Santana vs Sabathia, and Other Great Pitching Matchups

Wednesday? Must be a full schedule. Let’s jump right in…

American League

• Angels at Mariners, 1:35 p.m. PT — Division rivals, great pitching matchup (Jered Weaver vs Felix Hernandez). Most days this would be a no-brainer as the game to watch, but there are several good ones today.
• Red Sox at Yankees, 4:05 p.m. PT — Josh Beckett goes up against Roger Clemens. Advice to hitters: look for the fastball. The AL East is slipping away from the Yankees, as they are now 8 games back with 31 remaining. They’re only 2 behind Seattle in the wild card.
• Twins at Indians, 4:05 p.m. PT — Minnesota is hanging in the NL Central race, albeit just barely. They’re 6 1/2 back of Cleveland and 4 back of Detroit. This is a dream pitching matchup: Johan Santana vs C.C. Sabathia. Santana is becoming one of those guys who are trapped by their own success. “Wow, he’s only 14-9 with a 2.97 ERA? What’s wrong with him?” What’s wrong is that he’s better than everyone else, that’s all. Anyway, Sabathia is enjoying a fine season as well. What blows me away about his game is how dramatically he’s improved his control since coming into the league. As a 20-year-old rookie back in 2001, Sabathia walked 4.74 batters per 9 innings. This year he’s at 1.32. Sure, he’s more hittable, but he’s also a lot more efficient (4.10 P/PA in ‘01 compared with 3.65 in ‘07), which allows him to go deeper into games (about 7 innings per start now vs just over 5 1/3 back then).

National League

• Mets at Phillies, 4:05 p.m. PT — Don’t look now, but Philadelphia is only 5 games out of first place in the NL East. Could you find two more different left-handers than Oliver Perez and Jamie Moyer? Well, maybe Cloris Leachman and Paul McCartney, but we’re talking about pitchers here.
• Brewers at Cubs, 5:05 p.m. PT — Another fun matchup: Ben Sheets and Carlos Zambrano. Too bad Milwaukee is 16-26 since the All-Star break. The Brewers are in serious danger of being overtaken by the St. Louis Cardinals for second place in the NL Central. How very disappointing.
• Diamondbacks at Padres, 7:05 p.m. PT — After taking the first two games, San Diego is now in a position to recapture a share of first place with a victory on Wednesday. Slugger Micah Owings gets the start for Arizona, while the Padres counter with the venerable Greg Maddux.

Time for just one? You know my bias, but that Santana/Sabathia matchup has the potential to be brilliant. If I had no other attachments to any of the teams, that is the one I’d watch.

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