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October 27, 2011

How good has Mike Napoli’s World Series been?

With the World Series having shifted to St. Louis for good, we won't be able to hear the catchy "Na-Po-Li!" chant echo throughout Arlington anymore. However, Texas' catcher will still be heard and felt in a big way for the rest of the series and will likely be named series MVP if the Rangers close out their first world championship.

Mike Napoli has been so strong offensively in the eighth spot in the Rangers lineup that he's outperformed every player in this series except, perhaps, Cardinals hitter Albert Pujols. Even Pujols' batting average, RBI and slugging percentage don't match up to Napoli's production over the first five World Series games. In fact, if we look back at the cleanup hitters in the past five Fall Classics, it seems like Napoli has out-produced them all.

	             Slash Line	HR	RBI	R	XBH
Napoli 2011	.308/.389/.846	2	9	2	3
C. Ross  2010	.235/.381/.471	1	2	5	2
Guerrero 2010	.071/.125/.071	0	2	0	0
A-Rod 2009	.250/.423/.550	1	6	5	4
Howard 2009	.174/.240/.391	1	3	3	3
Howard 2008	.286/.375/.762	3	6	3	4
C. Pena 2008	.118/.250/.176	0	2	1	1
M. Ramirez 2007	.250/.333/.313	0	2	3	1
M. Holliday 2007.294/.294/.471	1	3	1	1

Posted by: Shlomo Sprung

October 24, 2011

Struggling Wilson faces Game Five pressure

With the World Series now tied at two games apiece after Derek Holland's near-complete game gem, the Series shifts to a crucial Game Five between the two teams' nominal aces. While Chris Carpenter has lived up to that name so far in the postseason, especially in his complete game shutout of Philadelphia in the deciding Game Five of the NLDS, Texas' C.J. Wilson has struggled, to say the least.

Wilson issued six walks in 5.2 innings in the Rangers' 3-2 Game One loss to St. Louis, which spoiled an otherwise decent start. He has actually thrown a higher percentage of strikes than Carpenter, but Wilson's alarming walk rate (14 in 21.1 postseason innings) and his six home runs allowed have doomed his ERA and WHIP in the playoffs.

	         IP	Record  ERA	WHIP	Home runs	Strike %
C. Carpenter      23	3-0   3.52	1.13	2	        57.4
C.J. Wilson	  21.1	0-3   7.17	1.82	6	        60.1

In a ballpark like Texas', the most hitter- and home run-friendly park this season by a sizeable margin according to ESPN's Park Factor, Wilson's inability to keep balls in the yard against a powerful Cardinals offense could doom the Rangers to a second consecutive World Series defeat. With potentially two games coming from Busch Stadium on Wednesday and Thursday, Wilson could be facing the most pressure-packed start of any pitcher this season. His postseason record to date does not look good for Texas' chances.
Posted by: Shlomo Sprung

October 17, 2011

Offensive surge gives Cardinals NL pennant

The St. Louis Cardinals are in the World Series for the third time in eight years after an offensive explosion propelled the Redbirds to a six-game series win over heated rival Milwaukee. St. Louis scored 43 runs over the six games, including a dozen in a 12-6 win on Sunday night.

The Cardinals offense improved its overall numbers from the regular season and currently top the eight postseason teams in batting average and are second in on-base percentage and slugging.

	             AB	        Slash Line	 HR	XBH
Cards Reg. Season   5532      .273/.321/.425	162	502
Cards Postseason     386      .288/.345/.448	 10	 39

Rafael Furcal's solo home run in Game Six gave the veteran shortstop nine home runs since the start of the regular season, and six of those have come against Milwaukee. But the real story in the playoffs for Tony La Russa's squad is the emergence of David Freese as a frightening presence in the lineup.

Freese hit a home run every 36.3 plate appearances in the regular season, and that number is down to 10.75 in the playoffs. He's averaging an extra-base hit every 4.77 plate appearances, about once per game, down from once every 13.44 regular season PA. The staggering numbers do not stop there:

	                 PA	  Slash Line	 HR	XBH
Freese Reg. Season	363	.297/.350/.441	 10	 27
Freese Postseason	 43	.425/.465/.850	  4	  9

Freese probably would not be able to duplicate those numbers on his favorite game console, and his surge of offensive proficiency and prowess is a major reason why the Cardinals are the NL's surprise World Series entrant.
Posted by: Shlomo Sprung

October 11, 2011

LCS thoughts & theories 10/11

Bullpen battle taken by Texas

After Texas starter Derek Holland was pulled with two outs in the third inning of Monday's ALCS game two, Rangers manager Ron Washington had to put his bullpen into action way earlier than he ever would have anticipated. Then the game went into extra innings, and the Rangers relief corps remained nearly perfect.

Texas' bullpen threw 8.1 scoreless innings, and they were rewarded by Nelson Cruz's 11th-inning grand slam that gave the Rangers a 7-3 win over Detroit and a 2-0 series lead going back to the Motor City. The Tigers' bullpen was perfect before Ryan Perry imploded in the 11th, but the battle of the bullpens has been a huge reason why Texas has taken the first two games at home in Arlington.

 
	         IP	Record   ERA	WHIP	 K/9	   
Texas Bullpen	12.2	  2-0   0.00	0.65	11.8	   
Detroit Bullpen	 8.0	  0-1   4.50	1.00	 4.5	 

With the next games shifting over to Comerica Park, the Rangers relievers have a lot to live up to if they want to remain as close to flawless as possible. For the Tigers, the margin of error is close to none, which was proven with one swing of the bat Monday night.

Brewers starters unstable sans Gallardo

Milwaukee survived the NLDS against Arizona by winning all three of its home games, but the Cardinals offense has proven not as kind to the Brewers at Miller Park as the Diamondback hitters were.

Shaun Marcum allowed five runs in four innings in the Brewers' 12-3 loss to St. Louis in Game Two of the NLCS and continued the trend of Milwaukee starters not named Yovani Gallardo stumbling and faltering in the postseason. Zack Greinke struggled in the team's Game One win, and Randy Wolf was abysmal in the Division Series in Phoenix. Let's see how extreme the splits are between Gallardo and the rest of the Brewers rotation.

	                 IP	Record   ERA	WHIP	 K/9	   
Yovani Gallardo	        14.0	  1-0   1.29	0.92	9.00	   
MIL SP w/o Gallardo	18.2	  1-2   9.53	2.07	7.54	 

Gallardo can only pitch two more games in this League Championship Series, so Ron Roenicke will need at least one of his other starters to perform up to team standards and fulfill this team's rightfully lofty expectations.
Posted by: Shlomo Sprung

October 10, 2011

Brewers score big for Greinke

After Milwaukee’s 9-6 win over archrival St. Louis in Sunday’s Game One of the NLCS, Zack Greinke claimed another win at home for the Brewers. In fact, when Greinke has started at home, the Brewers are a remarkable 17-0. Greinke, including the postseason, is 12-0 with a 3.68 ERA in his 17 starts (43 earned runs in 105 innings) this season at Miller Park.

Greinke has, frankly, been awful so far in the postseason if you strictly look at things from an ERA standpoint. He’s allowed 10 earned runs in his 11 postseason innings, but his offense bailed him out in Game Two of the Division Deries against Arizona and Sunday against the Cardinals. For the Brewers, this has been a season-long trend of the offense scoring at an abnormally high rate for Greinke.

                     Games  Team record Runs	Runs per game	   
Greinke's home starts	17	17-0	98	5.76	   
Every Milwaukee game	168	100-68	752	4.48	 

So as you can see, Milwaukee has scored more than one and a quarter more runs per game for Greinke at home than they would for any other pitcher. The disparity would be even larger if you take those 17 Greinke games at home from the Bredwers' 168-game total. I don’t know what it is about the Brewers’ offense playing at its best when Greinke wears the home whites, but it could be a trend that helps Milwaukee win its first world championship.
Posted by: Shlomo Sprung


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