Friday game notes: Rain plays havoc in the East

So, I’m forcing myself to use MLB’s play-by-play, even though I’ve never liked their look, plus their pitch-by-pitch requires individual clicks. But that’s where the videos are, so maybe I can get used to it.*

Pirates 2, @Cubs 0: Chicago left 2 aboard in the 2nd, 4th and 5th (5 of the 6 men via walk). So in the 6th, Russell Martin’s 2-out double on a Travis Wood hanger brought the game’s first run, and Darwin Barney’s tardy arrival at 2nd in the 9th spoiled a sure DP and let another run in. Despite the walks, Francisco Liriano went 7 scoreless for the 2nd time this year; he had no such games for 2 full years after his no-hitter on 2011-05-03, a span of 56 starts. Melancon/Grilli allowed 3 hits between them, but fanned 5, recording their 19th hold and 23rd save, respectively.

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Thursday game notes & Wednesday weirdlies

Game Notes is out sick from his day job, so we’re going for full coverage. Don’t miss the “sub-busted no-no’s” at the bottom.

@Red Sox 6, Rangers 3: It can’t be easy for a manager when the assuredly right move means you choose to face the man with the most game-winning hits this century. The pass to Pedroia was logical, but David Ortiz sent the next pitch to the bullpen, his 11th game-ending HR and 19th walk-off RBI. Both are tops in the bigs since 2000, but the first for Papi since 2009 and ’10, respectively.

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Alex Cobb Has a Shiny New Curve

When Alex Cobb was a prospect coming up through the ranks in the Tampa Bay minor league system he was never considered all that highly. Noted prospect hound John Sickels ranked Cobb 17th in the Tampa Bay system, behind luminaries like Aneury Rodriguez, Kyle Lobstein, Wilking Rodriguez, and Alexander Colome. Sure, there was some potential back-of-the-rotation starter sheen there, but nobody was touting the righty as a future staff ace. Even when Cobb arrived in the big leagues he was still somewhat of an afterthought struggling to stay in the rotation before grabbing the 5th spot in the rotation this past spring.

Well, here we are in June and it’s Cobb who’s having the last laugh. After toying with a potent Tigers lineup on Wednesday, Cobb’s ERA now sits at 2.39, good for 3rd best in the American League. Cobb’s striking out a career best 8.24 hitters per 9, and his walk rate is down to a career low as well. More importantly, Tampa Bay is now 8-3 in games started by the 25-year-old righty, which has allowed the Rays to remain competitive despite the struggles of 2012 Cy Young winner David Price and the departure of longtime staff leader James Shields. So how has Cobb been able to go from seldom-discussed 5th starter to one of the most dominant pitchers in the American League?

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Walks, Hits, and Winning

Note: This is a follow-up to a recent post and discussion about which box-score counting stat best predicts the winner of a game. I’m sure the following research has been done more thoroughly by others, but I had the data and wanted to stretch my Excel skills, so here it is.

This might not surprise you, but: In this year’s games through June 4, team winning percentage improves steadily with each walk drawn in a game, even when you take out all intentional walks. (IBBs are more often issued by teams that are already trailing, so they would tend to distort these records. All further mention of “walks” means unintentional walks.)

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Monday game notes: Westworld

Our West division report runs a day late, as usual:

Athletics 10, @Brewers 2: No matter the weather, Oakland loves hot Coco. The leadoff man never known as Covelli watched the first pitch as a courtesy, then crunched the next over the right-field wall, providing Milwaukee their customary early deficit. Oakland scored 6 more in the 5th, starting with 5 straight hits and adorned with the first of Tommy Milone‘s two bingles, and the rout was on. Crisp had 4 hits and a walk, raising his slashes to that happy land, .300/.401/.513.

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Championship Memory Score

The first World Series between the American and National League champions was played in 1903 and the most recent in 2012.  The era of World Series play thus covers a total of 110 baseball seasons from 1903 through 2012, although two seasons, 1904 and 1994, did not actually include a World Series.

One way to evaluate a franchise’s success over that long historical period would be to count up its total World Series championships — the Yankees with 27, the Cardinals with 11 and so on down the line.  But  the vividness of historical memory, like that of individual human memory, fades to some extent over time.  It somehow doesn’t seem accurate to say that we think today, from our contemporary perspective, of the Cubs, Indians and Phillies franchises having had equal championship success because they have each won two World Series.  That the Cubs’ championships are both over 100 years old while the Phillies’ World Series victories are more recent, colors our view of these team’s respective World Series success in a way that simply saying they’ve each won two world championships fails to reflect.    Continue reading

Guess the most potent team/game batting stat — ANSWERED

“One of these days in your travels a guy is going to come up to you and show you a nice brand-new deck of cards on which the seal is not yet broken, and this guy is going to offer to bet you that he can make the jack of spades jump out of the deck and squirt cider in you ear. But son, do not bet this man, for sure as you stand there, you are going to wind up with an earful of cider.”

Damon Runyon

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Sunday game notes & scribbles

Rough day for the Centrals, 1-7 in intradivisional contests. So we’ll start with an NLC showdown. (And if you read far enough, you’ll find something never seen before.)

@Pirates 5, Reds 4: Time and tide were sweeping away from the Bucs as they came to bat in the 8th. Down 4-2, with Chapman looming, they were about to fall farther into 3rd place in the NL Central. Jonathan Broxton hit Starling Marte with a 1-and-2 pitch leading off (he’s been plunked 12 times this year), but Neil Walker rapped the next for a 6-4-3. Andrew McCutchen beat out an infield hit on a full count, and up came Garrett Jones. Broxton fell behind, 2-and-1 —

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