In the last Rights and Wrongs, Casey mentioned, more delicately than I, that my harshness of Tejada is undeserved and that we are better off with him than we were with what we gave up.  I hope to revisit this shortly, but I still think the Tejada trade is going to come back to haunt us, but I also understand this is my admitted bias against Tejada and my belief he’s over-rated.  Anyway, to the pitchers…

Roy Oswalt, 5.00 ERA, 1.30 WHIP (numbers from 5/1 - 5/18)  - Undoubtedly, Roy is doing considerably better, but he’s still struggling.  His harsh start against the Rangers tweaked his numbers during the hot streak, but he is still getting hit at a high rate for him.  We are not yet two months through the season, and we aren’t yet seeing attrition problems in the pen.  We still need Roy to pick it up as I still think he’s our staff’s only hope to keep us healthy.

Brandon Backe, 4.50 ERA, 1.33 WHIP - About the same numbers that Roy is putting up, but Backe is doing something he’s never done before: he’s striking people out.  His control, or lack thereof, is probably helping increase his K rate, but if he can keep that rate and lower his atrocious walk rate even 1BB/9IP, he’ll be the poster child for Tommy John quick recoveries.

Jose Valverde, 0.00 ERA, .50 WHIP - Dear bfd, you suck.  Love, Jose.  After struggling for the first three weeks of the season, Valverde has walked only one over his past 11 IP, and he’s been almost unhittable in the meantime.

Geoff Geary, 0.00 ERA, .95 WHIP - Geary has been a solid pickup so far and has been hot over the streak.  Of course, he now has a strained groin and will miss some time.

Brian “Scuffy” Moehler,  2.70 ERA, 1.40 WHIP - He pitched well in a couple of spot starts, and he’s about the most WYSIWYG pitcher in the majors aside from Paul Byrd: good control, lots of hits against, and the occasional foreign substance (and, no, that wouldn’t be Matsui’s anal fissure salve).  Scuffy was hit harder in his last start, which will be a trend as he goes around the league and they see more pitches off him.

Doug Brocail, 4.32 ERA, 1.08 WHIP - Still pitching very well, but still on a pace to appear in over half our games.  It’s guys like Brocail and and Geary and Wright that most worry me about being over-used.

Chris Sampson, 5.51 ERA, 1.53 WHIP - Pitching slightly better - especially if it’s against the Cubs or Dodgers - but it’s time to find a replacement for him.

Shawn Chacon, 6.06 ERA, 1.86 WHIP - Chacon was extraordinarily lucky in the early going with his batting average on balls in play as regression to the mean and his poor control have come back to bite him on the ass.

Wesley Wright, 4.26 EAR, 1.74 WHIP - Most importantly, a 5 BB to 2 K ratio during the streak.

Leaving off Molotov Borkowski and Fernando Nieve for expediency reasons.

Overall, outside of Backe, a little Roy, Brocail, and Jose, our pitching has been very mediocre.  If there is one reason for our streak - and this should be of no surprise, it’s Puma.  His bat is so hot that he is literally carrying this team right now.  Matsui and Pence are adding a ton to the mix, and Lee and Tejada are in the picture, but this is all about Puma.

Because we have nothing on the farm, we should be focused on making a trade to pick up at least one, if not two, starting pitchers.  Wandy will be back soon as he has a rehab start in Corpus tomorrow, but we simply must replace Chacon and Sampson if we are to compete.  We can’t ride Puma’s coattails all season, but we will need to rely more on our pitching at some point.