ORS

Another 6 strong innings from Bowden last night. 6.0 IP, 4 H , 1 ER, 0 BB, 6 K Season [table]IP|H|R|ER|HR|BB|K|BABIP|K/9|BB/9|HR/9|H/9|FIP*|ERA 30.1|25|13|11|2|11|35|.319|10.39|3.26|0.59|7.42|2.84|3.26[/table] *For FIP, I just went with the 11 BB shown on his MiLB page. They don't list HBP and IBB.

I got the Ray's feed yesterday (like I always do in Orlando), and they utilized the typical "off from center and over the right shoulder" camera angle. What's surprising to me is that there were no balls called strikes. That view, combined with my viewing experience of the ever shrinking strikezone, made me think that both pitchers received some fortunate calls. It goes to show that the modern focus on more offense (I credit the league office for this) has conditioned my interpretation of the strikezone to match those of the officials calling the game, and that the real rulebook version of the strikezone is larger than what many of us have seen in application.

The case for "luck" with CMW still remains a strong one. With each passing year, his GB% has faded at the expense of a higher LD%. His FB% remains fairly constant. (see graph) Now, it would stupid to expect these trends to continue, as, eventually, he'd be giving up close to 60% LDs and about 20% each of the other two variety. Not likely. I would expect that somewhere close to what we are seeing this year will become the baseline. http://www.fangraphs.com/graphs/2074_P_season_full_9_20080502.png Line drives are usually an indicator of more quality contact against the pitcher. What's odd about this year is that, in a small one month sample, his BABIP has surprisingly dropped, which is the opposite of what you would expect. (see graph) http://www.fangraphs.com/graphs/2074_P_season_full_7_20080502.png That is unlikely to hold. Notice how it increased as the LD% went up and GB% dropped in previous years. For it to remain at this year's current level will require some good fortune, or, to use a synonimous term, luck. The biggest surprise to me has been his HR/FB ratio. In his MLB years, his HR/FB rate has been 11.2%, 8.2%, 6.4%, and 3.1% from 2005-2008. This is anomalous to the trends in his contact type rates. Batters are squaring the ball up more often, yet a RH pitcher who throws half his games in the greatest HR park for LH hitters has managed to reduce the incidences where a fly ball leaves the park. Color me skeptical as to his ability to maintain this type of good fortune. His best active comparables in terms of repertoire and GB inducing ability are Lowe and Webb. Both are better at missing bats, and both have not seen an erosion of their GB%, yet both are typically north of 10% HR/FB while pitching a significant amount of games in extreme pitcher's parks (I realize Webb's home park is not a pitcher's park but the rest of the NL West is).

Start the merry-go-round back up.

Haha, stupid f***. You're fast, but not Ellsbury fast.

Runs commala, runs commala, thankee-sai.

Mossy. JD Who?

Even though his control is crap tonight, Clay's still nasty. That hook is poetry.

Hell of a throw by Moss. A bullet for a strike right at the plate.

What the hell is wrong with CB? I've never seen him miss like that.

Many people make loads on the stock market through statistical research. What is your point? Also, you opinion right now disagrees not with the predictive value of stats, but also with the actual recorded data. That means your opinion is wrong. Unfortunately, you can't admit that, and you continually attempt to excuse your wrongness as just an opinion. Wrong is wrong, opinion or not.

And that means? Answer, nothing. I knew what you were trying to get at. The problem is you have failed to educate yourself with the cornucopeia of free information on the internet. Here's quick refresher course on what you could have learned in about 15 minutes..... There are stats that account for context free run performance. In the simplest terms, this means there are stats that keep track of how many runs a team should score based on the sum of all offensive contibution. The first such stat was runs created (RC), which just multiplied OBP * Total Bases. Later versions of RC included baserunning stats and GIDPs. The best non linear weights stat right now is probably EqR - Equivalent Runs, which is a proprietary stat of Baseball Prospectus. Just so you know, the Adjusted (for park effects and oppenents) EqR for the Sox right now is 154, which leads the AL. The pitching Adjusted EqR allowed is 140, good for 11th. It just makes your point even more hard to swallow. You claim it is a bad thing if the AEqR is higher than the actual Runs, because it is a sign that they are somehow choking. This couldn't be further from the truth. While it is true that their contextual hitting is substandard, it is a good thing when the AEqR leads Runs. AEqR is much more predictive of future Run scoring capability. In other words, if they keep doing what they've done to this point in the season, over time, the runs will come.

What the hell is this hits/runs ratio you are talking about?

They kind of already are. Even with the struggles of some and the recent cold patch, the offense is for 6th in MLB in runs scored. The pitching staff ERA is 19th. You think 19th is a sign of strength and the 6th is a sign of weakness. I don't need to say much more than that. EDIT: To be fair, let's consider only the AL, as the leagues are very different. With the early season warts, 5th in RS, 9th in ERA. Yet it is the offense that will be the weak point. Nonsense.

They really need to start calling the "attempt to get out of the way" rule. Giambi just got awarded first base on one of the worst examples of doing nothing and letting it hit you. Hell, I think you can make a case he tried to get hit.

Funny, I don't recall stories of the legends of May. Given the time of the year, I'd demostrate some caution with the word "need".

The M's seem to be having a good time kicking the ball around. Two errors have resulted in 2 unearned runs. 3-0 in the top of the 3rd. Wang has been leaving the ball up thus far and there have been a couple of loud outs.

Runs-commala, thankee-sai.

What unbiased eyes? Your definition of good is that they have to be tops in the game. That is not a generally accepted definition of good. It is your definition. That is a personal bias. Over the last 5 games, the balls in play result in hits only 19.3% of the time. With practically the same roster, balls in play resulted in hits 31.7% of the time last year. That's unfortunate, but it is indicative that this is not likely to continue.

I don't think this case against Lee is a particularly strong one. Lee's career splits are as follows. [table]Place|BA|OBP|SLG Home|.288|.381|.502 Road|.278|.357|.508[/table] Let's not forget more than half of his career home PAs came in Florida. Does the park factor impact his game? Sure, his Dolphin Stadium numbers result in a .787 OPS compared to his 1.001 at Wrigley, as one would expect. However, his Florida numbers encapsulate his performance prior to his breakout. His OPS is over 1.000 on the road in '05, and it's over on the road this year. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest '07 was either an anomaly or his injury from '06 had a lingering effect, as is common with wrist injuries. Speaking of which, I wouldn't classify Lee as one who lacked the skill to stay healthy. He hasn't missed time from the type of injuries one would consider typical of the injury prone player. No significant DL time for pulls, sprains, strains, etc. His wrist was broken in a collision. From 2000-2005, he played in 158, 158, 162, 155, 161, and 158 games. The year after his injury, he played in 150. Lee gets added to the list, IMO.

Ever go to a party with free booze? Aaron Hill is the guy that shows up with his own 12-pack and doesn't share.

I think Manny just ended Burnett's night. He may face other batters, but that should have worn him down as he gets into the higher end of his pitch limit.

He is starting to hammer the ball to right.

I've never seen a team hit so many balls right at fielders like they are doing through this slump. It seems like 80% of the balls in play are within 2-steps for the IFs and 5-steps for the OFs. It's really strange.

So what's Kennedy's excuse today? Yankee Stadium crabs getting to him and he needs his neon skivies?