Biggest surprise
 

After 1/3rd of the season Carlos Silva has to be the biggest surprise in baseball

http://mlb.mlb.com/team/player.jsp?player_id=400067

8-0 with a 2.93 era and a 1.06 WHIP? For a bad Cubs team?

No one could have seen this coming.

Jose Bautista and his 18 HR's a close second.

Um...while I didn't think he would start this strong, I am on record with several people that he would have a strong first half, and a bad second half.

A strong first half for Silva would have been 4-3 with a 4.10 ERA and 1.40 WHIP

What he is doing isnt strong, it is close to a miracle

They should consider trading him now while he's at the top.

In theory you are right. but i don't think anyone expects this to last, even Scavs.

Fister in Seattle before he got hurt. He was leading the AL in ERA before his last start, who could have predicted that.

Fister got hurt? Fister, Jurgens, Lohse, Ethier, Nelson Cruz, Montero, Felipe Lopez...Tim Stauffer, Derrick Holland ..... I got the knack of picking cripples. God only knows what infirmity overtook Uptown B.J.

The year before he was decent, he just 'lost it' and his coach couldn't get him out of it. Rothchild is a above average pitching coach, especially with starters. I was completely against this whole Ted Lilly experiment, but ever since he has signed he has been solid.

While his start this year was very good, he is a young player who had pitched pretty well last year. It is entirely feasible that he had improved in his second season. Not likely but within the range of possibility.

Silva was a batting practice pitcher outside of 2005. He was 5-18 with a 6.83 era the last 2 seasons. Is the NL really this bad?

No, he's pitched really well. Lot of diving pitches. Hardly anything flat.

Silva only pitched 30 mostly awful innings in 09

The year before that? He was disgraceful in 2008.
4-15 6.38 ERA 153 IP 213 hits
opposing batters hit .328 against him

He was merely a tick below league average in 07 but was awful in 06

From baseball prospectus on his 08 season

"Silva did nothing to dispel the perception that former general manager Bill Bavasi overpaid for Silva on the free agent market. At his best, Silva is a fourth/fifth starter who doesn't walk or strike out anyone and lives by getting batters to hit the ball on the ground, or would if his ground ball rate wasn't unexceptional. Bavasi is gone, but this gift will keep on taking from the Mariners through 2011, after which they can pay him another $2 million to buy him out of his 2012 option. A signing like this one had so little chance of succeeding that if the Mariners franchise were a brand new car, Bavasi's signing of Silva was tantamount to the GM taking that car up to top speed and driving it into a wall. The real question isn't why he did it, but who was the bright guy that gave him the keys? "

Actually, the last pitch (that got last place Milledge to pop out) was pretty flat. Lucky that didn't get hit out.