Company

Even half of this would do…
It wasn’t all too long ago that Tribe fans were getting a bit uneasy about this year’s version of Paul Byrd.  Not that you can really blame us as the veteran lasted a combined 7.1 innings over his first two starts – allowing nine earned runs!  Nine!  Couple that with the fact this is an “extension” year that saw Byrd pull in another paycheck, and it may have made things a bit worse.

But since starting the season with an 0-2 clip, Byrd has been nothing short of stellar, allowing five earned runs over his last four starts.  For comparison purposes to his start, last night’s appearance was 7.2 innings of four-hit, shutout ball.  The down side to all of this: The fact that Paulie has one win to show for all of this work.  Ironically, said win came against the Yankees just last week.

There’s no denying that Byrd’s colleague Cliff Lee has been masterful out of the gate.  He’s 5-0 and has only allowed four earned runs all season – three of which were two nights ago.  However, Lee has had at least four runs of support in three of his five wins.  Byrd, however, has averaged only two runs of support per game over his four-game stretch.  This doesn’t exactly allow for wiggle room.Only one night after the Tribe put up an eight-spot on the Mariners, they give Byrd one run through his eight innings of work – only to be blown by a Casey Blake error in the ninth, allowing Seattle to tie it up. 

Save those few awful outings by C.C. Sabathia, and our starting pitching has been fairly solid.  The down side is that when Masa Kobayashi is third on your team in wins (2), your offense simply isn’t doing their share of the work.  Cliff Lee, Fasuto Carmona, and Jake Westbrook all have ERAs under 3.00.  Paul Byrd isn’t far behind at 3.74.  Aaron Laffey had one rough inning, but his WHIP is at 0.71. 

Sabathia has struck out 19, walked 3 and has allowed one earned run over his last two starts, but he too has gotten no more than one run of support in four of five starts.  Thankfully, that one game where he did get some help came against the Royals in that 15-1 demolition.  Let’s hope that’s a sign of things to come.

 Print This