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Quick, someone find Hudson a child to adopt. Or at least hold. Seemed to work for Ian Kennedy last night, anyway, and tonight, we'll need Hudson to break that winless streak. Not all of it has been his own making, but his last two outings - 11 earned runs in 11.1 innings - have been ugly stuff. Oswalt, meanwhile has been almost completely consistent to date: six innings every time, no more than two runs allowed. Last time out, he one-hit the Padres for those six frames; okay, it's the Padres, whom I could probably one-hit, but still... It's hard to look at this pitching match-up and feel we have the edge.
Mind you, we said the same last night, and that turned out alright, didn't it?
Let's talk about suckage. Here are the 20 position players in the National League who have accumulated the worst bWAR to date:
| Rk | Name | WAR | Team | G | PA | AB | R | H | HR | RBI | BB | SO | BA | OBP | SLG | OPS |
| 1 | James Loney | -1.4 | LAD | 24 | 98 | 94 | 4 | 16 | 1 | 11 | 3 | 15 | .170 | .194 | .213 | .407 |
| 2 | Aubrey Huff | -1.2 | SFG | 21 | 88 | 80 | 8 | 18 | 2 | 13 | 6 | 14 | .225 | .273 | .350 | .623 |
| 3 | Jay Bruce | -1.0 | CIN | 21 | 89 | 81 | 12 | 19 | 3 | 10 | 7 | 23 | .235 | .292 | .370 | .663 |
| 4 | Chris Johnson | -0.8 | HOU | 19 | 77 | 72 | 6 | 13 | 1 | 7 | 2 | 20 | .181 | .234 | .278 | .512 |
| 5 | Raul Ibanez | -0.8 | PHI | 21 | 86 | 78 | 9 | 14 | 1 | 10 | 7 | 23 | .179 | .256 | .244 | .499 |
| 6 | Brad Hawpe | -0.8 | SDP | 19 | 60 | 56 | 2 | 7 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 22 | .125 | .167 | .161 | .327 |
| 7 | Bill Hall | -0.7 | HOU | 20 | 75 | 71 | 7 | 16 | 1 | 7 | 3 | 26 | .225 | .267 | .352 | .619 |
| 8 | Jose Lopez | -0.6 | COL | 17 | 61 | 59 | 7 | 9 | 2 | 8 | 1 | 8 | .153 | .180 | .271 | .452 |
| 9 | Tyler Colvin | -0.6 | CHC | 18 | 51 | 47 | 3 | 6 | 2 | 7 | 4 | 12 | .128 | .196 | .319 | .515 |
| 10 | Angel Pagan | -0.6 | NYM | 19 | 82 | 69 | 7 | 11 | 1 | 6 | 9 | 9 | .159 | .259 | .246 | .506 |
| 11 | Kelly Johnson | -0.6 | ARI | 20 | 94 | 85 | 10 | 15 | 3 | 6 | 6 | 28 | .176 | .247 | .341 | .588 |
| 12 | Carlos Pena | -0.6 | CHC | 20 | 73 | 59 | 2 | 10 | 0 | 5 | 12 | 22 | .169 | .306 | .186 | .492 |
| 13 | Ian Stewart | -0.6 | COL | 12 | 28 | 26 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 11 | .077 | .143 | .077 | .220 |
| 14 | Will Venable | -0.6 | SDP | 19 | 76 | 64 | 7 | 11 | 0 | 5 | 11 | 18 | .172 | .289 | .188 | .477 |
| 15 | Jorge Cantu | -0.5 | SDP | 21 | 62 | 57 | 1 | 8 | 1 | 6 | 3 | 11 | .140 | .194 | .211 | .404 |
| 16 | Wilson Valdez | -0.5 | PHI | 19 | 65 | 59 | 10 | 15 | 0 | 5 | 4 | 9 | .254 | .302 | .305 | .607 |
| 17 | Carlos Gonzalez | -0.5 | COL | 21 | 92 | 83 | 12 | 18 | 1 | 14 | 7 | 21 | .217 | .272 | .289 | .561 |
| 18 | Josh Thole | -0.5 | NYM | 19 | 67 | 62 | 3 | 14 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 16 | .226 | .269 | .258 | .527 |
| 19 | Donnie Murphy | -0.4 | FLA | 17 | 42 | 38 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 9 | .105 | .190 | .132 | .322 |
| 20 | Juan Miranda | -0.4 | ARI | 16 | 42 | 35 | 4 | 8 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 10 | .229 | .341 | .343 | .684 |
It's a pretty broad spectrum, both in players and teams - the top eleven belong to ten different franchises, with only the Astros represented twice, so there's not much room for anyone to be smug. At time of writing, the Cardinals are the only NL side without a single negative WAR player; everyone else has between one and six - that'd be the Mets. Arizona currently has three: in addition to the two above, Henry Blanco sits at -0.1, which is kinda impressive given he has had all of seven at-bats and played a total of 20 innings.
Even the division-leading Rockies are far from immune, having three in the top 17 - including the man for whom they mortgaged their future in the off-season, with a seven-year, $80 million contract: Carlos Gonzalez. Now, I don't expect him to hit .217 for the rest of his contract, but it does seem those of us who pointed out how BABIP-driven CarGon's 2010 numbers were, might have been right - his 2011 BABIP is back to .270. Still, things could always be worse: they could still have Brad Hawpe [the Padres as a whole are hitting just .208]. And at least we're not paying $10 million for sub-replacement level play (c.f. Giants, Huff).
- Chris Young CF
- Kelly Johnson 2B
- Justin Upton RF
- Stephen Drew SS
- Miguel Montero C
- Ryan Roberts 3B
- Juan Miranda 1B
- Gerardo Parra LF
- Daniel Hudson RHP
'Skins on the recap tonight - I trust he is remembering about this - so stick around for that. Here's to it being as much of a pleasant surprise as last night.