OK, so, the other day I pointed out that the Angels, with their 89th win this year, became 1 of only 8 franchises in ML history to chalk up 89 wins in 6 consecutive seasons. As commenters rightly pointed out, this wasn't exactly a fair fight for those quality teams who played less than 162 games in a season (everyone before '61, and then also '72, '81, '94, and '95). So, I decided to take our baseline winning percentage, and see how many teams since 1901 have, like the Angels, strung together at least 6 consecutive seasons with a .549 or higher record.

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With yesterday's victory in Texas the Angels reached the 89-win mark for the 6th consecutive year. This, despite being picked to win about 84 each year by the PECOTAs of the world.

Anyhoo, how rare is that? Consider this -- only 8 other franchises have ever done it in baseball HISTORY. Here's a list, ordered by most recent to least:

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On July 18, Scott Kazmir made his 3rd start after a 5-week stint on the disabled list. He'd been terrible up that point in the season -- 4-5 with a 7.11 ERA -- but he'd spent the time off getting healthy and re-locating his velocity under the tutelage of pitching guru Rick Peterson. It finally paid off, with his first quality start since April 24: 6 innings, 1 run. Including that game, Kazmir has racked up 7 quality starts in 9 games, going 4-3 with a 4.07 ERA, striking out 49 and walking 18 in 55.1 innings.

How have our other starting pitchers done during those past 7 weeks? Lackey, Santana, and Weaver have made 10 starts each:

JL: 5-3, 2.57 ERA, 57/19 K/BB, 73.2 IP

ES: 6-2, 4.31 ERA, 50/22 K/BB, 62.2 IP

JW: 4-2, 4.95 ERA, 50/21 K/BB, 60.0 IP

Meanwhile, Joe Saunders was stinking up the joint, then went on the disabled list, took some cortisone shots, and has won all three starts since coming back, giving up 4 ER in 17.1 IP.

Put those all together, and what do you get? Over 42 starts (everyone except Saunders from mid-July on; Saunders in his last three), that's 269 innings pitched (6 and 1/3 per start), 218 strikeouts, 87 walks, a 22-10 record, and a 3.78 ERA. And over their last 11 starts, none of these guys have given up more than 2 earned runs, posting a combined 1.51 ERA.

Who knew that there would ever be a time this year that we could feel almost good about the rotation?

Here are the freshly updated free agent compensation rankings, thanks to someone who reverse-engineers Elias' official Type A/Type B classifications. Long story short, if the offseason began today, we'd have a stunning 5 Type A free agents on the open market. Here's a list of their rankings; remember, A) they're based on two-year performances, and B) the cutoff for Type A is around 70 and higher, for Type B around 60 and higher (they use a bit of a sliding scale depending on position):

88.51 Abreu

81.21 Lackey

78.57 Vladdie

73.95 Chone

72.26 Darren Oliver

Contract-walkers Robb Quinlan and Kelvim Escobar are in the loser's circle of bupkus compensation.

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You hear a lot of talk, especially but not only from the Orange County Register's Mark Whicker, about how Jeff Mathis' pitch-calling skills make up for his vast offensive gap with Mike Napoli, and explain such curiosities as why he seems to be developing into John Lackey's personal caddy. Sample from Whicker:

Watch the games, listen to the pitchers. Why do you think Lackey had the confidence to throw that 3-and-2 curve to Teixeira Sunday with bases loaded, no out and a 2-run lead? Do you think he came up with that by himself? [...]

Ask anybody in the Angel organization what the key to the past seven-and-a-half years have been, and ask Bud Black, too. The Number One answer is the catcher-pitcher relationship.

Funny, I recall Lackey throwing 3-and-2 curves long before Jeff Mathis showed up, but let's tunnel into the assumption at hand: Is John Lackey a measurably different pitcher with Mathis behind the dish? Fortunately, Baseball Reference exists to answer just such questions. And the answer in this case is "oh hell no."

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With his promising performance tonight, Trevor Bell became the 13th Angel pitcher to start a game this year. How unusual is that? In 48 seasons, we've exceeded that number just three times, and matched it four others. A list, with the team's record that year in parentheses:

17 1967 (84-77)
16 2000 (82-80)
14 1961 (70-91)
13 1964 (82-80)
13 1975 (72-89)
13 1980 (65-95)
13 1984 (81-81)

An interesting list, one that includes three new managers (Bill Rigney, Mike Scioscia and Dick Williams) just throwing spaghetti against the wall; plus three of the worst 12 seasons in team history ... but also two seasons featuring historically great performances from a starting pitcher (Dean Chance's Cy Young 1964 at age 23, and Frank Tanana's 4th place finish in 1975 at age 21). And topping it all off, the most competitive of the first 17 seasons in franchise history. What the hell was Rigney doing to his rotation the year the Angels were challenging the Miracle Red Sox?

Basically, George Brunet, Rickey Clark and Jim McGlothlin had 96 starts between them; Jack Hamilton had 20 more, and Clyde Wright and Jack Sanford combined for another 20. Having six pitchers divvy up 136 starts is pretty standard stuff. Thing is, everyone else got to start a game, too. Really: Only two pitchers that year, 40-year-old Lew Burdette and American League saves leader Minnie Rojas, failed to throw a first pitch. The juggling basically worked -- the Angels had the third best ERA in the league, and (typical of Rigney's teams) led the league in saves and was 2nd in relief appearances while finishing last in complete games. Though I've never seen it mentioned once outside my own brain, Rigney was a pioneer in the transition between Complete Gamism and the modern usage of bullpens.

But I digress. What you really want to know is how many teams that have used 13 or more starting pitchers in a season have made the playoffs during the Wild Card era. Answer: 13, in 14 seasons. So basically, one team each year makes the playoffs that way; this year, it will be us. Also, Trevor Bell looked pretty good, didn't he?

The end.

With the game tonight, Howie Kendrick set career highs in home runs (7) and RBIs (41). He'd already set a career high in walks a month ago (now has 17, previous high was 12); has tied his career high in triples (2), and will likely break his career high in stolen bases (11) before he gets to his career high in plate appearances (361; he's got 68 to go). Not bad for a lousy year! Of course, it will also be not bad if he ever even qualifies for a batting title....

Most promisingly, in 25 games since coming back from the minors, Howie's hitting .356/.404/.529, with 20 runs, 19 RBIs, 7 walks and 13 strikeouts. To the naked eye, he seems to be at least wrestling the strike zone to a draw, instead of getting overwhelmed each time up.

Today was Jered Weaver's 100th career start. He won for the 47th time, against just 22 losses, giving him a lifetime winning percentage of .681. Do you know how many active pitchers with 100 career starts have a higher winning percentage? One -- Pedro Martinez, with .684. Among active starting pitchers who have pitched at least 50 games, Jered's fifth in career winning percentage, behind Tim Lincecum (.740), Jon Lester (.706), and Josh Johnson (.690).


Among Angel starting pitchers with at least 50 games pitched, Jered is also first all-time in winning percentage. Top 8 list looks like this:
.681 (47-22) Jered Weaver (100 starts)
.651 (41-22) Joe Saunders (87)
.594 (98-67) John Lackey (222)
.582 (46-33) Bartolo Colon (95)
.579 (33-24) Bert Blyleven (80)
.568 (75-57) Jarrod Washburn (183)
.567 (102-78) Frank Tanana (218)
.561 (55-43) Ervin Santana (127)

Do you know how many starting pitchers in Major League history have started at least 100 games and compiled a higher winning percentage than Jered Weaver? Four. Also, Jered leads the American League this year in ... winning percentage!

And to think, as recently as a year ago, Jered Weaver was the object of serial hate-spasms by some of the assembled faithful....

Over his last 14 games, the man I've seen described recently in comments here as "done" and worse has scored 12 runs, driven in 10, hit 4 home runs, and put up a line of .351/.403/.754. This object of disappointment, sadness, and even scorn is so over-the-hill that the last time he hit as good as .330/.391/.580 for half a season was ... uh, the second half of 2008. Why, Vlad hasn't hit over .400 for a whole month since last September/October! Bat him seventh! Bench him!

LOL, etc.