Friday presents a number of excellent pitching matchups as we start the final weekend of the regular season. In addition, the AL Wild Card and NL Central Championship will be decided this weekend.
A.J. Burnett and Homer Baily get the ball rolling as the Pirates and Reds battle for home field in the NL Wild Card game. Pittsburgh leads the Reds by one game, and the teams split the 16 games they played so far. Which ever team wins two will have the advantage, although there is a low probability that a Pirates sweep will lead to a tie for the division lead. Burnett struck out 28 Reds in 18 2/3 innings this season, but he also walked eight. Bailey missed a lot of Pirates bats as well, with 23 K in 18 innings. The fans should stay cool in Cincinnati this evening.
Cliff Lee faces Kris Medlen as the Phillies try to spoil Atlanta’s bid for best record in the NL. Lee topped 210 innings for the fifth season in a row, ranking 5th in innings pitched in that time frame. Now in his fifth season in the majors, Medlen has consistently walked about a batter every four innings. This is a great game to watch to see pitchers who can control the strike zone.
Former Rangers starter C.J. Wilson tries to spoil Texas’s bid for the wild card as the Angels face Alexi Ogando. The Rangers beat up Wilson pretty handily, as he owns a 7.92 ERA in seven starts against his former team since moving to the Angels. In a mixed role as starter and reliever this September, Ogando allowed just one run in 18 innings of work.
Stephen Strasburg and Patrick Corbin square off in a battle of great young pitchers. STrasburgh should end the season with a better ERA than in 2012, but without blowing away batters at the same rate. He still strikes out more than a batter an inning, but the rate is now extremely good, rather than unworldly. Corbin owns a 2.68 ERA at home this season. The league did seem to figure him out a bit, as his overall ERA stands at 4.93 since the All-Star break.
Oakland has an outside chance of catching the Red Sox for best record in the American League and home field advantage through the playoffs. They send Bartolo Colon against Felix Hernandez. A win by Colon tonight would mark the fourth time he reached the 18 win level in his career. His 2.64 ERA rates as the lowest single season mark of his career. Felix struck out 200 batters for the fifth year in a row, and since the start of the 2009 season ranks second in the category behind Justin Verlander, although Clayton Kershaw is right on his tail.
Enjoy!