Cabrera the Infuriator

Daniel Cabrera is a 24 yr old right handed starting pitcher for the O's with a great fastball. In most of his starts this season, he has brought overpowering stuff to the mound. When he throws strikes, he reduces the game to "pitch and catch". The infuriation is that he throws strikes consistently - to right handed hitters only. Cabrera's stats this season versus right and left handed hitters is as follows:

	Avg	P/IP	K/BB	BB9	K9
Right	.151	14.20	4.20	2.03	8.51
Left	.309	21.30	1.00	7.21	7.95

Of course, everyone in the ML knows this as well and thus, they load the lineup with left handed hitters for all of Cabrera's starts.

Two starts ago, Cabrera took to the mound against the Indians with a new windup. The Indians had 7 left handed hitters in the lineup. Cabrera threw 7 innings of shutout baseball with 2 walks and the O's won 4-0. Hope arose (among the O's faithful) that Cabrera might be past his aversion to throwing strikes to left handed hitters, however, that hope was dashed in his next start.

Last night, against Boston, Cabrera did get a 3-1 rain shortened victory, however, in 5 IP, Cabrera surrendered 3 hits (all to left handed hitters), 5 walks (4 to LH), one hit batsmen (LH - rule 5 rookie w/no chance to hit Cabrera's stuff) and several wild pitches (to LH). The Red Sox lone run came in the 3rd inning on the strength of 3 walks and a wild pitch.

If Cabrera ever starts throwing strikes against lefties, he'll dominate hitters ala Bob Gibson. If not, I suppose he'll end up in someone's bullpen specializing in getting out right handed hitters.