If you had been asked before the season started to put odds on seeing that headline anytime during the 2007 campaign, what would we have been looking at? 100 to 1? 1000 to 1? And, I assume, the odds would have been that good simply to hedge against the possibility of an ironically titled post?

Well, however unlikely an occurrence it may be, Marquis has certainly earned accolades. The numbers speak for themselves, what with a 1.70 ERA and a 5-1 record and the numbers are finally starting to reflect the true story.

You see, despite shiny numbers in April, Marquis was only pitching decently. He was certainly getting a little lucky in that rarely do pitchers with an almost 1:1 strike/walk ratio couple that with a 2.35 ERA. Luck was certainly on his side, only giving up 23 hits in his 30 innings of work despite not missing many bats. In fact, the only thing he was really doing to earn his glorious April record was keep the ball in the park (on one homer allowed).

But May. As the old saying goes (and I'm paraphrasing here), "April good-performances bring May spectacular performances." In May so far, Jason Marquis has gone 2-0, allowing one run in 17 innings of work. Even better, he's walked zero batters while striking out 10. His K:BB ratio is infinity! The only thing better than infinity is infinity plus one, and that's Greg Maddux territory! Exclamation point!

So anyway, while I think Marquis benefited from a bit of a lucky start, he's been better than simple luck can explain so far in May. He's truly earned his recent success and hopefully this will be the year that he doesn't start out hot only to fade away.

And the scariest part? If he has a good season, we might have to give Rothschild partial credit.

I know. I also shudder at the thought.