There’s not much that needs to be said about tonight’s game that can’t be summed up by this chart:
| Name | W-L | IP | H | HR | BB | K | BAA | WHIP | ERA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mussina | 5-1 | 46 | 37 | 3 | 8 | 42 | .215 | 0.98 | 2.35 |
| Schilling | 5-1 | 47 2/3 | 40 | 4 | 7 | 45 | .225 | 0.99 | 3.02 |
Schilling and Mussina have just one non-quality start between them this year in 14 tries, that being Schilling’s fifth start of the year in which the Indians touched him up for five runs on nine hits and two walks in 6 2/3 innings despite striking out eight times in that span. The Indians, incidentally, currently lead the majors in runs per game, edging the Yankees by less than six one-thousandths of a run.
Baseball Prospectus’s Jim Baker provides a brief history of the three prior head-to-head matchups between these two borderline Hall of Famers, both of whom are improving their chances of enshrinement weekly. He also reminds us that both were both minor leaguers with the Orioles in 1990, Mussina cracking triple-A for the first time that year and Schilling splitting time between starting in triple-A (prior to Mussina’s mid-season promotion) and relieving in the majors in his second of three stops before finding a home with the Phillies.
I wonder if Glenn Davis will be watching tonight.
