Friday, July 30, 2004
How Many Games Does a Man Need?
People who don't know me would think I'm crazy. People who know me would think I'm crazy, but they would know I'm not really crazy. Of course, if you're visiting this site, maybe you don't think I'm crazy at all.
You see, ever since I signed up for mlb.com's MLB TV package, I've been plotting out a night like this. And an early night to sleep for the rest of the clan has left me to my baseball de(vices).
I'm "monitoring" 4 games at the moment. On one TV, Mets-Braves. The other TV, Orioles-Yankees. On the computer screen, A's-Rangers. And on the radio, Red Sox-Twins.
Is that a lot of games to watch/listen to at once? I'm sure there's a bunch of folks out there (hem, hem Mike Francesca) who have just a wall of television monitors in their basement, watching every game available right now. But in my relatively sane world, four games at once feels like a decent accomplishment. Of course when you're following four games at once, one can't really deal with specifics, just broad generalties. I mean I can't really tell you the intricacies of Mike Hampton's stuff tonight, but I can tell you he's pitching pretty well. Same goes for Rich Harden.
The Braves are up 3-1 going into the bottom of the 6th, and despite the fact the Mets pulled off those major trades today, they're getting precariously close to falling into baseball oblivion. They have to do something against the Braves this weekend.
The Rangers have runners at the corners with two outs in the 5th. They're down 4-0 to the A's and are still trying to fight their way out of this slump.
The Yanks are up 2-1 in the bottom of the 8th on the night of Kevin Brown's return to action.
The Rangers just got on the board. 4-1.
The Red Sox have a comfortable 7-0 lead over the Twins in Minnesota.
Update #1
The Rangers tacked on one more run before Oakland got out of the 5th. 4-2 now. Eric Byrnes is 2-2 with two home runs tonight... He has really been on a surprising tear.
Although I'm just perusing some games now, I did watch most of the Yankees-O's game tonight pitch-by-pitch. Of course the big story line was the return of Kevin Brown to the Yankees rotation. Although I didn't think his stuff was great early, he seemed to get sharper as the game went on, and overall he gave them a nice effort:
6.1 IP 4 H 1 R 1 ER 2 BB 5 K -- He threw 88 pitches (55 for strikes). Induced ten fly balls to five ground balls.
The Orioles have the lead-off man on in the 9th vs. Mariano. A little bounding ground ball that went almost directly over the 2nd base bag. Jeter and/or Wilson misplayed it as they were going toward the ball and both backed away from it, fearing a collision. An ugly looking play.
Twins are on the board. Not that that matters tonight.
Yanks just got a DP (Jeter took the play himself at second) off the bat of Palmeiro. Surhoff singles keeps the game alive.
Rangers have two on in the 6th vs. Harden with one out.
Line out to A-Rod ends the game in New York. One down, three to go.
Update #2
Gerald Laird is playing for Texas tonight. Is this his first game back? For some reason I thought he was going to be out much longer. Pivotal at-bat here: 2nd and 3rd, two outs, 3-2 to Laird.
Harden blew him away with a high fastball that Fox clocked at 97 mph.
I was talking to one of my buds last night about Harden, and was saying just how befuddling a pitcher he has been to this point in his career. It seems that when he's on he's on, liable to throw eight innings of three-hit ball. But when he's not, he can barely make his way out of the 4th inning. As I pointed out in a post last week, lately he's been very good. He was mediocre in his start against the Rangers last weekend, but was excellent in the two previous and is pitching well tonight in a tough park.
For those who care about such things, I probably should mention that the A's and Rangers are playing in their throwback uniforms, circa 1974. The A's are in those nasty French's Mustard-yellow jerseys, and the Rangers are in those Bob's Tavern softball uniforms. Maybe they're a little bit better than softball uniforms, but those duds are conjuring up some memories of some pretty bad Texas teams. David Clyde, where are you now?
At least the A's unis allow for names like Gene Tenace, Joe Rudi, Rollie Fingers, Catfish and Reggie to enter your mind.
Joaquin Benoit has done an excellent job (4.1 IP 2 H 0 R 0 BB 2 K) in relief of ineffective Sam Narron, who I believe was starting his first game of the season tonight.
The Braves are about as exciting as watching paint dry, but they're playing extremely well.
The A's have gone to the pen: Justin Lehr.
Here's Harden's final tally for the night:
6 IP 5 H 2 R (both earned) 2 BB 5 K -- season ERA sits at 3.92.
Update #3
The Mets, despite having two runners on in the 9th, have lost to the Braves in Atlanta for what seems like the bazillionth time in the past six years or so... And how many games do the Braves win 3-1, 4-2, 2-1... it's amazing.
Speaking of the Braves. Studes posted updated run differentials for each team on The Hardball Times today. Go the right column and scroll down.
The first obvious thing that jumps out at me when looking at these numbers is how amazing the Cardinals' season has been. They are +128 in run differential; the next best team is Boston at +81.
The other team that jumped out at me was the Braves. Their +61 (479/418) is good for 5th in baseball, better than the Yankees, A's, Angels, Rangers, Dodgers, Padres and Twins.
Besides the fact that the Braves have been written off about a half-dozen times this year, the most amazing thing about their success is how their numbers compare to last year. Last year they led the NL with 907 runs. However, they allowed a very mediocre 740 runs, which ranked 9th. Although they're not producing at the same clip as last year, the Braves' offense still ranks among the top 5 in the league in runs scored. And the pitching corps is back into familiar surroundings after last year's dip. The Braves 418 RA is good for fourth in the league.
No one's going to be surprised that the Atlanta Braves are distancing themselves from the rest of the competition in the NL East no matter what year it is. But this is a team that was 37-40 one month ago. They were three under .500 going into July.
This month, of course, has been a different story. They've gone 18-6 this month, and looking at some of their statistical splits it's not hard to see why. Although their offense has stayed fairly steady over the course of the season, July was their best month in:
Batting Average, April/May/June/July (.267/.240/.268/.278)
On-Base Percentage (.341/.303/.336/.360)
Slugging Percentage (.423/.404/.424/.460)
The pitching performance this month is even more striking:
ERA (4.29/3.15/4.94/2.57)
BAA (.271/.260/.294/.240)
OBP (.346/.314/.350/.300)
SLG (.422/.383/.443/.334)
Not only are the Braves having their best month, but even more so than the win-loss record suggests, it's not even close. They're besting their previous months' statistics by wide margins. When I look at those numbers from May, how many low-scoring games must tthey have been involved in?
Another interesting aspect of the Braves resurgence in the East is their win-loss breakdown against their specific opponents.
Against the AL: 8-10
Against non-division NL opponents: 16-20
Against division opponents: 31-16
Even when the Braves were just keeping their heads above water earlier in the season, they played well against their rivals and were able to hang in the race.
And now, as we head into August, Atlanta is in the place where it's been for the better part of 15 years: in complete command of their division.
People who don't know me would think I'm crazy. People who know me would think I'm crazy, but they would know I'm not really crazy. Of course, if you're visiting this site, maybe you don't think I'm crazy at all.
You see, ever since I signed up for mlb.com's MLB TV package, I've been plotting out a night like this. And an early night to sleep for the rest of the clan has left me to my baseball de(vices).
I'm "monitoring" 4 games at the moment. On one TV, Mets-Braves. The other TV, Orioles-Yankees. On the computer screen, A's-Rangers. And on the radio, Red Sox-Twins.
Is that a lot of games to watch/listen to at once? I'm sure there's a bunch of folks out there (hem, hem Mike Francesca) who have just a wall of television monitors in their basement, watching every game available right now. But in my relatively sane world, four games at once feels like a decent accomplishment. Of course when you're following four games at once, one can't really deal with specifics, just broad generalties. I mean I can't really tell you the intricacies of Mike Hampton's stuff tonight, but I can tell you he's pitching pretty well. Same goes for Rich Harden.
The Braves are up 3-1 going into the bottom of the 6th, and despite the fact the Mets pulled off those major trades today, they're getting precariously close to falling into baseball oblivion. They have to do something against the Braves this weekend.
The Rangers have runners at the corners with two outs in the 5th. They're down 4-0 to the A's and are still trying to fight their way out of this slump.
The Yanks are up 2-1 in the bottom of the 8th on the night of Kevin Brown's return to action.
The Rangers just got on the board. 4-1.
The Red Sox have a comfortable 7-0 lead over the Twins in Minnesota.
Update #1
The Rangers tacked on one more run before Oakland got out of the 5th. 4-2 now. Eric Byrnes is 2-2 with two home runs tonight... He has really been on a surprising tear.
Although I'm just perusing some games now, I did watch most of the Yankees-O's game tonight pitch-by-pitch. Of course the big story line was the return of Kevin Brown to the Yankees rotation. Although I didn't think his stuff was great early, he seemed to get sharper as the game went on, and overall he gave them a nice effort:
6.1 IP 4 H 1 R 1 ER 2 BB 5 K -- He threw 88 pitches (55 for strikes). Induced ten fly balls to five ground balls.
The Orioles have the lead-off man on in the 9th vs. Mariano. A little bounding ground ball that went almost directly over the 2nd base bag. Jeter and/or Wilson misplayed it as they were going toward the ball and both backed away from it, fearing a collision. An ugly looking play.
Twins are on the board. Not that that matters tonight.
Yanks just got a DP (Jeter took the play himself at second) off the bat of Palmeiro. Surhoff singles keeps the game alive.
Rangers have two on in the 6th vs. Harden with one out.
Line out to A-Rod ends the game in New York. One down, three to go.
Update #2
Gerald Laird is playing for Texas tonight. Is this his first game back? For some reason I thought he was going to be out much longer. Pivotal at-bat here: 2nd and 3rd, two outs, 3-2 to Laird.
Harden blew him away with a high fastball that Fox clocked at 97 mph.
I was talking to one of my buds last night about Harden, and was saying just how befuddling a pitcher he has been to this point in his career. It seems that when he's on he's on, liable to throw eight innings of three-hit ball. But when he's not, he can barely make his way out of the 4th inning. As I pointed out in a post last week, lately he's been very good. He was mediocre in his start against the Rangers last weekend, but was excellent in the two previous and is pitching well tonight in a tough park.
For those who care about such things, I probably should mention that the A's and Rangers are playing in their throwback uniforms, circa 1974. The A's are in those nasty French's Mustard-yellow jerseys, and the Rangers are in those Bob's Tavern softball uniforms. Maybe they're a little bit better than softball uniforms, but those duds are conjuring up some memories of some pretty bad Texas teams. David Clyde, where are you now?
At least the A's unis allow for names like Gene Tenace, Joe Rudi, Rollie Fingers, Catfish and Reggie to enter your mind.
Joaquin Benoit has done an excellent job (4.1 IP 2 H 0 R 0 BB 2 K) in relief of ineffective Sam Narron, who I believe was starting his first game of the season tonight.
The Braves are about as exciting as watching paint dry, but they're playing extremely well.
The A's have gone to the pen: Justin Lehr.
Here's Harden's final tally for the night:
6 IP 5 H 2 R (both earned) 2 BB 5 K -- season ERA sits at 3.92.
Update #3
The Mets, despite having two runners on in the 9th, have lost to the Braves in Atlanta for what seems like the bazillionth time in the past six years or so... And how many games do the Braves win 3-1, 4-2, 2-1... it's amazing.
Speaking of the Braves. Studes posted updated run differentials for each team on The Hardball Times today. Go the right column and scroll down.
The first obvious thing that jumps out at me when looking at these numbers is how amazing the Cardinals' season has been. They are +128 in run differential; the next best team is Boston at +81.
The other team that jumped out at me was the Braves. Their +61 (479/418) is good for 5th in baseball, better than the Yankees, A's, Angels, Rangers, Dodgers, Padres and Twins.
Besides the fact that the Braves have been written off about a half-dozen times this year, the most amazing thing about their success is how their numbers compare to last year. Last year they led the NL with 907 runs. However, they allowed a very mediocre 740 runs, which ranked 9th. Although they're not producing at the same clip as last year, the Braves' offense still ranks among the top 5 in the league in runs scored. And the pitching corps is back into familiar surroundings after last year's dip. The Braves 418 RA is good for fourth in the league.
No one's going to be surprised that the Atlanta Braves are distancing themselves from the rest of the competition in the NL East no matter what year it is. But this is a team that was 37-40 one month ago. They were three under .500 going into July.
This month, of course, has been a different story. They've gone 18-6 this month, and looking at some of their statistical splits it's not hard to see why. Although their offense has stayed fairly steady over the course of the season, July was their best month in:
Batting Average, April/May/June/July (.267/.240/.268/.278)
On-Base Percentage (.341/.303/.336/.360)
Slugging Percentage (.423/.404/.424/.460)
The pitching performance this month is even more striking:
ERA (4.29/3.15/4.94/2.57)
BAA (.271/.260/.294/.240)
OBP (.346/.314/.350/.300)
SLG (.422/.383/.443/.334)
Not only are the Braves having their best month, but even more so than the win-loss record suggests, it's not even close. They're besting their previous months' statistics by wide margins. When I look at those numbers from May, how many low-scoring games must tthey have been involved in?
Another interesting aspect of the Braves resurgence in the East is their win-loss breakdown against their specific opponents.
Against the AL: 8-10
Against non-division NL opponents: 16-20
Against division opponents: 31-16
Even when the Braves were just keeping their heads above water earlier in the season, they played well against their rivals and were able to hang in the race.
And now, as we head into August, Atlanta is in the place where it's been for the better part of 15 years: in complete command of their division.
