On Monday the Cubs had 7 pitchers with an ERA under 4 and they had 4 pitchers with an ERA under 3. That is the makings of an amazing staff, but by Tuesday night, the Cubs had 9 pitchers with ERA's under 4 and 5 with ERA's under 3. The rotation now looks like this: Zambrano 9-3 2.96 Harden 5-1 2.34 Dempster 10-3 3.24 Lilly 9-5 4.47 Marquis 6-5 4.78 That is an amazing front end to the rotation and even the backend guys are pitching well of late. And all this on a team that leads the league in hitting!...Zambrano, Dempster, and Lilly are threats to win 20 if they just keep going and Harden could string together a slew of W's if he stays healthy and they support him....I cant help but think something special is cooking on the northside of Chicago.....
I've never been a fan of ERA as indicator of how good a pitcher is. It is one number that's nice, tho. My favorites are opposing lefty/righty batting average vs the pitcher, and in general hits+walks/ip is a good indication. The problem with ERA is that one bad game takes at least 8 good games to counter. For example, guy pitches 1 inning, gives up one earned run, his ERA is 9. It takes him 8 more games of 1 inning and 0 runs to have a 1 ERA.
