Sony is the most reliable pitcher we have. I just wish all of our pitchers had the same foused intensity he has. HIs focus is far more important over the course of a year than a 95 mph fastball. Sonny Rocks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not a star, but for a #4 or 5 better than average. There is no pretense of being sabermetrically orthodox here, but I am looking at his game logs for this season to see if my anticipation was correct that in any 5 starts we could expect him to have one terrible outing, 1 excellent outing and 3 so-so ones. All I am considering is runs allowed (not earned runs), not Ks or BBs or line drive rates or home runs allowed, all of which are more relevant in projecting forward I think. Rather I am looking at results this season based on my early season expectations.

Again, not necessarily defensible, but I am defining a terrible outing as less than 6 innings giving up 4 or more runs, a so-so start as 6 or more innings giving up 3 or 4 runs and an excellent start as at least 7 innings and 2 or fewer runs. I do not account for giving up 5+ runs in more than 6 innings, but that never happened anyway.

By those definitions, here is what he has done over his 29 starts to date:
Terrible starts=7. That includes a 5 inning outing giving up 7 runs, 2 earned on 10 hits, 1 BB & 7 Ks.

So-so starts=8

Excellent starts=8

That leaves 6 starts in a kind of limbo. Each was between 5-6 innings with either 2 runs (twice) or 3 runs (4 times) allowed. In 3 of those 4 times that he allowed 3 runs he pitched 5.1 inning twice and 5.2 innings once. The other 3 outings were exactly 5 innings.

That 5 inning start in which he gave up 7 runs, just 2 earned, has a typical Sonnanstine feel to it in that he started poorly giving up solid line drives in the first 2 innings and then settling down allowing virtually nothing over the last 3 with 4 Ks, 3 infield pop-ups and 2 ground outs. After allowing 2 runs in the first, he gave up a lead-off double in the second, got a K looking, a bunt single and another K swinging before Longoria’s error let in the 3rd run and then all hell broke loose with 2 line drive hits (1B & 2B) and a ground single to get in the other 4 runs. Then a weak grounder for out 3 and no more trouble. He came out after 94 pitches, most in the first 2 innings.