Saturday, May 30, 2009
Saturday Afternoon Snapshot
Gathering my thoughts and contemplating whether Yield is Pearl Jam's best album. The Yankees are standing atop the A.L. East by their lonesome for the first time since October of 2006. It's been a long two-and-a-half years. Boston is trying to even things up in Toronto this afternoon, and just fell behind 4-3 in the 7th. It's one of those games you couldn't imagine them losing in a million years if their line-up was clicking on all cylinders. The Yanks send Sabathia to the mound tonight in Cleveland vs. Carmona.
Make that 5-3 Jays as they're racking Ramon Ramirez all over the park.
I'm getting ready to do my stats round-up for the month of May, and I was thinking about the top teams in the sport right now. The best team in baseball? That's a slam dunk, right? It's got to be the Dodgers at 34-16, with a run differential of 88. But who's the second best team in baseball right now? That's a little trickier. Look at how bunched up this group of teams is, with records and run differentials:
Teams with 23 losses or less:
29-19 (+25), Texas
28-20 (+17), Milwaukee
28-20 (+16), NYY
27-20 (+29), NYM
26-20 (+17), Philadelphia
28-20 (+31), St. Louis
28-21 (+27), Boston
26-21 (+13), Cincinnati
26-21 (+39), Detroit
24-23 (+4), Cubs
24-23 (-11), LAA
24-23 (-1), San Francisco
28-23 (+33), Toronto
Well, the team with the second-best RD after the Dodgers is the Tigers at +39. They've allowed the 2nd fewest runs in the A.L., but their 247 runs scored is good for only eighth in the league. Hardly a juggernaut. After that you got a choice of Toronto and St. Louis as the only other teams over 30. Toronto just broke a nine-game losing streak, and outside of one particular masher, that Cards' line-up is nothing to write home about.
If you were going to rank the teams with 20 losses on this date, 1 through 5 in terms of their performance so far this year, how would you do it? St. Louis could be #1 b/c of their run differential. The Yanks could be on top b/c of their recent run of success. The Mets? The Phils, despite their pitching woes?
If we're basing it on what they're going to do in the future, then I'm still favoring Boston, but as I've documented here plenty of times already, they have some cracks & fissures that haven't gotten sealed up yet. And are only becoming more problematic by the day.
My point being that I can't remember a time when baseball was this wide open. At least in terms of there being no separation of a "top level of teams." I think we can be confident that one playoff spot (N.L. West) is wrapped up, lock-stock-and-barrel. But after that? The largest divisional lead is held by Texas, 4.5 up on the Angels. And that Ranger bandwagon I assume is still pretty empty at this point.
Throw in a couple of teams under .500 that still might be heard before season's end (Minnesota and Tampa Bay, who happen to be playing each other this weekend) and you have a huge percentage of teams that will be in the mix for a playoff spot as we head into the later stages of the season.
Gathering my thoughts and contemplating whether Yield is Pearl Jam's best album. The Yankees are standing atop the A.L. East by their lonesome for the first time since October of 2006. It's been a long two-and-a-half years. Boston is trying to even things up in Toronto this afternoon, and just fell behind 4-3 in the 7th. It's one of those games you couldn't imagine them losing in a million years if their line-up was clicking on all cylinders. The Yanks send Sabathia to the mound tonight in Cleveland vs. Carmona.
Make that 5-3 Jays as they're racking Ramon Ramirez all over the park.
I'm getting ready to do my stats round-up for the month of May, and I was thinking about the top teams in the sport right now. The best team in baseball? That's a slam dunk, right? It's got to be the Dodgers at 34-16, with a run differential of 88. But who's the second best team in baseball right now? That's a little trickier. Look at how bunched up this group of teams is, with records and run differentials:
Teams with 23 losses or less:
29-19 (+25), Texas
28-20 (+17), Milwaukee
28-20 (+16), NYY
27-20 (+29), NYM
26-20 (+17), Philadelphia
28-20 (+31), St. Louis
28-21 (+27), Boston
26-21 (+13), Cincinnati
26-21 (+39), Detroit
24-23 (+4), Cubs
24-23 (-11), LAA
24-23 (-1), San Francisco
28-23 (+33), Toronto
Well, the team with the second-best RD after the Dodgers is the Tigers at +39. They've allowed the 2nd fewest runs in the A.L., but their 247 runs scored is good for only eighth in the league. Hardly a juggernaut. After that you got a choice of Toronto and St. Louis as the only other teams over 30. Toronto just broke a nine-game losing streak, and outside of one particular masher, that Cards' line-up is nothing to write home about.
If you were going to rank the teams with 20 losses on this date, 1 through 5 in terms of their performance so far this year, how would you do it? St. Louis could be #1 b/c of their run differential. The Yanks could be on top b/c of their recent run of success. The Mets? The Phils, despite their pitching woes?
If we're basing it on what they're going to do in the future, then I'm still favoring Boston, but as I've documented here plenty of times already, they have some cracks & fissures that haven't gotten sealed up yet. And are only becoming more problematic by the day.
My point being that I can't remember a time when baseball was this wide open. At least in terms of there being no separation of a "top level of teams." I think we can be confident that one playoff spot (N.L. West) is wrapped up, lock-stock-and-barrel. But after that? The largest divisional lead is held by Texas, 4.5 up on the Angels. And that Ranger bandwagon I assume is still pretty empty at this point.
Throw in a couple of teams under .500 that still might be heard before season's end (Minnesota and Tampa Bay, who happen to be playing each other this weekend) and you have a huge percentage of teams that will be in the mix for a playoff spot as we head into the later stages of the season.
