Week 7: James Paxton

James Paxton had a very good week on the mound last week. In two quality starts, he pitched fifteen innings, had a 1.80 ERA, a 0.60 WHIP, and had one win. Those stats are almost, but not quite, as good as the week Paxton won the MLBoyfriend title last year. However, he earned the repeat win because on Tuesday, May 8, Paxton threw a no-hitter.

I should note that throwing a no-hitter is not enough to win the title of my MLBoyfriend. Especially this season when we're on track to see quite a few no-hitters. There had already been two before Paxton's last week. Fun fact: The first three no-hitters of 2018 have been in three different countries--the United States, Mexico and Canada. Paxton's no-no caught my attention for two reasons.

1. He is on my fantasy baseball team, The Lake Washington Gillygoofangs. So, I was very happy with his contribution to the pitching stats. (It's not his fault that the week wound up being pretty mediocre for the team.)
2. He was the one that threw his no-hitter in Canada--and he's from British Columbia. Friends of this blog may remember that I have a soft spot for Canada and Canadian players.  Paxton's nickname, The Big Maple, is almost enough to make him my MLBoyfriend all by itself.

Week 2: James Paxton

Given the number of outstanding pitching performances last week, it was clear a pitcher would be named my #MLBoyfriend today. There were a number of excellent candidates with not just one but two wins in the last seven days: Wily Peralta of Milwaukee Brewers is now 3-0 for the season after getting two wins last week; Colorado Rockies' rookie Antonio Senzatela's second win completed a sweep of the San Francisco Giants; Detroit Tiger Matthew Boyd gave up only one earned run in twelve innings over two outings; and Michael Pineda of the New York Yankees is finally "starting to realize his potential" with two impressive wins. Above all these great aces, one stood out, so...

Congratulations to James Paxton of the Seattle Mariners. You are my new MLBoyfriend.

On Monday, April 10th, Paxton dominated the Houston Astros in the Mariners' home opener. He went seven innings throwing eight strikeouts and giving up just four hits, two walks and no runs.

Then, on Saturday, April 15th, Paxton had an even more impressive outing against the Texas Rangers. He pitched eight full innings with nine strikeouts, and just two hits and one walk. Again he gave up no runs.

That's right, over fifteen innings in the second week of play, James Paxton had two quality starts, two wins, a phenomenally low WHIP of 0.60, and a 0.00 ERA--it doesn't get much better than that. Oh wait it does get better, because if we count Paxton's outing in the first week of play, his ERA is still 0.00. He's thrown three shut-outs in his first three appearances of the season.