Sunday, May 08, 2011
Top games of the week: May 1 to May 7
Posted by Max MarchiMay began with a bang: Three games get a three stars rank in the first week, and that's not counting Francisco Liriano's and Justin Verlander's no-hitters.
The reason why such remarkable feats do not make the top five list deserves a few lines of explanation, since the reference article was written five months ago.
Games are ranked using a combination of measures mostly based on Win Expectancy and Leverage Index. The measures can roughly be combined in three factors, which aim at quantifying equilibrium throughout the game, magnitude of rally and importance of the late phases of the contest.
Here are the top five games of the first week of May.
date game stars 05-04 Angels @ Red Sox *** 05-06 Nationals @ Marlins *** 05-05 Indians @ Athletics *** 05-03 Giants @ Mets ** 05-01 Mets @ Phillies **
The Angels @ Red Sox game goes straight to the top of the seasonal ranking, supplanting the April 8 contest between the Rockies and the Pirates. Nationals @ Marlins ranks fourth for the year.
After creating a baseball rendition of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper cover, Max began his baseball writing because he needed an excuse to show the picture. He wrote for an Italian audience for six years before making the jump to The Hardball Times. You can contact him by e-mail.
Max—I think it would help if you included the scores of the games, which might help readers remember it. Or at least link to the box score. “05-05 Indians @ Athletics” doesn’t really mean anything to me.