Onto Wednesday and Arroyo

My off-day story will be on Bronson Arroyo. As much as is made of the importance of the Johnny Cueto and Edinson Volquez being successful, Arroyo having a turnaround year isn't far behind.

He went from going 14-11 with 3.29 ERA in the '06 to going 9-15 with 4.23 ERA last season. But he only had one fewer quality starts -- 22 to 23.

“If you have 200 innings and 20-plus quality starts, you've kept your team in the game two-thirds of the the time, which is pretty good," Arroyo said. “The other things kind of fall into place. You always look at wins and losses because that’s what everyone else looks at. You try to get three a month if you can, but that doesn’t always happen.”

Arroyo's problem last year was he went 0-7 with 7.28 ERA from May 11 to June 24. The second start of the streak was the 129-pitch outing in San Diego. Arroyo paid dearly for that. But he got himself straightened out and finished -- 4-2, 3.16 ERA in his last nine starts.

He said he worked to strengthen his shoulder in the offseason to give his fastball a bit more zip. Arroyo throws a ton of offspeed pitches. But when his fastball is at 90, 91, it makes those pitches much better. He had a great spring.

Wednesday, we'll start to see how it translates into the regular season.