Carlos Silva, RH Daniel Cabrera, RH (10-13, 5.88) (7-10, 5.10)
Here come the Twins, looking to beat up on the hapless O's in their quest to secure a playoff berth. The White Sox sure picked a poor time to shit the bed, but they did the same thing last year, too. It's just that they already had a big lead in the AL Central that time.
Carlos Silva has had a dreadful year, but he's been great his last three starts, giving up just two earned runs on 11 hits over 20 innings. This is a big turnaround, because in his first 145 1/3 innings this season, he gave up 214 hits. Batters are hitting .325 off of him. Truth be told, Silva is a pretty awful pitcher that got by in 2005 on luck and the fact that he only walked nine batters in 188 1/3.
Speaking of walks, when Daniel Cabrera walks his first batter today, it'll be No. 100 on the season. The last Oriole to walk 100 in a season was Steve Stone with 101 in 1980, over 250 2/3 innings (Cabrera is at 132 1/3). Stone won 25 games that year in one of the all-time great one-hit wonder seasons. Scott Erickson had 99 in '99.
So, you know, Cabrera is on the verge of doing something that no Oriole has done in 26 years, and that's pretty special I guess.
Actually, let's really think about that. The Orioles have had some super shitty pitchers over the last 15-20 years, and NONE of them has ever managed to walk 100 batters in a season, and many of them had at least this many innings to work with. That's also just focusing on the bad, though. The Orioles also haven't had a starter with Cabrera's K-rate in that time. So you take the good with the bad, I suppose, and try to find this man some sort of voodoo spell or zen master that can get him to put the ball over the plate with more regularity.
We again will not face Johan Santana, who lost to the Red Sox last night, his first notch in the L column since July 9. Is that guy a hell of a pitcher or what?