run support for Brewers starters

This isn't going to be terribly sabermetric in nature, but perhaps it'll be interesting anyway.

It's been an open secret that Claudio Vargas has been very lucky with the run support this year, so I set out to do a comparison of the Brew Crew's starting pitchers to quantify this a bit. On the pitching side, I'm using runs rather than earned runs because it makes runs scored and runs allowed more comparable, and because it of course doesn't matter to the wins and losses whether the runs given up were earned or not. On the batting side, I've assigned "innings batted" to the starters and the bullpen for each game, such that a starter's innings batted equals his full innings pitched for home starts (except for complete game wins, where it's 8), and full innings pitched plus 1 for road starts. The separation between starters and relief squad is done because it makes a difference whether the offense scores its runs early or late - naturally, early runs are what actually allows the starter to get the win, while late runs preserve that win or get him off the hook for a potential loss.

Anyway, here we go. All ratios in the table are per 9 innings pitched or batted, and I'm not listing our one-time starters Villanueva and Parra (but the team totals do include their starts).

So, while Bush and Capuano have been pitching far from great this season, they've been really getting screwed on all counts here - bad bullpen results as well as low run support, with Capuano's games having particularly low late-game scoring, to boot. Not such a surprise that there have been six no-decision team losses sprinkled within his 10-game losing streak.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have Vargas and, to a lesser extent, Suppan. Vargas in particular seems to emit a success force field this season that doesn't just strand runner after runner at third base, but has also led to oodles of run support throughout his games as well as a bullpen performance that is just out of this world, especially since he's been making them pick up a larger share of innings than anybody else. Suppan comes out as a mini-Vargas here, with somewhat worse bullpen numbers and somewhat worse run support, but with a very odd run-scoring split between his own innings and those of the bullpen. Maybe he really knows how to fire up the position players once he's exited the game?

Ben Sheets' run support numbers surprised me a bit, but I'm sure he's not complaining after suffering through some seriously lean years with Brewers teams past. The bullpen was nothing to write home about during his starts though, posting nearly a run more per 9 than the pre-ASG average. And finally, Yovani Gallardo's numbers most obviously reflect the post-ASG Brewers: Strong early scoring (though his numbers are still quite volatile; his run support was at 5.09 before tonight's game), precious little late scoring, and atrocious results from the bullpen.