Quote of the day
"Of course the ultimate goal in this league is to win a championship. But I'm never going to say I wasted a year. I'm blessed to even wake up and do something I love every day. So it's never wasted." -- Oklahoma forward Kevin Durant, after the team was eliminated from the NBA playoffsDaily blurb
With only one series remaining in the second round of the NBA playoffs, it’s likely that daily contests for NBA games have come to an end for this season. I’ve been maintaining the sortable stats for hoops throughout the playoffs so far, but will be ending that now. Even if some of the contest sites offer 2-day contests with just two games on back-to-back nights, the sortable stats aren’t really a useful tool for analysis with such limited choices. So, if you’ve been using the sortable stats for hoops this season, and especially if you’ve been playing at any of the affiliated contest sites after registering under my referral code, thanks for the support.
Yesterday produced a tough outing for the guy who was the consensus #1 starter in preseason drafts. Justin Verlander failed to survive the 3rd inning in Texas while getting shelled for 8 earned runs. That increased his ERA from 1.93 to 3.17. Last year, he never failed to work at least 5 innings, and only once was tagged for as many as 8 ER.
On the flip side, Stephen Strasburg surrendered only one earned run in 8 innings in San Diego, raising his W/L record to 2-5, while lowering his ERA to 2.83 – now 0.34 lower than Verlander’s! I was surprised to learn that this was the first time Strasburg has ever pitched into the 8th inning of a major league start. Last year, he only went 7 innings 5 times in 28 starts. Yesterday’s pitch count of 117 was not a career high, however, as he threw 119 pitches over six innings in a game at Fenway last June.