Another Quality Start, Another Loss for Randolph

It seem that I hear the announcer comment that a BayStar starter has "thrown 3 perfect innings" or "thrown 3 hitless innings" quite often lately, but I'm not seeing the wins racking up. I guess a starter needs to throw more than 3 innings. Well, hey, Quality Starts should be linked to wins, right? Not for Yokohama. And nobody feels that pain more than Stephen Randolph.

Randolph has thrown 8 Quality Starts so far this season, but has at 2 wins and 8 loss record on the year. It seems that when Randolph pitches, the batters can't get anything together. And this evening's matchup between the Yokohama BayStars and Hiroshima Toyo Carp exemplifies that. Through 8 innings of work tonight, Randolph allowed just 3 hits while allowing 3 walks and striking out 3. Two of the three Hiroshima hits came in the 4th inning, Eishin Soyogi hitting s single to center to lead off the 4th. Then Masato Akamatsu sacrificed Soyogi to second. Shigenobu Shima popped out to center, but Jun Hirose followed singling in the run to put Hiroshima on the board first.

New import Brett Harper hit a 2-out home run off the right field foul pole to even the score in the bottom of the 4th.


But Hiroshima was able to bring the go-ahead run across without a hit in the top of the 7th inning. Justin Huber led off with a walk. Shogo Kimura came in to pinch run for Huber. Tetsuya Kokubo sacrificed Kimura over to second, then Kimura advanced to third on a ground out to Shuichi Murata at third for out number two. Hiroshima's starting pitcher Giancarlo Alvarado (aka Geo) stepped up to the plate next. Looking for a squeeze, the first pitch was high and away. The second pitch was in the dirt low and in, with Geo swinging. But the ball gets past the BayStar backstop Shingo Takeyama, and Kimura trots on home with the go-ahead run. Oh, how it seems that walks often come back to haunt us.

Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to see how Randolph did during the first three innings compared to the rest of the games that he started. Here are a couple of charts I put together to see:

+--------+------+-----+-----+----+------+------+------+----+----+
| date   | vs   | dec | ip  |ab  | hit  | hr   | k    | bb | r  |
+--------+------+-----+-----+----+------+------+------+----+----+
| Mar 26 | @HAN |  L  | 3.0 |  9 |    1 |    0 |    2 |  2 |  0 |
| Apr  1 |  YOM |  L  | 3.0 | 13 |    6 |    1 |    1 |  3 |  7 |
| Apr  7 |  CHU |  L* | 3.0 |  9 |    0 |    0 |    4 |  0 |  0 |
| Apr 13 | @CHU |     | 3.0 | 15 |    7 |    1 |    3 |  4 |  5 |
| Apr 20 | @YOM |   * | 3.0 | 11 |    3 |    0 |    3 |  2 |  1 |
| Apr 27 | @HIR |  L* | 3.0 | 10 |    2 |    0 |    3 |  1 |  0 |
| May  3 |  HIR |  L* | 3.0 |  9 |    3 |    1 |    4 |  0 |  2 |
| May  9 |  YOM |  L  | 3.0 | 16 |    7 |    2 |    4 |  1 |  5 |
| May 16 |  SEI |     | 2.0 | 10 |    5 |    1 |    3 |  0 |  3 |
| Jun 24 | @CHU |  W* | 3.0 | 10 |    1 |    0 |    4 |  0 |  0 |
| Jul  2 | @HIR |  L* | 3.0 |  8 |    0 |    0 |    2 |  3 |  1 |
| Jul  8 |  CHU |  W* | 3.0 |  9 |    0 |    0 |    4 |  0 |  0 |
| Jul 14 |  HIR |  L* | 3.0 |  9 |    1 |    0 |    1 |  1 |  0 |
+--------+------+-----+-----+----+------+------+------+----+----+
* denotes Quality Start

+--------+------+-----+-----+----+------+------+------+----+----+------------------------+
| date   | vs   | dec | ip  |ab  | hit  | hr   | k    | bb | er | runs allowed           |
+--------+------+-----+-----+----+------+------+------+----+----+------------------------+
| Mar 26 | @HAN |  L  | 4.0 | 16 |    5 |    1 |    4 |  4 |  5 | 0 0 0 5 0 0 2 0 x      |
| Apr  1 |  YOM |  L  | 5.0 | 20 |    8 |    1 |    2 |  4 |  6 | 3 4 0 0 0 0 0 5 0      |
| Apr  7 |  CHU |  L* | 7.0 | 23 |    3 |    1 |    9 |  3 |  1 | 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1      |
| Apr 13 | @CHU |     | 3.0 | 15 |    7 |    1 |    3 |  4 |  5 | 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 1x |
| Apr 20 | @YOM |   * | 6.0 | 21 |    4 |    0 |    5 |  4 |  1 | 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 x      |
| Apr 27 | @HIR |  L* | 7.1 | 25 |    5 |    0 |    6 |  3 |  2 | 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 x      |
| May  3 |  HIR |  L* | 7.0 | 22 |    5 |    1 |    9 |  2 |  2 | 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1      |
| May  9 |  YOM |  L  | 5.0 | 24 |   10 |    2 |    6 |  2 |  6 | 5 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0      |
| May 16 |  SEI |     | 2.0 | 10 |    5 |    1 |    3 |  0 |  2 | 0 0 3 0 2 0 0 0 1      |
| Jun 24 | @CHU |  W* | 6.0 | 19 |    3 |    0 |    6 |  3 |  1 | 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0      |
| Jul  2 | @HIR |  L* | 7.0 | 20 |    1 |    0 |    7 |  5 |  2 | 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 x      |
| Jul  8 |  CHU |  W* | 7.0 | 22 |    3 |    0 |   10 |  4 |  2 | 0 0 0 0 2 1 0 0 0      |
| Jul 14 |  HIR |  L* | 8.0 | 24 |    3 |    0 |    3 |  3 |  2 | 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 2      |
+--------+------+-----+-----+----+------+------+------+----+----+------------------------+

It looks like it he's not on, it's clear early (in the first). He's only allowing 4.77 hits per game, less than a home run per game. But even throwing a 1-hitter through 7 innings, Randolph lost to Hiroshima on July 2. (Relief held their own that day, not allowing any hits, for a combined 1-hit loss.) It's just plain annoying that no matter how well he throws, Randolph gets absolutely no run support.

I suppose it all comes down to, 'What do you do if your opponent also has a quality start?' Looking at the opponents Randolph has faced we see an interesting picture emerging.

Two of those outings against Hiroshima were against Kenta Maeda and two against Alvarado. Maeda we know about but Alvarado has been imrpressive recently. Others were against Ogasawara (Chunichi) and (Fujii) and here you might be on to something though Fujii is reasonably competent. However, this is only two of the eight quality starts. So four of the eight were against very good pitchers including one of the top pitchers in the Central League. Whilst BayStars batting has lacked something I'm not so sure that Randolph's troubles stem entirely from lack of run support.