the least impressive in this group, and his 3.18 ERA seems less impressive when we recall that he does (roughly) half his pitching in Major League Baseball's only extreme pitcher's park. Also, when it comes to bad luck Moseley's got nothing on teammate Tim Stauffer, who's won just once despite a strikeout-to-walk ratio twice as good as Moseley's.
Matt Garza (2-4, 109)
Speaking of strikeouts, the Cubs' Garza was off the charts before he hit the DL with a balky elbow. Like McCarthy, Garza's bad luck seems especially galling since he'll probably not pitch nearly as well upon coming off the Disabled List. If history's any guide.
Madison Bumgarner (2-6, 103)
So good as a rookie last season, Bumgarner deserves better. That said, he's struggled to control the strike zone this season -- relative to last season, anyway -- and it's still not quite a certainty that Bumgarner's going to take his place right behind Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain as another Giant ace.
Scott Baker (2-4, 103)
Baker's not been brilliant, but compared to most of his Minnesota teammates he's been a fountain of Mr. Clean in a sea of toxic sludge. And his record is largely a function of a Twins "offense" that ranks last in the American League in scoring.
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