Besides Paul Maholm, Zach Duke is the longest serving Pirate. And he is still hard to typecast.
On a good night, he is capable of beating a Cy Young award winner like the New York Mets' Johan Santana, or the Phillies Roy Halladay. On a bad day, he can be truly awful.
An example of this was Duke's last outing against Cincinnati. He gave up five runs, two of them homers, in five innings, for a 9.00 ERA.
Last night, Halladay pitched a quality start against the Pirates, two runs in a complete game, a basically "average" performance—for him. He's done both better (fewer runs in the same nine innings), and worse (the same two runs in fewer innings).
Given that he struck out six and walked one, nine hits and two runs represented an "average expectation."
But on a pro rata basis at least, D ...
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Article written by Tom Au
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