Someone did a study of hockey goalies who were hot and cold and determined that inconsistency was preferable to consistency in the team's win total. Tango theorized that the same was true of pitchers. You figure a team is going to win most of the starts when a starting pitcher gives up 0 or 1 run, but giving up an average number of runs every game is not going to be as good especially if the team can't hit. Tango explained it as the difference between 1 run and 4 runs is bigger than the difference between 4 runs and 7 runs. You are going to lose most of the 4-7 run games, but your chances of winning goes up a lot when you go from 4 runs to 1 run. So, you want to get as many of those really low run games as you can even if you have games where you get pounded.