Roy Oswalt Is Inhuman

I knew Roy Oswalt was having a good year because I've seen him pitch a several times, and every time I've seen him this year he's looked very, very good. Last night I think he finally outdid himself as he pitched the Astros to just their second win in 11 games, a 3-1 win over the Reds. How good was Oswalt last night? From Crawfish Boxes:

Roy Oswalt threw an insane 74 strikes in 95 total pitches vs. Cincinnati on Wednesday, and if he'd thrown just a couple fewer strikes, he might have thrown a no-hitter.

Oswalt in today's game is a mutant, a freak. No-one throws strikes like he does. According to Baseball-Reference, Roy is throwing 76% of his pitches for strikes this year. Compare that to Tim Hudson--who you may have heard is having a pretty good year--at 64%. Or compare the same Kyle Lohse Oswalt faced and beat last night. Lohse may not be all that good, but he did come into last night's game leading the National League in strikeout-to-walk ratio. Yet Lohse still was only throwing 66% of his pitches for strikes.

74 strikes in 95 pitches is pretty much insane. He didn't throw a no-hitter, but he did hold the Reds to four hits over his eight innings and only allowed one run, an Adam Dunn solo homer in the fifth. The much maligned Astro offense managed to get him two runs in the first inning when Hunter Pence tripled in Craig Biggio (for his first career RBI) and Lance Berkman singled Pence in. Turns out those two runs were all Oswalt would need last night.

The win brings the Astros to 11-15 and that's good to get them within a game and a half of every other team in the NL Central. Well, except the Brewers, who we've already established are quite good at baseball.