Seeing as how there is nothing good to speak on in regards to the big club this morning, here's a little excercise about how ERA can skew our views of pitcher (and most Yankee prospect hounds already know where I'm going with this). Prior to his latest start, here is our mystery pitcher's line for the season:

86.1 IP, 70 H, 30 BB, 83 Ks.

That's not too bad huh? Unfortunately, his 45 ER in that span gave Tyler Clippard a 4.69 ERA which makes him, in most people's eyes, look like a bust for the season. Actually, it looked like his days as a pitching prospect were over when his ERA would bloated to 5.69 earlier this year but he's really started moving since then. Including last night's masterful performance, Tyler has pitched 26.1 innings in his last 4 starts, giving up 11 hits and 6 walks while striking out 32. He's only allowed 2 ER in this run so far and has dropped his ERA a full run and a half. Here's the updated line:

94.1 IP, 71 H, 45 ER, 32 BB, 94 Ks
(4W-10L, 4.29 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, 2.9 K/BB ratio and averaging 9.0 Ks per game).

Not too shabby for 21 year old (22 on Valentine's Day 2007) at AA, huh? Heck, it would be even more impressive if you were to throw out Clippard's worst start this year which consisted of 1 IP, 5 H, 8 ER and 3 BBs. Take that one start out of his overall numbers (that would make them 93.1 IP, 66 H, 37 ER, 29 BB and 94 Ks for those who refuse to use math) and all of a sudden, you have a nice looking pitching prospect on your hands again. Still, I'm not going ga-ga just yet so at this point, let's just hope he can keep this run going because it would be great to see a Yanks starting pitching prospect not named Hughes get some positive press (where have you gone Christian Garcia?)