Ruthian Roulette

Psst!

Hey! Hey you! You in the blue!

Yeah, youse! I gots a lovely deal for youse.

For a million dollars I'll let you play Russian Roulette with this gun --- she's a beaut, ain't she? I call her boomer. Anyways, it will just cost you a cool million. It's a can't miss proposition, my friend. Five of the six chambers are loaded.

So this is what it's come to with the Dodgers. Which pitcher will they play Ruthian Roulette with? Will it be the Boomer, an expensive new piece that looks good from across the room, or the untrusty Bombko, the devil they know? Is the corpulent devil you don't know better than the devil you know?

The roulette is Ruthian because either the pitcher pitches like a reasonable copy of Babe Ruth, or more likely the opposing hitters swat the ball like they were zombie Babe Ruths. Also because Wells once wore Babe Ruth's cap, according to legend ( and fact ).

So according to reports Wells will soon sign for the Dodgers, maybe for more than a million dollars. So the Dodgers seem to have chosen which gun use in this deadly game. ( If all this talk of death and shooting seems very grim, remember we are talking about replacing Brett Tomko with David Wells. Carnage is assured! )

But which pitcher should they choose to play Ruthian Roulette with? Let's go to the grim record these pitchers have left to find out!

The rules of Ruthian Roulette are simple. If you give up at least two fewer runs than innings pitched, then the team remains alive. If you give up one fewer run or more than innings pitched, then the team falls over dead, nearly sure to lose the game. So 4 runs in 5 innings is dead. 7 runs in 3 innings? You'd better believe dead. 3 runs in 5 innings, still breathing.

Boomer:

Alive!
Dead
Alive!
Dead
Dead
Alive!
Dead

Now wait a minute --- what an awful start he had. Yep, the Padres were regularly leaving themselves in a pool of blood in a ditch by the side of the road when the used the Boomer early in the year. Way too many bullets in the gun at that time. But then something changed in mid-May ...

Alive!
Alive!
Alive!
Alive!
Alive!
Alive!
Alive!
Alive!
Alive!

That's nine times in a row surviving the Boomer! Though there were a few close calls, the Padres had to be feeling good. But then the hammer started hitting the bullet.

Dead
Alive!
Dead
Dead
Dead
Dead

And that's when the Padres got tired of shooting themselves in the head and left the Boomer on the side of the road for some hapless passerby to pick up and use. That passerby ended up being the --- D'oh!

By the numbers Wells left the Padres dead 9 times and alive 13 times. 9 times is a lot, and for that I'd like to congratulate Wells. That's a job well done. But now the Dodgers are using him, pointing him at the head of Sunday night's game. On the surface it's a 13/22 = 59% chance that they'll still be alive when he's done. ( Remember being alive only means you have a chance of winning the game, while dead means the game is almost surely lost, especially if Hillenbrand is your idea of a starter. ) But if it's the late model Boomer who blew off the Padres head 5 out of 6 times, then the Dodgers are going into Sunday's game dead men walking. And it's worth noting that the Padres were left really really dead in his last four starts. None of this almost dead or almost alive nonsense --- he made good and sure that the Padres were finished in every game.

How about the Bomko, though? How have the Dodgers fared when using him?

Well, he started out well enough ...

Alive!
Alive!
Alive!
Alive!
Dead
Alive!
Dead
Decapitated

That last game was the one where he gave up 8 runs in 2 and change innings. I was at that game and "Dead" just doesn't accurately describe what he did to the Dodgers in that game. Anyway, after that harrowing experience the Dodgers wised up and put the Bombko away for awhile.

When forced to start using him again, he started out well again.

Alive!
Alive!
Dead
Alive!
Alive!
Dead
Dead

The Bombko gives a survival rate of 60%, with 9 survivals and 6 deaths. Again, though, the odds feel much worse given his recent history. Even so, it sure seems as if the Boomer is a slightly worse choice than the Bombko.

Not that there are any good choices when playing Ruthian Roulette with these two.