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Jake's Take: Seth McClung is the Rodney Dangerfield of the NDRO

Sometimes when I read articles about the Rays, be it national, local or fan-made, I can't believe what people write about certain players. I don't know how many times I see Seth McClung get slammed and thrown into oncoming traffic by articles, message board posts and even rotowire blurbs. I try my hardest to fend off all nay-sayers, but sometimes I get overwhelmed by idiot comments or people who still fail to listen.

It gets unnerving sometimes, trying to look for positive Rays articles, but once in awhile I find some that give some positive spin towards our future.

"White Sox starters Mark Buehrle (105.4), Jon Garland
(103.6) and Freddy Garcia (102.9) all ranked among the
top six in the AL in average pitches per start. But
none of them averaged as many pitches per start as the
Cubs' Carlos Zambrano (107.9), who ranked behind only
Livan Hernandez and Barry Zito (108.7) in the majors.

Despite the time missed by Kerry Wood and Mark Prior,
Dusty Baker had his starters throw 120-plus pitches 10
times, second only to Washington's Frank Robinson
(16). Lou Piniella (nine), Joe
Torre (eight), Felipe Alou (seven) and Jim Tracy (six)
were the only other managers with more than five.
Ozzie Guillen did it only three times.

Baltimore's Daniel Cabrera threw 37 pitches officially
clocked at 100-plus m.p.h. The only others with at
least 10 such fastballs were Wagner (18), A.J. Burnett
(17), Kyle Farnsworth (14), Seth McClung (11) and
Bobby Jenks (10)."

mercurynews

Reaction:Out of those 9 from Lou, how many do you think were thrown by Seth McClung?

If you guessed 5, you'd be correct.

Seth McClung pitched an average of 93.9 pitches per game.

What do you think his record as a starter in games where he pitched 90 or more pitches in a game? Looking at his Gamelog on his ESPN Player card, Seth compiled a 7-5 record in games that he threw at least 90 pitches. So if you think about it, Seth was a winning pitcher in games where he pitched around or over his average amount of pitches per game. He's a workhorse-type of pitcher, he's better when his manager puts him in the game and keeps him in for the long-haul. Most baseball people see him as a "thrower", but they're probably not watching many Rays games from their lofty offices at the Boston Globe or at the ESPN in Connecticut. So their opinions really shouldn't be taken seriously.

Final Take:So my question is, if Seth would've been given a starting rotation spot at the beginning of the season....do you think he would've had at least 10 wins? I do, it's only 3 more wins from the total he compiled in the 17 starts for the season. Seth had 34 appearances for the season, 17 starts. In some of those 13 games where he pitched 90+ pitches, he was the hard-luck pitcher. He kept the Rays in the game, but the offense didn't put up the runs needed to win.

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I saw that number
In Ball James 2006 book just out, it mentions how Seth throws the high heat, something like 10 pitches over 100
DRAYS BAY

by David Bloom on Dec 3, 2005 11:00 PM EST reply actions   0 recs

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