Yesterday, I wrote about the best second half offense in baseball history, the 1999 Athletics. Today, we move on to pitching and the 2012 Rays. Like the A's yesterday, this Rays pitching staff is really fun to look back at.
At the 2012 All-Star break, the Rays sat at 45-41. In the second half, the Rays pitching staff led them to a 45-31 record. They have the most strikeouts of any second half team in history, 698 in 693 IP. Their WHIP was an insanely good 1.03 and their ERA was 2.60.
The staff was led by Cy Young winner David Price. Jeremy Hellickson and Matt Moore put up the best years of their careers and pre-Bartolo homer James Shields was quite good. Alex Cobb rounded out the rotation. In the bullpen, 35-year-old Fernando Rodney was dominant (0.77 WHIP in 74 IP). Joel Peralta and Jake McGee provided depth, but the real interesting pieces were Wade Davis and Chris Archer. After starting 58 games in 2010 and 2011, Davis threw 70 innings out of the pen in 2012. Archer's usage mainly came in September with mixed results.
| Name | 2nd Half IP | 2nd Half SO |
|---|---|---|
| James Shields | 109 | 114 |
| David Price | 99 | 100 |
| Jeremy Hellickson | 90 | 68 |
| Alex Cobb | 79 | 66 |
| Matt Moore | 77 | 79 |
| Fernando Rodney | 36 | 38 |
| Joel Peralta | 33 | 45 |
| Wade Davis | 30 | 45 |
| Jake McGee | 26 | 41 |
| Chris Archer | 17 | 22 |
The strikeout was popular in the second half of 2012; the Brewers (672) and Phillies (666) staffs are also in the top five. The 2002 (696) and 2015 Cubs (677) round out the list.
Baseball is here! And more importantly, that means the over/under game is back. It seems as though everyone is an expert this time of year. Somehow we convince ourselves that we are better at predicting baseball outcomes than everyone else. Well, AFITB is putting that to the test for the third year in a row. Think you know more about baseball than us? You probably do. But go ahead and prove it anyway.