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September 29, 2011

Oh, my!

Was that the most stunning night of baseball ever, or what?

A two-hit shutout by Chris Carpenter was the boring part as the Cards won, 8-0, and put the pressure on the Braves.

Atlanta was looking good for six innings, building a 3-1 lead. But Philly crept within one in the seventh and plated the tying run in the ninth.

After both pitching staffs held serve through the 12th, the Phils eked a run across on a Hunter Pence infield single, and David Herndon slammed the door on the Braves' season, sending St. Louis to the playoffs.

Things were even more absurd in the American League. As Boston took a 3-2 lead into a seventh-inning rain delay, Tampa Bay was getting blitzed, 7-0, in their rain delay-proof dome. Then the bottom of the eighth happened.

In an inning bookended by Johnny Damon at-bats, the Rays exploded while the Yankees pitchers imploded, and six runs were scored. That still left Tampa Bay a run short, though.

No problem, as Dan Johnson came in to pinch-hit in the bottom of the ninth with two outs. Down to his last strike, he launched a ball over the fence and knotted things up at seven runs apiece.

In the bottom of the twelfth, Evan Longoria—who had a three-run homer in that crucial eighth frame—ended things with a walkoff shot.

Meanwhile in Baltimore, Boston's Jonathan Papelbon came on in the ninth to finish off the Orioles. Things looked good as the first two batters went down swinging. But then Chris Davis doubled, and so did Nolan Reimold to tie the score, 3-3. Robert Andino—he of the inside-the-park homer the night before—singled in Reimond to put an end to the Red Sox's season.

A shutout, three comebacks, two extra-inning games and two walk-off hits. That last sentence oozes excitement, but it doesn't come close to capturing the sheer magnificent insanity of the evening. If the postseason offers anything close to Wednesday night's action, baseball fans the world over are in for quite a treat.
Posted by: Greg Simons

September 26, 2011

Hitters to watch in the final regular-season series

The final regular-season series begin on Monday with both Wild Card spots very much up for grabs. Boston and Atlanta each hold one-game advantages over Tampa Bay and St. Louis, respectively, with three games left to play. For these four clubs, the playoffs started a couple of weeks ago, but this three-game stretch will ultimately decide if the previous 159 games were worth playing in a quest for a championship.

Each of the four series is a division battle, and the key players for the Red Sox, Rays, Braves and Cardinals have had a large number of plate appearances to adequately gauge how their teams' offensive stars will fare in the final three days before the postseason.

Key Hitters 	 PA	  Slash Line    HR     RBI	 R     SB      XBH	   
Ellsbury vs BAL	 73	.424/.466/.712	 4	11	15	1	10	   
Pedroia vs BAL	 72	.338/.403/.600	 3	14	18	2	10	   
Longoria vs NYY	 62	.241/.339/.407	 2	 6	 6	0	 5	   
Zobrist vs NYY	 51	.293/.412/.512	 2	 7	 6	2	 4	   
McCann vs PHI	 58	.196/.293/.294	 1	 3	 3	0	 3	   
Uggla vs PHI	 62	.161/.242/.375	 3	 6	 8	0	 6	   
Pujols vs HOU	 50	.261/.320/.478	 2	 7	 8	1	 6	   
Berkman vs HOU	 31	.429/.484/1.036	 5	12	 6	0	 7	 

As you can see, the two Red Sox MVP candidates have torn up Baltimore pitching, and Boston may survive after all. Even if they falter, Tampa Bay's star players will come into their series against Yankee backups having struggled against New York all season.

Philadelphia will try to do its best to hold the pitching-strong Braves out of the postseason, and stars Brian McCann and Dan Uggla have to break out of their respective funks against the NL East champs. The Cardinals and their stars have done extremely well offensively against the feeble Houston pitching staff this season, especially former Astro Lance Berkman.

If the performances of these eight hitting stars are any indication of this week's outcomes, the Red Sox and Redbirds could very well be moving on for some October baseball, leaving the Rays out and the Braves crushed by their stretch run downfall.
Posted by: Shlomo Sprung

September 22, 2011

Offenses dramatically impacting NL Wild Card race

On Sept. 1, the Braves led the Cardinals by eight and a half games (nine in the loss column) and the Giants by nine and a half (10 in the loss column). Exactly three weeks later, that lead has decreased to one and a half games over St. Louis (one in the loss column) and three and a half over San Francisco (three in the loss column).

Pitching is obviously a large factor: The Giants' 2.69 team ERA (first in the NL) and the Cardinals' 3.18 ERA (sixth in the NL) are much better than the Braves' 4.16 team ERA (12th in the league). But the stark differences in recent offensive performance have made this race far too close for Atlanta's comfort.

 September
(NL rank)	                 Slash Line	          R	    HR	        XBH	   
St. Louis Cardinals	.292 (1)/.346 (2)/.442 (2)	85 (2)	  17 (T-9)	55 (T-3)	   
San Francisco Giants	.255 (4)/.319 (8)/.452 (1)	82 (T-3)  24 (3)	52 (T-7)	   
Atlanta Braves	        .251 (6)/.320 (7)/.383 (11)	73 (12)	  18 (T-6)	49 (11)	 

Posted by: Shlomo Sprung

August 05, 2011

Matt Stairs’ career highlights

Matt Stairs recently announced his retirement, which didn’t come as much of a surprise to those who knew he was still playing, but possibly jolted many who figured he left years ago.

He was a late bloomer, not making it to 100 games in a season until he was 29 years old, but then proceeded to play in 100-plus games for 12 straight seasons. He didn’t always start, though. In fact, he appeared as a pinch hitter in 521 of his career 1,895 games played. And he was a pretty good pinch hitter, launching a record 23 pinch-hit home runs.

But that’s not what he’s most famous for. He’s a ridiculously well-traveled player, spending time with 12 different clubs. Or 13, depending on how you count it. He began with the Expos in 1992-93, and ended with that same franchise in 2011, by which time the Expos were the Washington Nationals. Incredibly, that’s the only franchise he ever repeated with, and even then he didn’t repeat the same nickname, town, time zone, or nation. In all, Stairs played for at least one team in all six divisions, and at least two teams in all but the NL West.

That said, if you get a chance, make sure you check out his Baseball-Reference.com page. The highlight isn’t the stats, it’s the row of uniform numbers he had. There are 19 entries, which as far as I know is the most for any player on the site.

But he’s done now. In memory of him, I thought I’d assemble a list of career highlights. These are personal bests, impressive games he played in, and a lot interesting and irregular moments he was personally on hand for.

Here they are in order, presented by team-by-team that he played for:


Stairs and the swing that kept him in the game for years

Click for more...

Posted by: Chris Jaffe

May 13, 2011

How do games end?

After my post about a walk-off catcher interference, there was quite a bit of speculation about how games can end with specific types of events. The intentional base-on-balls is a good example. Quite a few people are confused when I present this type of data. Now, once I give the answer you'll probably smack your head and say, 'D'oh.' You know the answer. Really, you do.

The problem is that baseball games don't always end as expected.

It can rain and a game be called and called official. This doesn't happen as much any more, but in the past it was fairly common.

Just like your teenage years, baseball games have a curfew. If there is a winner, the game may be called.

For a time, Sunday baseball had a curfew and the games were stopped, seemingly, right at that time.

These types of games may not end directly at the end of a half of an inning. If a team intentionally walked a batter and the "heavens opened up,', you got yourself a game-ending IBB.

In addition, Retrosheet's event ID may not always tell the whole story. Take a game, top of the ninth, visiting team's last at bat, down by three, runners on second and third, two outs. Batter hits a line drive deep to right field. Runners score and on the throw to the plate, the batter attempts to leg out a double. A fielder cuts off the throw and nails the batter at second. The Retrosheet event number will indicate a single. A game ending single that plated two runs. Or, as the then-Devil Rays showed against the Yankees, run-scoring game-ending passed balls are possible.

Obviously, the data as presented don't tell the full story. So, let's look at the story of game ending and game winning walk-offs. Walk-off, bases loaded, triples.

Using the Retrosheet era, there have been seven bases-loaded, three-run-scoring, game-winning triples. Two happened with no outs, two took place with one out and three happened with two outs.* All of these triples happened in the ninth inning, none in extra innings.

* There may be more, but Retrosheet doesn't have the play-by-play data.

No outs:
{exp:list_maker}Joe Torre hit eight triples and had 137 RBI in winning the MVP in 1971. One triple and three RBs came on May 29, 1971 as Torre helped the Cardinals beat the Braves 8-7.
Juan Beniquez made his lone triple in 1987 count. With no outs and the bases loaded, Beniquez pinch-hit for Manuel Lee and tripled the Blue Jays to a 10-9 victory. {/exp:list_maker}

One out:
{exp:list_maker}Manny Mota alert! In a Sept. 3, 1971 contest against the Reds, Mota stepped in against Joe Gibbon with the bases full of Dodgers. A bases clearing triple gave the Dodgers a 6-5 come-from-behind victory.
The Indians almost made the playoffs in 2005. The next season was turning into a disappointment but on Aug. 26, Grady Sizemore helped the Indians to a 4-3 victory as he knocked three Indians home, sending the home team fans in attendance (including this one) into a frenzy. This is the most recent bases-loaded, game-ending triple. What is it about the Indians and bases loaded triples? Duane Kuiper once hit two in one game.{/exp:list_maker}

Two outs:
{exp:list_maker}Harry Hanebrink hit one triple in 1953, his first year in the majors. That was half his career total. This one plated three Milwaukee Braves teammates and the only runs in a 3-2 victory over the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Cam Carreon helped the White Sox beat the Indians to end the first game of a July 1, 1962 doubleheader 5-4. This was the second of Carreon's four career triples.
Dave Collins led the American League in triples in 1984. But in 1980, playing for the Reds, his first triple of the year drove in three. Not only did this give the 1980 Reds a 6-5 victory over the Giants, it kept them undefeated for the year. {/exp:list_maker}

Note that only I might find interesting: Seven batters turned in game-winning bases-clearing triples. Three of them have the same initial for their first and last name.

Bases loaded walk-off home runs are boring and happen way too often, 188 times to seven times for triples. And 22 have happened since Sizemore's.
Posted by: Mat Kovach


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