This is in reply to a comment by Goofus in the (highly recommended) Diary "2010 Jonathon Sanchez: BABIP fluke or a real step forward? Pitch F/X reveals some insight." For those who don't feel like clicking the link, Goofus wrote:

My impression (and I don’t think I’m alone) from watching him last season was that when things would go wrong, he was much more adept at putting out the fire rather than throwing gas on it. In other words, better at avoiding disastrous innings and better at staying in the game when things started looking bad.

Is there any evidence that either confirms of refutes this impression?

He isn't alone; I feel the same way, as do many others. However, I didn't have any evidence to prove this. I decided that the best way to go about finding evidence would be to look at his ERA in Jonathan Sanchez's starts after he first surrendered a run. For example, in this game, I would look at his ERA in the 4.2 innings after the Rodrigo Lopez sacrifice fly and before Sanchez's departure from the game. Come to think of it, it would have been much easier to look at his performance in high-leverage situations, but I didn't think of doing that.

Long chart follows; errors are possible.

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The Wild Card, while it may or may not have been good for the game, has made many pennant races less interesting. In this diary, we take a look at the standings at the end of September 9, and see what they would have meant under past systems.

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As we well know, the play that ended the sixth inning of today's Giants-Dodgers game, on which a run scored, was the result of a bad call, but more interestingly, it was that rarest of baseball events: a situation in which a fourth out would be possible and plausible.

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This is the most soul-crushing defeat I've ever faced. For three straight days, my heart's been broken. This is worse than the second-to-last game of 2004. It's almost as bad as that dream I had about the 2002 World Series not being cancelled.

It's at times like these that I ask, "Why?" Why am I emotionally entangled with the doings of 25 men I will never meet and have no connection to? This is especially pertinent, given that I have a lot of more important things (school), and I spent the evening in bed sick. Stress is the last thing I need.

Right now, I want to stop being a Giants fan more than anything, even more than for the Giants to win every game the rest of the way, including the playoffs. For we will meet disappointment eventually. Or, at the very least, I should like to be an idiot frontrunner who has no real attachment to any team. But this is out of my power.

Why? Because fandom is like life. Both can be pleasurable, but both are in the end suffering. nd if we understand this, we can end the suffering of fandom and reach enlightenment.

If only...

Remember me?

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Am I the only one out there who listens to the radio pregame show? I, personally, tune in every day, and enjoy the whole hour (except maybe the broken English of Felipe Alou, but that's gone now). I only discovered it last year. How long has it been out there?

Today, I got to thinking about how overrated the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry is. I usually try not to do that, since it usually results in my getting extremely worked up over almost nothing. Today though, I decided to blow off the steam wth this poll.