Anderson
When the Royals traded for left handed pitcher Brian Anderson last year, we were told that he is an innings eater. He had given up a lot of runs, but several were unearned. In checking BaseballReference.com, I see that during his time in Cleveland last year, he gave up 88 runs, and only 61 of those were earned. This means he was a "hard luck" pitcher whose defense let him down.

So far this year, Anderson again seems to be a "hard luck" pitcher. In his last start against the Blue Jays, he gave up 6 runs in the top of the first, but only 2 of those were earned.

I'm curious though. Why would one pitcher give up so many unearned runs? Is it an indication of his stuff? I'm beginning to think that Brian Anderson may not be as effective as we thought. Unearned runs are a result of errors. Errors, commonly, are the result of balls hit hard that fielders get a glove on, but can't handle. This happened in the Blue Jays game, when a hard grounder shot to Joe Randa at third and got through him to left field. I don't think Anderson is fooling anybody right now. Batters are hitting the ball hard, and the Royals are giving up mass quantities of runs when he starts. In his last two starts, the opposing team scored 10 and 9. He's given up 46 runs in just 8 games (10 of those are unearned runs).

It will be interesting to see how Anderson fares in his next few starts.