El Guapo's Ghost Rambles on about the Red Sox

Tonight the Red Sox face Estaben Loaiza, who has been dominating so far leading all AL starters in ERA at 2.24. He is fifth in strikeouts with 78, ninth in K/BB ratio, and given up only six homers in 92 innings. Even though I have not seen Loaiza pitch this season, I am predicting the Red Sox beat him up to the tune of four or more runs tonight.

Here is his bio from espn.com and stats:
Loaiza has an outstanding ability to locate his pitches somewhere in the strike zone, but it's his location within the zone that gets him into trouble. Strange as it sounds, scouts say Loaiza throws too many strikes. When he expands the zone by working the corners and wasting the occasional pitch, he is much more effective. As it is, hitters sit back and wait for their pitch, without being intimidated.

31 year-old pitchers usually do not magically attain near dominating stuff over the winter. Checking out Loaiza’s game log is very telling. He has only faced two MLB teams currently in the top third in scoring (I am not counting Baltimore ranked 10th). Loaiza’s line against Seattle was 3.2 innings, 9 hits, 5 earned, 3 walks and 2 strikeouts. Loaiza did better when he faced Toronto pitching 7.2 innings with 5 hits, 2 earned, 2 walks and 4 K’s. It is said that players usually get pumped up facing their former clubs. Either way, I looked up Loaiza’s comparables at Baseball-referencene.com. None of his top ten comparables had an ERA below 4.5 at the age of 31.

Loaiza has beat up on the worst two-thirds of the league which is fine, but it has inflated his stats giving folks the wrong impression of his real ability.