He has a career 4.60 ERA. The one season where he pitched over 100 innings, he had a 4.76 ERA. Those unhittable games must be pretty rare. He's had a few successful games in the postseason. I guess that is what you are basing your opinion on. Backe is an average pitcher, at best, yet he is 2nd in our rotation.
i wanted to see a fight dammit... if molina is goin to throw a hissy fit like that just go punch the guy.
He could have been freaking Cy Young today, and it wouldn't have mattered with the 'stros only giving him a run to work with.
You can call it "a few successful games" if you want, but the Astros are 4 - 2 in Backe's 6 postseason starts. He's got a postseason ERA of 2.95, better than Roy Oswalt, in a similar number of games. I'd say he's a fairly proven postseason pitcher (but a very mediocre pitcher in the regular season). I don't think postseason stats are the be all, end all, but I don't think you can discount them as meaningless either.
I like Backe. He is competitive as hell and has found a way to be somewhat successful at this level. It's not his fault that we are expecting him to be a number 2 caliber starter, especially considering how long he was battling injury. In fact, I think it's pretty safe to say that he welcomes the challenge. That says a lot about his character. Backe has a tough as nails mentality, which is great. I think that probably helps him out a lot in big games. Unfortunately, he doesn't have the pitching talent to match his guts. On an average MLB pitching staff, he should be the 4th or 5th guy in the rotation, yet he is our number 2. That says something about how weak Astros pitching is, regardless of how they have started the season. Our 2-5 have done better than expected through 26 games while our ace has struggled. There are still 136 games left for reality to set in. Roy will be Roy eventually and the rest of the guys will probably slide toward their career numbers. It's hard to imagine us staying in contention with this pitching staff, starters and bullpen.
I never said he wasn't an average pitcher. I'm just saying when he's at his best, he's much more than just mediocre. But he's not always at his best.
