Matt Cain had the weirdest game I’ve seen from a starter. He gave up seven earned runs, all in the third inning. What made the start strange was in the five other innings he pitched, he didn’t allow a hitter to get on-base. Basically, other than the third inning he pitched like vintage Cain. In the third inning he was pitching in the stretch and he left a lot of balls in the middle of the plate and at times, it looked as though the hitters knew what was coming. Maybe he’s tipping his pitches? The table below shows his struggles this year with men on-base.

Dan Straily, like Bartolo Colon the night before, pounded the strike zone with all of his pitches. The White Sox are a bad offensive club. They’re 28th in OBP, 26th in batting average and 25th in slugging. It’s getting to the point where you start any pitcher starting against them. It’s no surprise seven of Straily’s eight strikeouts were swinging. Straily throws four pitches: fastball, changeup, slider, and curveball. He had trouble throwing the curveball for quality strikes; 50 percent of the hits he allowed were on that pitch. Basically, Straily pitched very well, but he was also helped out by the poor approach of the White Sox hitters.

Chris Archer pitched better than his box score would indicate. He has a plus-plus (on the scouting scale) fastball that sits in the mid-90s and touched 99 mph. The slider looked really good; if I didn’t know it was a slider I would think it’s a curveball because the slider has similar depth and movement of a curveball. The changeup looked really good at times, but he left too many of them up in the zone. When they were up in the zone the Indians hitters hit the ball with authority. I’m a big fan of the stuff and he is someone you should pick up if you haven’t done so already.