Travis Wood Not Afraid of Cy Young

Travis Wood’s faced three-straight former Cy Young Award winners.

For good measure, you can make it four former Cy Youngs he’s faced in his last five trips to the mound: Barry Zito (’02), Justin Verlander (’11), Jake Peavy (’07) & Johan Santana (’04-’06).

I mean, talk about your run of tough luck!

Yet Wood’s pitched exceptionally well posting a quality start in all four outings, including two wins with hardly any run support.

That’s pretty darn impressive for a month of June that appeared, on paper, a mismatch for the left-hander.

As it is, Wood leads the staff with 31.2 innings pitched this month. He’s struck out 24 batters, allowed but eight earned runs, has a sparkling 2.27 ERA and has held opponents to a .234 average against him.

Did I mention he’s faced four formidably pitchers this month?

Suddenly it seems, the return on Sean Marshall is stronger than we first realized.