Saturday Bases

Oakland (Hudson) @ Chicago (Ritchie)

Well the Sox and Buehrle got one back last night as the A's had really had his number, but I look for the A's to come back here tonight against a mediocre pitcher in Ritchie.

Oakland sends their ace to the hill in Tim Hudson who has looked amazing so far this year in 2 starts on the road he has an ERA of 1.38 and a WHIP of 1.385, in 13 innings pitched on the road he has 10 k's to 5 walks and has yet to surrender a home run while he has pitched away from Oakland. He has owned the White Sox in 6 career starts the A's are 5-1 and he has an ERA of 3.89 and a WHIP of 1.108, coincidentally his last start was against these same White Sox where he pitched 8 shut out innings surrendering only 3 hits with 5 strikeouts and 1 walk.

The Sox counter with Todd Ritchie who has looked very good this year but if you look into his record further you will see that he has not faced the stiffest of competition he has faced the Indians twice who are just not the same team, Baltimore and the Kansas City Royals. The two quality teams that he has faced he came away with losses the Mariners and the A's. His last start was against this same team and this same pitcher he worked 5 innings giving up 8 hits 7 runs 3 earned and only two strikeouts and 5 walks.

The bullpens are about even although the Sox pen has given up 13 home runs so far this year with 7 of those at home while the A's pen has only given up 5 with 2 of them coming on the road. Oakland's pen has pitched well in their last 3 with an ERA of 3.97 while the Sox have been a little worse in their last 3 games with a 5.79 ERA.

Neither team has been ripping the cover off of the ball against right handed pitchers with the A's hitting .209 as a team against them in their last 5 games while the Sox have been just a little better with a team average of .256 in the same amount of games.

The home plate umpire Bill Hohn has a strikeout to walk ratio of 1.86 he has called 2 overs and 2 unders with a tight strike zone have to like Hudson even more as he throws allot more strikes than balls.

The A's are 10-1 in the last 11 meetings and have the far superior pitcher in my opinion. With both teams not hitting that well against right handers lately I will take my chances with the visiting team to get a low scoring win.

Playing the Oakland A's -105

[ May 04, 2002, 10:53 AM: Message edited by: RobertBIrish ]