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better than Carpenter at 16-4 almost a 2.00 ERA
and second in the NL in strikeouts???
Uh, ok....
Fo sho.
better than Carpenter at 16-4 almost a 2.00 ERA
and second in the NL in strikeouts???
Uh, ok....
I'll take Clemens' one less run allowed per game over Carpenter's one more strikeout per game.
Clemens has a 1.45 era and pitches at Minute Maid Park.
Case closed.
Carpenter may have better numbers than Clemens but if Roger had the run support that CC has Roger would have better stats than Carp. If Carp had Houstons run support he'd just be an average pitcher.
61 innings pitched 87 strikeouts 11 walks .81 ERAIf Carp had Houstons run support he'd just be an average pitcher.
Yup just average.
Goodbye.
Clemens has a 1.45 era and pitches at Minute Maid Park.
The whole Minute Maid Park thing is such BS.
Should Woody Williams won MVP of the NLCS cause he threw a 8 inning shutout at Minute Maid Park???
PLease.
Re did you read the quote if he had Houston's run support. Not to mention the gold gloves on STL and Houstons Fairly decent player. Carp would't be as good as he is also no to mention STL's bullpen is stacked and all the Astro's have is Brad Lidge. So Asshole look at the whole picture instead of being a and thinking just because you have a stat that your good, because that doesn't mean .
Minute maid is an obvious hitter ballpark. The fact that Rocket can go out there and dominat there is astronomical (no pun intended). It's not like he's a Petco where jeez San Diego should be dominating or any other pitcher. Don't get pissed because someone disagrees with you and has better information.
T Park sucks off Carpenter
Minute Maid is a hitter's park. There's no way around it.
All you have to do is look at Houston's Home vs. Away batting stats...
At Home: .791 OPS (9th in MLB)
Away: .685 OPS (29th in MLB)
Does St Louis want to face an Astros team in Oct with a staff that includes Roger, Roy and Andy?
Yes St Louis has a great offensive team, but pitching wins in Oct.
St Louis scored a grand total of 3 runs, countem, 3 runs in the last 3 games in the World Series.
They barely beat Houston last year, and this year the Astros have Andy Pet te and a Clemens that is even better than last year.
We will just have to wait and see...but I am thinking that Houston is going to the WS this year.
BTW, Andy Pettette just won pitcher of the month award for July.
I just hope Bagwell can return by then... Even as a pinch hitter.
Here TPark:
By Rob Neyer
ESPN Insider
In 1984, his rookie season, Roger Clemens debuted in mid-May and finished with nine wins and a 4.32 ERA (slightly higher than the American League as a whole). In his second season, an elbow injury limited him to 15 starts. But in 1986, Clemens turned in his first great season, easily leading the American League in ERA (2.48) and wins (24) and finishing just seven strikeouts behind AL leader Mark Langston.
Clemens was obviously the best pitcher in the American League from 1986 through 1992 … and then again in 1997 and 1998. He was brilliant in 1994 and 1996, too. So it's not easy to pick Clemens' greatest season; after all, he's won seven Cy Young Awards, and while he didn't deserve all seven of them, there were a couple of times he didn't win but probably should have.
The compe ion, I think, comes down to two seasons: 1990 and 1997. In 1990, Clemens went 21-6 with a 1.93 ERA (league average: 4.07). In 1997, he went 21-7 with a 2.45 ERA (league average: 4.62). These are the only two seasons in Clemens' career in which his ERA was less than half the league average. His next best season in that regard was 1994, when the players' strike limited him to 24 starts (and his ERA was 56 percent of the league average).
Could Clemens, who turns 43 today, really be putting together the best season of his career? And what does this season, whether or not it's his greatest, tell us about his future? Let's try to answer the first question first, because it's the easier of the two.
Here are some key numbers for 1990 and 1997, along with projections for this season:
Year W-L ERA IP BB/K QS Ratio
1990 21-6 1.93 228 54/209 27 0.47
1997 21-7 2.05 264 68/292 26 0.44
2005 15-6 1.45 224 63/203 30 0.34
Before we go any further, a few words about those last two columns. "QS" is quality starts; a starter is credited with a QS when he pitches at least six innings and allows three or fewer earned runs. Essentially, it's a measure of how often he's given his team a pretty good chance to win. And "Ratio," in this case at least, is the pitcher's ERA divided by the league ERA; obviously, the lower the number the better.
How significant are those (projected) 30 quality starts? Here are the best qualty start percentages since 1960, among pitchers with at least 20 starts in a season:
Pitcher Year GS QS Pct.
Greg Maddux 1994 25 24 96.0
Dwight Gooden 1985 35 33 94.3
Bob Gibson 1968 34 32 94.1
Rick Reuschel 1985 26 24 92.3
Chris Carpenter 2005 22 20 90.9
Roger Clemens 2005 21 19 90.5
From 1960 through July 30, 2005, there were 4,572 pitcher-seasons that included at least 20 starts. Only five of those pitcher-seasons included a QS percentage higher than 90, and two of them have been this season. Of course, that's a bit misleading. There have probably been other pitchers with similarly high QS percentages in early August. If you start 33 games, it takes only four non-quality starts to drop your percentage below 90, which means Clemens and Carpenter can afford only one more. And two months is a long time.
Similarly, Maddux's percentage almost certainly benefits from a strike-shortened season (though he was truly amazing that season; in 23 of his 25 starts, he pitched at least seven innings … and in the other two, he pitched 6.2). Reuschel, too, benefited from a short season (he missed the first seven weeks). So the champs on this list are Gibson in his famous '68 season, and Gooden in '85. In addition to Gibson's 1.12 ERA (the best since 1920), he's also got the distinction of never being relieved for cause; he completed 28 of his 34 starts, and in the other six, was removed in favor of a pinch-hitter. Gooden gave up more than three runs, earned or unearned, just twice all season.
But we were talking about Clemens, weren't we? He's not going to win as many games as he did in his greatest seasons -- in fact, he's won more than 15 games in a dozen different seasons. He's not going to strike out as many hitters -- he's topped 203 K's in a dozen different seasons. And he's certainly not going to pitch as many innings as he has -- in six seasons, Clemens has pitched more than 250 innings, and in both 1990 and 1997, he tossed nine complete games.
And that's the only real knock against Clemens' 2005 campaign: He's not a finisher. He hasn't completed a game this season (he has just one this century), and has pitched more than seven innings only twice (which might help explain his success, though that's fodder for another column).
So where does this season rank among Clemens' greatest? Assuming that he continues to pitch like he has, he'll finish with roughly the same number of innings, walks and strikeouts as in 1990, but with a substantially lower ERA. The comparison with 1997 isn't nearly as favorable, though. That 40-inning difference -- six starts, basically -- and all those strikeouts simply aren't quite balanced by Clemens' sublime ERA and quality start percentage to this point in the season. If he continues as he has, this will rank as one of Clemens' three greatest seasons among many great seasons, and it might rank among the top two. But the greatest? That will always be 1997.
So what does 2005 tell us about Clemens' future? It tells us that all we can do is wait and see. Because there's never been a pitcher remotely like Roger Clemens -- still able to dominate with his fastball, at 43 -- we simply don't know what his limits might be. If he's healthy and wants to pitch, should we assume he can't keep winning until he's 45? Or older? Hardly. Are Pete Alexander and Christy Mathewson, tied for No. 3 on the all-time list with 373 wins apiece, out of reach for the Rocket?
Probably. But I don't think I'd want to bet against him.
Senior writer Rob Neyer writes for Insider two or three times per week during the season. To offer criticism, praise or anything in between, send an e-mail to [email protected].
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