It's May, Pal!

The Cy Young leaders in each league for the month of April, Shawn Chacon and Esteban Loaiza, both got rocked yesterday.

Chacon gave up six runs on eight hits and four walks in five innings in Chicago yesterday en route to his first loss of the season. He also uncorked two wild pitches. Chacon now owns a 1.30 ERA for the season at Coors and a 4.50 ERA on the road.

Loaiza lasted only 3-2/3 innings and allowed nine hits, three walks, and five runs. Everyone knew that the bottom would fall out eventually. Loiaza entered the game at 5-0 with a 1.25 ERA. His career ERA is 4.80 and his low for a season 4.13. Of course, it had to happen after I activated him on rotisserie team.

Anyway, given Loiaza's 4.80 ERA in 241 career games and Chacon's inability to get his ERA below 5.00 in two seasons, one would suspect the suspect that they were 'roiding up if they were batters. Of course, the thing with pitchers is that they can have one hot month and look like Walter Johnson and still be marginal players. Of course, we are also seeing that the reverse is true as well: Greg Maddux pitched like he had channeled new teammate Mike Hampton's Colorado demons for the first half of April and now is pitching like his normal self, though his ERA is still over 5.00. Of course, I always seem to get the worst parts of the season from pitchers on my rotisserie staff.