The Philllies' Big Three by Game Score

First off, I realize that this makes two straight posts that have a Phillies theme to them. This was not intentional. Please do not think that I have suddenly become a huge Phillies fan, as I have not.

By all accounts, the Phillies' big three are all having excellent seasons. Roy Halladay leads the group with a 15-5 record, while sporting a 2.56 ERA. Cliff Lee sits at 14-7 with a 2.71 ERA, while Cole Hamels rounds out the 3 with a 13-7 record and a 2.58 ERA. The advanced metrics back up those stats, with Roy Halladay first in WAR among pitchers at Fangraphs with 6.9 (6.0 at B-R), Cole Hamels at 6th with 5.3 (5.3 at B-R), and Cliff Lee at 8th with 5.2 (5.2 at B-R). I wanted to take another route at comparing the three though, so I decided to have a closer look at their individual pitching game scores (as per baseball-reference).

Conveniently for the sake of comparison, all 3 pitchers have made 26 starts this year as of this posting. I'm comparing their game scores to see if any of them stick out as being more consistent as well as each pitcher's high and low scores. Here is a summary of the three:

	avg	high	low	st dev	sub 50	50-59	60-69	70-79	80+
Halladay	62.31	83	31	13.01	5	4	8	7	2
Lee	62.54	92	18	19.55	6	4	5	5	6
Hamels	62.73	81	18	16.34	4	3	8	10	1

The first thing that should be mentioned is how close their average game scores are. I suspected that Halladay might have the highest average, but he in fact has the lowest average, although only by .4/start. Hamels actually comes out on top in terms of highest average score at 62.73, while Lee falls almost exactly between the two.

Lee has the highest game score of the three this year with a 92, a complete-game 3 hit shutout that came April 14 against the Nationals. He struck out 12 while walking only 1 in that game. Somewhat curiously, this came in the start directly following Lee's worst start of the year, which tied with Hamels as the worst game score of any of the three - in which Lee went 3 1/3 while allowing 10 hits and 6 earned runs - good for a game score of 18. Halladay's high was an 83 - 8 2/3 of 1 run ball against the Padres on April 24 with 14 K's. His best game score actually came in the start directly following his worst game score of the year as well, a 31 coming in 6 2/3 against the Brewers in which he gave up 10 hits and 6 runs. Hamels high was an 81, on July 22 against the Padres in which he went 8, while scattering 3 hits and striking out 10. You might have noticed a theme with the previous 2 that their highest game score of the year came directly after their lowest, and Hamels it seems is not one to break tradition, in that his low score of 18 came in the start just before he hit 81. His 18 came against the Mets in which he gave up 8 runs over 4 1/3.

As for consistency, Halladay's game scores had the lowest standard deviation, at 13.01, while Lee had the largest deviation at 19.55. This can be highlighted by Lee having 6 starts with game scores of less than 50, but also 6 game scores of 80 or above - the highest total in both ranges. Lee's top 3 game scores of 92, 86, and 85 are actually higher than Halladay or Hamels hit in any start this year.

Any way you look at the Phillies' big three starters, they appear to be a pretty scary sight for any team come October.