Edwin Jackson had the unenviable task of trying to pitch better than Zack Greinke. Since Greinke has been fantastic this season, his odds were low to begin with. And true to the odds, he didn't win. But his pitching line was decent. He pitched six and a third innings and gave up two earned runs. Not bad right?
But here's the thing. He actually gave up four runs, but two of them were unearned. The unearned rule (without knowing the real history) was probably put in place to protect the pitcher who finds himself giving up runs because of bad fielding. In theory, if the team makes errors that should have been outs, then the runs aren't the pitcher's fault. But Edwin Jackson made both of the errors!
Why should a pitcher get unearned runs when he's the one who made the error(s)? Jackson certainly "earned" all four runs because he caused them all between his pitching and his fielding. This happens all the time and the Fan remembers seeing another box score earlier in the week where the same thing happened.
The thing this does is make the pitcher look better than he was. No matter what the box score says, Jackson gave up all four runs and shouldn't be rewarded statistically for what turned out to be his own runs.
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