Red Sox/Yankee starters through 12 games

One of the statistical reports that I'm going to do, probably weekly, is a comparison of the 2005 Red Sox starters to the 2004 Red Sox starters and the 2005 Yankee starters.


Before the season started, I addressed the issue of the Red Sox starting pitching and how it compared to both the 2004 Red Sox and the 2005 Yankees. It seemed to be the conventional wisdom that the 2005 Red Sox starting pitching would pale in either comparison, conventional wisdom that I rejected. Conventional wisdom from the likes of Tony Massarotti, who told us

Torre believes he has the best pitching staff he has ever managed. And deep down, you can bet that he rests comfortably armed with additional knowledge, too.

His New York Yankees have better pitching than the Red Sox.

An opinion? No, no, no. That’s a fact.

No, Tony, that's an opinion. One that contradicts my position. And I provided evidence in support of my position.

Two weeks is a ridiculously small sample size. It proves nothing. But just for the fun of it, here's what the data on the first couple of weeks suggests.

Red Sox/Yankee starting pitching through 12 games - 2004-2005

	IP/G	WHIP	ERA	Avg GSc	QS	QS %
2005 Red Sox	6	1.389	3.875	50.42	7	58%
2004 Red Sox	6.03	1.465	4.479	49.92	6	50%
2004 Yankees	5.72	1.515	4.981	45.58	5	42%
2005 Yankees	5.39	1.655	5.289	42.67	3	25%

Through 12 games, the Red Sox starters have more quality starts, a lower ERA, and a lower WHIP than they did last year, while pitching only 1/3 inning less. Through 12 games, the Red Sox starters have more quality starts, a lower ERA, a lower WHIP and more innings pitched, than the Yankees do. And that's not counting the 10 un-earned runs that the Yankee starters have allowed compared to only two for Boston's.

Again, it's only 12 games, 7.4% of a season. It might look completely different in another week.

But I don't see anything here that suggests that Tony Massarotti was right and I was wrong...

Red Sox/Yankee starters through week 2

	GS	IP	ER	ERA*	GSc	QS
Wakefield	3	19.67	3	1.37	64	3
Clement	3	17.33	6	3.12	52	2
Pavano	3	14	6	3.86	43.3	1
Mussina	3	16.67	8	4.32	42.3	1
Johnson	3	19	10	4.74	52.3	1
Wells	3	17.67	10	5.09	44.3	1
Arroyo	2	11.67	7	5.4	44.5	1
Schilling	1	5.67	5	7.94	35	0
Wright	2	9	8	8	35	0
Brown	1	6	6	9	28	0

Tim Wakefield has been dominant so far. The Yankees have gotten 3 largely mediocre starts from their ace, Randy Johnson, the Red Sox have gotten 1 poor start from their ace. Carl Pavano's ERA vastly overrates his actual contribution, as it ignores 4 runs that he allowed in Baltimore because a hard ground ball was called an error and not a single, on what would have been the first out of an inning. When a pitcher gives up single-walk-single with 2 outs, it's tough to let him off the hook just because 5 batters earlier a scalded ground ball wasn't handled. Jaret Wright's been awful, his high-wire escape in Boston on Wednesday notwithstanding.

I've said it before, I'll say it again. There's no reason to think that the Yankee starting pitching is better than Boston's. There's no reason to think that Boston's starting pitching can't match Boston's 2004 starting pitching.