Friday game notes, and a little catch-up

Too much going on for a full report, but I’ll just hang it up there and see how y’all whack it.

@Angels 6, White Sox 2: Chicago’s 3rd straight loss cut their division lead to 1 game in the loss column. In their last 4 games, they have 4 HRs and 8 runs. Angels gained a game on Oakland in the WC chase, but they’re 4 back in the loss column with no games left against the teams to need to catch.

  • A HR and a 2B for Mike Trout, who had 1 XBH and no RBI in his previous 10 games.
  • Jake Peavy topped 200 IP for the first time since 2007. (I surely didn’t think he’d ever do that again.) Is his second-half decline due to fatigue (in the last 3 years he peaked at 112 IP) or a reversal of fortune (BAbip split .254/.320)?

@Cubs 5, Cardinals 4 (11): Location, location, location. With his team one strike away from a 4-2 victory, fill-in closer Fernando Salas allowed a 1-and-2 single to David DeJesus and then a tying HR by Darwin Barney on a terrible 1-and-2 changeup. DeJesus won it with 2 gone in the 11th on Joe Kelly‘s 0-and-2 fastball(?) right down Broadway.

  • Cards lost their 4-game win streak and saw their WC lead fall to 1 loss over Milwaukee.
  • Here’s the kind of play that used by make my Mets friends fulminate against Carlos Beltran: Top of the 1st inning, after a leadoff double, first pitch, he bunted. It was scored a sacrifice, his first since 2008. I assume he was bunting for a hit, but it’s a bad play no matter what. Sure, he’s had a down stretch — last 32 games, 6 RBI and .198 BA — but he came in on a hot run of 9 for 19. And yes, Beltran has a very good career record of 26 hits and 17 sacs out of 56 bunts. It’s still a bad play in the top of the 1st inning with a man in scoring position.
  • Cubs need 4 more wins to dodge 100 losses.

@Yankees 2, Athletics 1: Bombers have won 6 in a row, but gained just a game on the O’s.

  • New York has two walk-off HRs this year, both by Russell Martin. The other one also redeemed Rafael Soriano‘s blown save.
  • Brandon Moss tied it in the 9th with a pinch-HR. He has 17 HRs in 181 ABs vs. RHP, and 11 HRs in 102 ABs on the road.
  • CC’s best Game Score since last July.
  • The last time CC faced Oakland, Soriano also blew a 1-run lead on a 1-out HR.
  • Martin has 18 HRs and a .206 BA. Of the 283 prior seasons of 18+ HRs by a Yankee, the lowest BA was .220 by Kevin Maas.
  • One hit and two Ks for Derek Jeter, advancing his franchise records. He’s about two years from passing Gehrig and Ruth for total-base supremacy.

D-backs 15, @Rockies 5: In the 2nd inning, Aaron Hill struck out with the bags full and 2 down. The Snakes chalked in every other frame.

  • Miguel Montero (5-3-3-3) is an underrated star. He’s started 127 games behind the mask this year, tops in MLB, and also leads in starts for 2011-12 combined. He cuts off the running game almost as well as Yadier Molina, and he joins Yadi and Carlos Santana as the only regular catchers with OPS+ 115+ each of the last 2 years.
  • It’s been a banner year for NL catchers, with Yadi, BusterChooch, Miggy and J-croy all topping 3 WAR. In the last 30 years, only one other NL season has seen five 3-WAR catchers (1997).
  • Colorado has allowed 493 runs in 75 home games, 6.57 RA/HG.
  • Next-highest is Boston at 5.25, then Minny at 5.19, and Baltimore at 4.80.
  • Lowest is SF at 3.26, less than half the Rockies’ average.
  • Total runs in Colorado home games are up from 10.81 last year to 12.51 this year.

__________

THURSDAY THINGAMAJIGS

Rangers 3, @Angels 1: If this was the game that drove the dagger home, the initial thrust came on August 1: After taking the first 2 of a 4-game Texas visit, the Californians were poised to move within 2 games of the leaders. But Ernesto Frieri couldn’t hold a 1-run lead in the 9th, yielding a Ian Kinsler‘s tying HR, and Frieri and Izzy combined to blow a 3-run lead and lose in the 10th. Texas won again the next day with another late barrage, and the Halos left town just as they’d arrived, 5 games back.

  • Mike Trout has played 16 more games this year than he’s ever played before. Coincidence or not, this game produced the worst WPA of his career, -0.246: 0 for 4, 2 strikeouts, including this “WTF?” SO/CS DP that ended an inning with the go-ahead run on 3rd and Torii Hunter due up.
  • Must have felt like Groundhog Day to Zack Greinke. By the way, that’s 6 straight games with 7+ IP and 2 R or less, matching the longest streaks of the year (Dickey & Felix H.).
  • As noted by EdMark Trumbo has not hit a two-bagger since July 17, a span of 52 games and 212 PAs. The last 50-game streak by a position player with at least 2 PAs per game was in 2008 by Edgar Renteria; our friend Jason Bay went 47 games last year without doubling his pleasure.

@Royals 4, White Sox 3: The baserunning was bad enough, but any team that intentionally walks Jeff Francoeur is just begging to lose.

@Nats 4, Dodgers 1: The franchise’s only prior playoff appearance wasn’t clinched until the final Friday, when Steve Rogers blanked the Mets on 2 hits in front of 6,720 die-hard New Yorkers.

LA is 3 games out of a wild card with 12 to play, none against the teams they need to catch. OK, we all know that the Mets’ offense has died, with 47 runs in 17 games this month; but LA has just 48 runs in 17 September games.

  • For 2011-12 combined, among pitchers with 200+ innings, Ross Detwiler‘s 130 ERA+ ranks 11th, tied with Roy Halladay. Somehow, I would not have guessed that….

@Giants 9, Rockies 2: Suddenly, Barry Zito can’t lose, even when he allows 10 hits in 5.2 IP. SF has won his last 9 starts, in which he has a 3.96 ERA with 60 hits in 50 IP (.302 BA).

  • Pablo Sandoval is the first SFG this year with 2 HRs in a home game. Pop quiz: Besides the Panda, who’s the only other Giant since Bonds retired with multiple multi-HR home games?
  • First game this year with a GDP from 2 different #3 hitters on the same team. First such game in Rockies history; they’ve also had 1 such game by the nos. 2, 7, 8 and 9 spots. In MLB this year, the only spot left with no such games is leadoff.
  • Rockies have dropped 6 in a row and 13 of 15. They need to go at least 5-8 to avoid their first 100-loss year, and 10-4 to avoid a new club record for losses.

_______________

Pop quiz answer: This fellow had 3 such games.

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RJ
RJ
11 years ago

Oooh, a pop-quiz I might have a chance at. *Sets self up for fall* I’m going to say Bengie Molina…

RJ
RJ
11 years ago
Reply to  RJ

Woohoo! Good old Bengie. I’m shocked to see how lowly he registers on OPS+ during his SF years, seeing as he was effectively our only legitimte power threat for a couple of seasons, and was the best offensive player on the 2008 team (amazing how quickly things can turn around). Of course I was unaware of the advanced metrics back then; it makes quite a lot of sense now.

Jim Bouldin
11 years ago
topper009
topper009
11 years ago

Saturday shockers:
Its September 22 and we have a triple crown leader, Cabrera hits a dinger to tie Hamilton for the AL lead. This could be one of the most famous MVP decisions of all-time in terms of SABR vs old school.

I dont see how Miggy could lose with the triple crown. I feel like even the most SABR inclined voters (who of course are a joke compared to the average reader here) would say something like Trout was better on defense and baserunning but a triple crown is too historic.

Mike L
Mike L
11 years ago
Reply to  topper009

Ted Williams had two triple crowns and 2 MVPs. In four different years. Anything is possible.

bstar
11 years ago
Reply to  Mike L

True, but there hasn’t been a Triple Crown in 35 years. Far different environment now than back in Ted’s day.

bstar
11 years ago
Reply to  bstar

2012-1967 = 45* years, sorry.

birtelcom
Editor
11 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

And the Yankees won anyway! I can’t imagine there have been too many teams in MLB history that have lost despite three homers in extra innings. Not easily searchable in the PI, but maybe Elias or somebody will deign to tell us.

Raphy
Raphy
11 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

A search of all the games that are included in the BR event-finder (complete since ’73,with games since 1948), returns no other games in which a team hit 3 extra inning home runs and lost.
This one was the closest: http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS196905160.shtml
In the top of the 11th, the Pilots scored 6 runs on a walk, single, double, triple and 3 HRs, but only won by a single run.

Doug
Doug
11 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

Seattle is looking an even bet to have their third straight season under 600 runs. Excepting strike-shortened seasons, the last team to do that: Padres in 1971-76.

Seattle has averaged 2.8 runs a game since Sep 1. They need to average 2.9 over their last 10 contests to hit 600 for the season.

Thomas Court
Thomas Court
11 years ago

So the Orioles have won 16 consecutive extra inning games. Am I safe to assume that when two teams are tied after nine innings that either team has a 50% chance at being victorious? Statistically hoping for the same outcome 16 times on a coin flip has the odds of 65536 to 1. So what factors would change those odds either in favor or against the Orioles? My guess would be that you have to factor in the following: 1. Strength of opponent. 2. How much does home field affect the outcome of extra inning games historically. 3. How the… Read more »

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
11 years ago
Reply to  Thomas Court

The best record by a team in the red was by the 1981 Orioles. They were 8 runs in the red with a W-L% of .562. Second are the 1932 Pirates with 10 runs in the red and a W-L% of .558. Third are the 1984 Mets with -24 and .556, the 1997 Giants with -9 and .556 and the 2007 D’backs with -20 and .556.

Jim Bouldin
11 years ago
Reply to  Thomas Court

Ah, a man after my own heart. To your first question, you would have to adjust for home/away advantage. For the O’s this is inconsequential, because they have nearly identical records home and away. Strength of opposition would factor into it, but as sample size increases that’s going to neutralize. I don’t know how to select by extra inning games, but in one-run games, the Orioles are actually slightly better against teams over .500 (18-5) than against teams under it (9-3), but over a larger sample size. So opponent strength is not likely a factor in their extra inning record… Read more »

tag
tag
11 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

I’m still sticking with my cartoon insignia argument in relation to O’s in extras and one-run games. Odds of 65536 to 1 are nothing to the likes of Daffy, Foghorn, Road Runner, Tweety, et al. They lap those up for breakfast.

bstar
11 years ago
Reply to  tag

I think the new, old school insignia is on PEDs. He looks so much bigger and bolder.

Jim Bouldin
11 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

John think positively–at least you get to wear a tuba when you do that, in your scarlet and gray briefs. A clarinet for example would be much worse.

Ed
Ed
11 years ago

Barring a late season rally, the Pirates are going to finish under .500 for the 20th straight season. That’s a record correct? Anyone know what the next longest streak is?

birtelcom
Editor
11 years ago
Reply to  Ed

16 seasons: Phillies 1933-1948
15 seasons: Red Sox 1919-1933 and Athletics 1953-1967

Red Sox were at .500 in 1934.

Ed
Ed
11 years ago
Reply to  birtelcom

Thanks guys, that confirms what I thought. There are still parts of the PI that I don’t understand how to use and that’s one of them.

BTW, I believe the Pirates streak is actually the longest in any of the 4 major sports.

Ed
Ed
11 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

Wow, thanks John. I wasn’t expecting you to do so much work in support of my query. Hope you and Birtelcom didn’t duplicate too much effort.

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
11 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

John: Did you use what is known as the Consecutive Number Counting Formula?

Ed
Ed
11 years ago
Reply to  Ed

Meanwhile, the longest playoff drought does to the Royals. They haven’t been in the playoffs since they won the WS in ’85 when someone named George Brett was still playing for them. Wow, that was a long time ago. Heck, I was still in high school!

Last Royals team to win 90 or more games in a season was the ’89 team.

Ed
Ed
11 years ago
Reply to  Ed

Small sort of correction. The Nationals/Expos haven’t been to the playoffs since ’81 (their only appearance). But obviously they’re going this year so the Royals will replace them as the team with the longest playoff drought.

Jim Bouldin
11 years ago
Reply to  Ed

Expos really got hosed by the 94 strike however Ed.

K&J
K&J
11 years ago
Reply to  birtelcom

The Phillies gave you losing seasons 1918-1931 (14 seasons)
then ONE winning season in 1932, only two games over .500 (78-76)
then immediately followed by the 1933-1948 losing run (16 seasons)

The had consecutive winning percentages of .300 .298 .327 .297 .298 from 1938-1942.

Really, just 31 horrible years.

Ed
Ed
11 years ago
Reply to  K&J

It really is amazing that baseball survived it’s early years. We complain about lack of competitiveness due to payroll differences, but things were so much worse in the early years. Only one playoff spot for 8 teams, meaning most teams were out of it early on. And far fewer ways to improve your team if they weren’t any good. Those Phillies teams that K&J cited averaged 2-5,000 fans a year. I imagine there were other teams with similar attendance figures. Can you imagine being a player back then, knowing you’re stuck on a team that has no chance of winning… Read more »

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
11 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

The expression “First in peace, first in war and last in the American League” may have something to do with it. It probably really caught the fancy of the public.

Mike L
Mike L
11 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

“Washington. First in war, first in peace, last in the American League.”

K&J
K&J
11 years ago
Reply to  Ed

Chavez used to be one of those crazy young guys with the A’s. He was very loose and relaxed. (I know, easy to be loose when you’re an up-and-coming star)

Things change.

Nash Bruce
Nash Bruce
11 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

😀 let alone, that in the Quadruple Crown Of Traditional Stats race, Mauer is first in OBP at .418, leading Cabrera (third) by twenty points. Not a bad year from a player who had a career-trajectory-altering season last year, due to injury(fatigue?), and who this year, has played only slightly more than half of his games at catcher, his natural position. Yet, even though Mauer has put up more or less below-average defensive stats at 1B, he has still had a hell of a year offensively…..despite occasionally having abuse heaped upon him, by his own hometown fans. Kudos to those… Read more »

Ed
Ed
11 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

John – Instead of tracking the O’s record in one run games, we should have been tracking your amazing ability to immediately jinx players and teams. Following Mauer’s 0-5 performance in the nightcap, I think you’re at least 20 for 20. 🙂

Mike L
Mike L
11 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

That’s the way it works, John A. I know that, during a Yankee game, if I sit a catcher’s crouch with a copy of Barron’s in front of me, it may be possible to influence the outcome of the game, especially with Mariano in there.

topper009
topper009
11 years ago
Reply to  Ed

The baseball gods called in a favor from the sun gods to reward the Brewers with 2 “hits” that were routine outs lost in the sun. Like all sets of vengeful gods sacrifices are expected for their appeasement, and the beermakers are 2nd in the NL with 75 sac bunts. The Dodgers lead the senior circuit in sacs but unfortunately the Scientology gods don’t follow baseball.

Nash Bruce
Nash Bruce
11 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

In order to ratify this agreement, the Commish requested only that one representative from each team sign the letter. Liriano was nominated for Chicago, and everything was going fine, until he had a meltdown, midway through his first name, and could not go on….

Kansas City, anyone??

Jim Bouldin
11 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

This is exactly why divisions should be done away with completely. Take the four best teams in the league if you want, or any other reasonable scheme (there are many such), but do away with a system that forces mediocre teams into the playoffs at the expense of clearly better ones. Even *with* a second wild-card team added this year, we’re still likely to have at least one team sit out with a better record than the AL Central champ, and having played a harder schedule.

topper009
topper009
11 years ago
Reply to  Jim Bouldin

I have to disagree. You can’t take luck out of sports, if you want to follow a sport with no luck involved watch track and field. Why even have the playoffs then? A 7 game series between 2 teams allows for the team that is clearly worse to win, so trash that too. Just have every team player every other team the same number of times and the team with the best record takes all. That would be more fair, however it would make the sport worse from a fan perspective. Why allow broken bat base hits, or line drive… Read more »

Mike L
Mike L
11 years ago
Reply to  Jim Bouldin

I’d go somewhere between the Jim and Topper positions. I think the problem is less with divisions and more with scheduling, particularly when you throw in inter-league play. With this many teams, you probably need at least two divisions, but it’s inexcusable that wild cards can have such a disparate strength of schedule. Esthetically, I would like to see a lot more games out of the division.

As to Topper’s comments about the East Coast, I recommend “The Island At The Center of World”. Even in the 1660s, we knew were special.

topper009
topper009
11 years ago
Reply to  Jim Bouldin

If you want to make the playoffs win your division, if you cant be the best team in your division why should you be able to compete for best team overall. All this whining about being screwed because you are the 4th best team in the league is a little like teams complaining they deserved to be in the NCAA tournament because they were really the 33rd best at large team instead of the 35th.

Mike L
Mike L
11 years ago
Reply to  topper009

Topper @61, a great argument for getting rid of the wildcard. For that matter, a great argument for getting rid of divisions. Why not go back to the old world series, where the best of the AL, after 162 hard fought games, faced the best of the NL? Of course, we know that for economic reasons that’s never going to happen, and no-one has pushed harder to cheapen the value of the regular season and keep as many teams in contention as long as possible than Bud Selig. It’s a critical part of his legacy, including the infantile All Star… Read more »

topper009
topper009
11 years ago
Reply to  Mike L

Because there are too many teams now, it would suck for fans. Being 1 out of 8 is already tough odds for fans, but if your only hope going into the season was being 1 out of 14 or 15 or 16 there is almost no point in being a fan of half the teams. Look at the Brewers last season, 96 wins, a franchise a record, and that’s it the season should be over.

Fan need to have a realistic sense of hope.

Jim Bouldin
11 years ago
Reply to  Jim Bouldin

Topper, pre-1969 the WS did in fact have meaning because you *knew* you were getting the best team from each league–they’d proven it in a balanced, extended tournament known as the regular season. In the WS, you usually did not know which team was “clearly better” because there was no inter-league play by which to make any such judgement. So the system was *much* better at determining the best team(s) in baseball. Whereas now the WS means very little (and the new “wild card playoff” virtually nothing. The problem of course is that MLB is simply following the path taken… Read more »

topper009
topper009
11 years ago
Reply to  Jim Bouldin

I dont care, if the 3rd or 4th best teams in the league want to make the playoffs they should be the 1st or 2nd best team in the league, they’re not so stop whining. You cant take luck out of sports, no matter how much you try. The Tigers or Sox will get lucky and the Angles wont, tough luck. The Angels will take 3rd place in their own division, they have no one but themselves to blame. Last I looked they play the same schedule as the other teams in their division and they could only manage the… Read more »

Jim Bouldin
11 years ago
Reply to  topper009

Hmmm. You seem to confuse “luck” with arbitrary decisions and argument/discussion with “whining”.

And you apparently think winning a division is somehow sacred or at least qualifying in some respect. I don’t.

topper009
topper009
11 years ago
Reply to  topper009

For the Twins and Royals, they have to be the best of 5 teams, decent for their fans to have hope every spring. In your system they have to be what, 1st or 2nd out of 15 teams which have an unfair advantage over them (which you can account for, see the NFL) so there is basically no reason at all to be a Royals fan, it would be pointless. I am not saying you are whining, I am saying an Angels fan would be whining if they think its not fair that they finished 3 out of 4 against… Read more »

topper009
topper009
11 years ago
Reply to  Jim Bouldin

An interesting compromise would be to have a hockey like system using points. Obviously traditional fans’ heads would explode, but with the new 6 5 team division set up, you would have each team play: own division, 4 teams x 18 games = 72 games other divisions, 10 teams x 6 games = 60 games one division other league, 5 teams x 6 games = 30 games 162 total games played, however in terms of winning your division nothing changes straight up records matter. BUT in terms of winning the 2 wild card slots, each intra-division game counts for 1… Read more »

Jim Bouldin
11 years ago
Reply to  Jim Bouldin

Take 15 teams ranked by quality and randomly bin them into three five-team divisions.

Questions:
1. What is the likelihood that the top three teams in the league win their divisions?
2. What is the likelihood that one of the division winners is not one of the four best teams in the league?

Answers:
1. 0.275
2. 0.450

R code (one million sims):

leaders = matrix(NA,nrow=1000000,ncol=3)
a = 1:15

for (i in 1:nrow(leaders)){
d1=sample(a,5); d2=sample(a[-d1],5); d3=a[-c(d1,d2)]
leaders[i,] = c(min(d1), min(d2), min(d3))
}

top3 = apply(leaders,1, function(x) length(x[x>3]))
length(top3[top3 >= 1])/nrow(leaders)
top4 = apply(leaders,1, function(x) length(x[x>4]))
length(top4[top4 >= 1])/nrow(leaders)

mosc
mosc
11 years ago
Reply to  Jim Bouldin

The math is damning but some level of randomness is important. Teams change over the course of the season, records don’t reflect talent. Playoffs add excitement to the sport, precisely because the best team doesn’t always win. Most significant, playoff races sell tickets and create interest. You want more teams in the mix. It’s nice when that doesn’t come at the cost of leaving out better teams but the tradeoff itself is important to the sport.

Jim Bouldin
11 years ago
Reply to  mosc

mosc my point is not w.r.t. whether the outcome of a short series is fair or not, but rather whether the system set up to filter teams into, and out of, the playoffs, on the basis of their regular season performance, is fair or not.

And it patently is not. If 45% of the time you don’t have the four best teams in there after 162 games, then something’s wrong in my view. Of course, baseball is not alone in this regard, by any means.

topper009
topper009
11 years ago
Reply to  Jim Bouldin

Where does it end? Should Baltimore be considered a good team when they have outperformed their pythag by 1000 games this year? Is that just all luck? Maybe we should just throw out records, have each team play every other the same number of times and award the title to the team with the best run differential. That is more fair than this archaic game-playing thing. The system as it is now is clearly not fair as you pointed out, but as your dad likely told you life isn’t fair. You cant take out luck of team sports no matter… Read more »

Ed
Ed
11 years ago
Reply to  topper009

Life isn’t fair therefore we should ignore unfairness and do nothing to improve things. Um, okay.

topper009
topper009
11 years ago
Reply to  topper009

YOU CANT REMOVE LUCK FROM SPORTS Sure you can rearrange the divisions but it doesn’t matter, some team will have bad luck and lose. Felix Hernandez will face some team 4 teams and some other team once, some team will win more games than their pythag says they should, some teams will face opponents who care in the middle of a cold streak more often than average, some teams will suffer a freak injury to their best player, some teams will have broken bat singles drive in runs and some wont. So since the goal of removing luck from sports… Read more »

Ed
Ed
11 years ago
Reply to  topper009

Your point in yelling is what? And what’s with your weird obsession with luck? No one’s talking about luck other than you. We’re talking about fairness, a completely different concept.

Again, no we can never make things 100% fair. That doesn’t mean we can’t make them fairer. The way things are weren’t handed down from God. Division alignment, number of teams in the playoffs, etc., have changed several times in the past 40+ years. No reason they can’t change again.

topper009
topper009
11 years ago
Reply to  topper009

It is the exact same concept, some teams are lucky they get to compete against weaker to make the playoffs. It is not fair to other teams who have to compete against better competition for playoff spots. I proposed a system which actually does account for this and still preserves the division setup that no one has even commented on. I think division are very good for the fans and getting rid of them to make things for fair is not worth the tradeoff. There are many, many things you could do to make things more fair, so where is… Read more »

mosc
mosc
11 years ago

CC’s game got me thinking. We need more statistical analysis giving oddities. I’m going to have to figure out how to get access to the data that you guys do sometime but I would love to calculate the pitchers with the LOWEST statistical correlation between game score and wins. We need more hard statistics giving appropriate correlation figures.