Required Reading

Looks like Josh Johnson is beginning to get noticed outside of South Florida, despite being overshadowed by Ubaldo Jimenez in the National League and both Roy Halladay and Stephen Strasburg in the NL East. Today at Deadspin, Barry Petchesky takes a look at Johnson and Jimenez while debunking the "pitching resurgence" meme:

Here's where we've got to be "that guy" and point out that Johnson and Jiménez have had great numbers since they came up, but their performances so far this year are unbelievable statistical outliers. Their respective seasons are just as out of line with their career numbers as Brady Anderson hitting 50 home runs, or Luis Gonzalez's 57.

Then he gives a plausibly deniable "What about steroids?" routine, without saying anything too outlandish.

Meanwhile, ESPN's Rob Neyer responds to Greg Cote, and points out that the big difference in Johnson this year is his lower-than-usual home run rate (I think someone else alluded to that the other day). He concludes,

And he's only 26 years old. We'll probably never see another streak like this [eight consecutive starts giving up zero runs or one run] from Johnson again. But that doesn't necessarily mean that we've seen his best.

I think it's time to consider cloning, Mr. Loria.