JustSON the Numbers: Dwight Howard

Here at Just South of North we have noticed a recent trend. That trend has been whatever person or team that has been featured on JustSON the Numbers has struggled after we have featured them.

Johnny Cueto of the Cincinnati Reds, 2-1, 1.65 ERA before being featured, he now sits at 4-2 with a 2.37 ERA and his cat died. Then Kasey Keller, 0.19 goals against average before, it's now gone up to 0.60 goals against average.

Even more recently the San Diego Padres had a 10 game winning streak snapped by JustSON because we had to mention it, and Joe Mauer of the Twins was featured sporting a .429 batting average, well he is 1 for his last 7 since.

With all that being said I figured I'd help out the NBA to prolong the Orlando Magic versus Cleveland Cavalier series and focus this edition on Dwight Howard. Since Howard has been such a big factor in this series, as he goes so goes the Magic, which isn't strange since he is the star of the team.

In breaking down Howard's numbers one thing is apparent, if he doesn't score they don't win, at least in the Cleveland series. The only game the Magic have lost in this series is the game that Cleveland managed to control him and that was in game 2. Howard managed only 8 shots in that game converting on just 3 of them and he went 4 of 8 from the foul line, far and away his worst shooting game. The Cavaliers should consider themselves lucky because even though they held Howard to just 10 points (about 10 below his playoff average) in the game, it took a miracle three pointer by LeBron James at the buzzer to finish off Orlando.

If you throw out Howard's dismal game 2 scoring performance he would be averaging 27 points a game in this series as well as an average of 14.7 shots per game and his free throw percentage would be at about 77%.

It appears that if Howard can stay out of foul trouble the Magic should be able to hold off Cleveland tonight at 7:45 pm eastern time on ESPN to advance to their 2nd NBA Finals in the teams history.

Well good luck beating Cleveland tonight Orlando, if the JustSON Jinx holds up it's going to be tough.

If anyone has any requests for this column let us know. I don't discriminate, no matter the sport or the stat.

JustSON the Numbers: Johnny Cueto

With this latest edition of JustSON the Numbers I decided to give the Cincinnati Reds some love and focus on their young starting pitcher Johnny Cueto.

Cueto entered last season with a lot of hype but was outshone by fellow young gun Edinson Volquez who came to the Reds in the Josh Hamilton trade. Volquez had a great season going 17-6 with a 3.21 ERA, 206 strikeouts and a trip to the All-Star game.

The 2008 season had it's share of ups and downs for the then 22 year old Cueto from San Pedro de Macoris in the Dominican Republic. September was a really tough month for Cueto, he went 1-2 with a 6.16 ERA in only 19 innings pitched. On the year he ended up with a 9-14 record and a 4.81 ERA with 158 strikeouts.

So far this season Cueto is showing off the talent that had everyone excited last season. The lone exception to this was Cueto's first start of this season at home against Pittsburgh when he gave up 8 hits and 4 runs over 6 innings while taking the loss. Since then he has been on fire only giving up 2 earned runs, 17 hits and 8 walks over his last 26 2/3 innings pitched. That's good enough for a 0.69 ERA over his last 4 starts (FYI if you ever wanted to calculate and ERA you can do so by dividing the pitchers earned runs allowed by the number of innings pitched then multiplying that by 9, I'm a nerd, I've been told).

Last year it seemed Cueto tried to strike everybody out and when his control wasn't there it lead to a lot of walks (68 in 174 innings pitched), which is natural for a young pitcher. On another note his batting average is up to .200 this season after batting just .044 last year.

You can see Cueto (2-1, 1.65 ERA) and the rest of Reds face the St. Louis Cardinals for the first time this year, tomorrow at 7:10 pm eastern time.

On a side note I'm going to be trying to post a JustSON the Numbers article every day during the week. If anyone has any requests for this column let us know. I don't discriminate, no matter the sport or the stat.