Game 127: Faulty Towers?
Wednesday, August 25 2004 @ 06:34 AM EDT
Contributed by: Jordan
In his two-year career with the Blue Jays, he's 17-5, with an ERA comfortably in the low 4.00s. He has, at times, been the team's most reliable starter this year, at a fraction of the price of his rotation mates. So why not pencil in Josh Towers right now for the 4th spot in the Blue Jays rotation next year? Possibly because Josh, who takes the mound tonight as the Jays try to win this series against Boston, is actually pitching pretty close to the edge.
Consider these numbers:
Year IP H/IP BB/IP K/IP K/BB WHIP OppBA HR/IP
2003 64 1.04 0.10 0.65 6.00 1.15 .266 0.23
2004 88 1.19 0.19 0.44 2.29 1.39 .295 0.09
Total 320 1.18 0.14 0.40 3.61 1.33 .296 0.17
Judging from his 2004 and career totals, it appears that Towers' 2003 campaign was rather fluky in many respects: considerably fewer hits and walks and more strikeouts. Accordingly, you'd have figured that Towers shouldn't have been as effective this year: with all those baserunners and so few strikeouts, how is he staying afloat? The answer, remarkably enough, is that his HR-allowed rate has plummeted: he has surrendered round-trippers half as frequently this year as in the past. The traditional knock against Towers is that as a control pitcher who's always around the plate, he gives up too many long balls; this year, his ability to keep the ball in the park appears to be the only thing keeping him from a full-fledged implosion.
Is it reasonable to expect this HR trend to continue? If you think so, then Towers could be a fine investment for 30+ starts in 2005. But if you think his HR-allowed totals in 2004 are as fluky as were his 2003 totals in many other categories, then you might think twice about it.
Oh yeah, the game. Curt Schilling pitches for the BoSox, and the Blue Jays have given him fits this year: 0-2, 6.10 in three games. Chris Gomez gets a second consecutive start at shortstop, Alex Rios settles into the third spot in the batting order, and Vernon Wells sits out again, though he's currently expected to be back in the lineup on Friday against the Yankees.
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