Based on his comments when he was hitting ninth, Yuni should have credited Rob Johnson for his offensive surge before his injury, since Johnson bats as well as most NL pitchers.

That’s true. If batting in front of Ichiro makes hitting hard, as Yuni claimed, then batting in front of Johnson (or Cedeno, recently) had to make it very, very easy.

Mainstream sports media is like those third world countries where those things get popular 10 years after they’re ditched here.

Has anyone else noticed the sudden influx of people spouting catcher ERA on baker’s blog as a way to say Johnson should remain the starter even after Johjima is activated?

KJR’s midday show started the ball rolling and it was picked up by the morning show, and not long after even Pitman on the official postgame show was shining the CERA trophy.

When it was brought up to Baker on his weekly KJR visit, he did point out that CERA (like ERA) wasn’t the greatest stat, and that Joh had Silva weighing down his numbers … but then went on to say that Johnson must be doing something right, the way the pitchers have been pitching …

when I was at Safeco the other day I noticed whenever Johnson was at the plate his “player’s card” (on the big video screen) showed his catcher ERA rather than any of his actual hitting stats.

That’s because is offensive stats are so horrible and he makes Kenji look like an offensive juggernaut. Speaking of Kenji, he’s back tomorrow, maybe he can help bolster the bottom of the lineup which has been a bit of a black hole.

I’d have a lot more respect for the guy who comes out and says that over some random usage of CERA.

Small sample size.

FWIW, how large does this sample have to be in order not to be called “small sample size”? (We’re talking about two months.)

Or as Rick Rizzs would say: “Hey, Wires!”