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The Jackson Five says it's as easy as A, B, C or do, re, mi, but as the baseball playoffs inch closer and closer, the level of difficulty will depend on whose 1, 2, 3 pitchers each team is faced with.
Take the Houston Astros, for example — who wants to deal with Rogers Clemens, Andy Pettitte, and Roy Oswalt in the first round?
There may be a number of teams who run the gamut for a playoff berth, but no starting pitching staff is as ominous as the Astros trio.
Clemens, a seven-time Cy Young award-winner, anchors the staff and will likely win an eighth this year. The Astros will not have homefield advantage in the playoffs, but Clemens will gladly start Game 1 on the road — he's 16-2 in his last 29 road starts and boasts an ERA of 0.37 away from home this year.
It doesn't get much easier after that as Oswalt and Pettitte are also in the top five in MLB for ERA.
Second in line would be the dominant duo from St. Louis, featuring the other Cy Young candidate, Chris Carpenter, and Mark Mulder. Few teams are interested in tackling this tandem as Carpenter has made a strong case to be baseball's top pitcher, leading the league in wins, while Mulder has a postseason ERA of 2.25.
The fearsome tag team of John Smoltz and Tim Hudson for the Atlanta Braves is also one to avoid, particularly with Mike Hampton lurking in the background. Smoltz is right behind Clemens and Carpenter for NL pitching statistics and has been downright evil since returning to the rotation. Hudson and Hampton have battled nagging injuries, but when healthy, can cool off the hottest of bats.
The Chicago White Sox have a healthy rotation themselves featuring Mark Buehrle, Freddy Garcia, and Jon Garland. The threesome has combined for a 40-14 record, but is relatively untested in the playoffs. Nonetheless, they have the deepest rotation in the American League and it's because of that that they are the top team in baseball.
The Athletics' top two starters, Barry Zito and Rich Harden, are more domineering than any of the White Sox trio, but they lack a third starter to keep pace. Zito is the AL Pitcher of the Month for July and hasn't lost since June 19th, while Harden has the AL's second-best ERA.
We know that pitching wins in the playoffs and these five postseason-bound teams are well-equipped, unlike the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, San Diego Padres, or Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
Last year, three of the four National League playoff representatives (Atlanta, Los Angeles, and St. Louis) did not have a dominant pitcher in the starting rotation and aside from Curt Schilling and John Santana. Meanwhile, the American League was similarly devoid.
This year, it's different. Power batting numbers have diminished (probably because of steroid crackdown), which means there will be an even stronger emphasis on pitching and if you are a hardcore baseball fan, how much better can the pitching matchups get than Zito vs. Buehrle, Carpenter vs. Clemens, or Hudson vs. Mulder?
I'm frothing already.
The Jackson Five and premier pitching mix like Mondays and me.
"I don't say that we ought to all misbehave, but we ought to look as if we could." — George Orson Welles
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August 8, 2005
Russ Lockhart:
God, I’m glad he’s frothing already; he needs to be. In the third graphy of the column, hw wrote,”There may be a number of teams who run the gamut for a playoff birth, but no starting pitching staff is as ominous as the Astros trio.”
I bet that would be extremely painful! Vying for a playoff birth; wouldn’t it be easier to compete for a playoff berth. .