As the regular season quickly draws to a close and the Phillies lead in the NL East keeps growing, it’s becoming more apparent just how incredible a season Brad Lidge is having. As Chamo brought up earlier, one could argue he has been more valuable to the Phillies than the MLB saves record breaker, Francisco Rodriguez, has been to the Angels. Having pitched two more innings than K-Rod, every single one of his stats are not only comparable to his AL counterpart — they’re more impressive. If Lidge had as many blown saves as Rodriguez has, the Phillies would be knotted up with the Astros right now as the long shot Wild Card contenders in the National League.
But as hard as it may be to believe, his stats should look even better.
On July 25th in a game against the Braves, Charlie Manuel called upon the services of our perfect closer in the ninth inning of a non-save situation with the Phillies trailing 1-0. Lidge, obviously unaccustomed to pitching without a lead, got off to a shaky start by allowing a leadoff double to Greg Norton followed by a bunt single to Gregor Blanco, a walk to Yuney Escobar, and a run scoring single to now-Angel, Mark Teixeira. Then, with the bases still loaded and nobody out, he surrendered a granny to Brian McCann to give the Braves an insurmountable 6-0 lead. Manuel finally came to his rescue and lifted him in favor of Clay Condrey, but the damage had already been done. That one shitty appearance raised his ERA more than a full run; from a miniscule 1.29 to a still-respectable 2.36.
Now I’m not one for hypothetical stats or saying “if this didn’t happen, then…”, but check out the difference in ERA and WHIP this one lousy (meaningless) outing makes — these numbers are cot-damn Cy Young worthy:
6 Comments on “Brad Lidge’s Stats Could Actually Be Better Than They Already Are”
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September 23rd, 2008 at 8:31 am
Brad Lidge is awesome, but not historically so. For supreme awesomeness look at Dennis Eckersley circa 1990. He barely got a whiff of the Cy Young that year.
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:01 am
While I will readily admit that I love homerism as much as the next guy, I must say that this award has to go to Giant-Ants pitcher, Tim Lincecum (and I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords).
We absolutely hit him everywhere in his major league debut in 2007 – since then he’s been dirty nasty, this year especially so. He’s definitely the best NL pitcher, and how he compiled a 17-4 record in front of that lineup leaves no excuses for someone of Hamels’ ilk…
September 23rd, 2008 at 10:22 am
that is one helluva stretch for a Simpson’s reference, Gigi.
But I agree, Lidge has had a great season, but he should not be getting the Cy Young. If you talk to any Mets fan, they will tell you it will be split between their entire rotation. End of story.
September 23rd, 2008 at 11:20 am
This post really proves how skewed and useless the save statistic is. How can you call an appearance where Lidge came in to try and keep the score 1-0 meaningless? Do you think Lidge was any less “on” just because he was behind a run instead of up 1-3? Seriously, give me a break. I love Lidge as much as the next Phillies fan, but that was just a bad outing in a big spot, plain and simple. He was asked to keep the game to 1 run so the Phillies might come back in the bottom of the ninth and he blew it, plain and simple. I’m not gonna criticize him for it, because he’s been awesome as his ERA, WHIP, and K/9 will attest, but let’s not start cherry picking stats. Closers should be used in big spots where the team absolutely needs some stops, not just when you’re leading by less than 4 runs :/
September 23rd, 2008 at 11:24 am
At the 40/40 club, ESPN on the screen
September 23rd, 2008 at 12:01 pm
@Jon: I hear you, man. If you ever came to this site before you’d know I don’t exactly pride myself in being a stat-wizard. I was merely trying to point out that one (non-save) appearance affected his ERA by 0.66, which is a pretty significant number.
Don’t be :/, be B-) — the Phillies are going to the ‘offs.
btw, I conveniently left out the fact that Ryan Howard hit a 2-run shot in the bottom half of the ninth, which theoretically would’ve won the game if Lidge shut them down.