From: tom dunne on
I was just looking at his numbers and I can't believe how bad the rest
of that Houston team is. Oswalt has made nine starts, and every
single one has been a quality start. He's never pitched fewer than
six innings, and he's never allowed more than three runs. He's
getting one strikeout per inning and his ERA is 2.66.

His record for the season? 2-6. Aaron Harang technically has a
better record, as he's 2-5.

Imagine putting in a good week's work every week, but your coworkers
coming along every Friday afternoon and trashing it. Oswalt's well
paid for his trouble, but the futility of working hard and seeing it
get pissed away - that just has to suck. Here's hoping the Astros
show a little mercy and trade him out of the division :)
From: Thomas R. Kettler on
In article
<a5f9f747-aa80-4418-80b4-51fe5f537109(a)z33g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>,
tom dunne <dunnetg(a)gmail.com> wrote:

> I was just looking at his numbers and I can't believe how bad the rest
> of that Houston team is. Oswalt has made nine starts, and every
> single one has been a quality start. He's never pitched fewer than
> six innings, and he's never allowed more than three runs. He's
> getting one strikeout per inning and his ERA is 2.66.
>
> His record for the season? 2-6. Aaron Harang technically has a
> better record, as he's 2-5.
>
> Imagine putting in a good week's work every week, but your coworkers
> coming along every Friday afternoon and trashing it. Oswalt's well
> paid for his trouble, but the futility of working hard and seeing it
> get pissed away - that just has to suck. Here's hoping the Astros
> show a little mercy and trade him out of the division :)

That's why W-L records are vastly overrated. For a comparison, check out
Jamie Moyer's stats:

<http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/players/3932>

Moyer has a W-L record of 5-3 but with an ERA of 4.22.

However, he has the Phillies batting for him versus the Astros which are
dead last in runs scored at 122 for 41 games meaning they have averaged
less than 3 runs/game. To indicate how anemic the Lastros offense is,
that corresponds to roughly 482 runs for a 162 game season and would be
3rd worst in the NL in 1968 and 4th worst overall in the majors in 1968,
the season defined as the worst since the dead-ball era for offense.

After the 1968 season, the strike zone went back to armpits to knees
from the shoulders to knees instituted after the 1961 season and the
pitcher's mound was defined to not be allowed to be higher than 10".

<http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/NL/1968.shtml>
<http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/AL/1968.shtml>

The best example of how W-L records are overrated is when Nolan Ryan had
an 8-16 record in 1987 for the Astros despite leading the NL with a 2.76
ERA.

Dan Petry was the opposite since he would typically be roughly a league
average pitcher yet have good W-L records since the Tigers always seemed
to score 6 runs when he pitched.

<http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/p/petryda01.shtml>
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