Recap for Sunday 9/11/11: Seventeen days and three races left!
Posted by John Autin on September 12, 2011
-- Rays 9, Red Sox 1 (wild-card gap down to 3 in the loss column): With Jon Lester on the hill, Boston was banking on the adage "momentum is only as good as tomorrow's starting pitcher." But there's a corollary: "When two aces square off, bet on Big Mo." Lester went up against James Shields, trying to stop Boston's 4-game, 8-of-10 slide and salvage something from the series at Tampa, but it was not to be.
- The Rays ransacked Lester -- who had allowed 4 earned runs total in his last 5 games -- for 3 runs in a 43-pitch 1st inning; and though they tallied but once more off him, they worked so many deep counts that Lester was gone after 111 pitches in just 4 innings.
- The bullpen gave up 5 more, mostly on B.J. Upton's 1st career grand slam (his 20th HR this year).
- Shields worked out of scrapes in the 2nd and 3rd -- getting a DP and then 2 popups, each with multiple men aboard -- then didn't let another runner past 1st base. He fell short of his 12th CG, giving way after a 1-out walk in the 9th, saluted by whatever portion of the 70%-of-capacity crowd favored the Rays. But he earned his 15th win and cut his ERA to 2.70.
- In the 5th, trailing 4-1, #9 hitter Mike Aviles hit a leadoff single -- and got picked off. Memo to Mike: You're not going to steal off Shields (no one does), so just put the anchor down. I hear these guys Ellsbury, Pedroia and Gonzalez can rake a little.
-- Cardinals 6, Braves 3 (wild-card gap down to 4 in the loss column): Six days ago, the Cards were beyond life-support; I'm pretty sure last rites were administered when a lifeless home loss to Milwaukee put them 10.5 games behind the Brewers and 8.5 back of Atlanta for the wild-card, with 21 games left on their schedule. But they've put together just enough hitting of late to turn 5 straight solid starts (1.95 SP ERA) into a 5-game win streak.
-- Brewers 3, Phillies 2: The Phils had won 6 straight games and the last 14 starts by Vance Worley, and the Brewers had dropped 5 in a row. But Yovani Gallardo matched a career high with 12 Ks in 7 IP, and Milwaukee mounted a 2-run rally in the 7th after 2 were out to come away with the win.
-- Nationals 8, Astros 2: Ian Desmond, Rick Ankiel and Ryan Zimmerman hit consecutive HRs. It was the 2nd straight day that a team hit 3 straight HRs. Houston's 97th loss tied the franchise record.
-- Marlins 4, Pirates 1: Javier Vazquez reached 10 wins for the 12th straight year, the longest active streak in the majors. He pitched 6 scoreless innings for his 9th straight Quality Start; he has a 1.95 ERA in that span, and 2.21 in his last 16 games, with a K/BB ratio over 5. Vazquez is #25 on the career K/BB list at 3.30. (How much better his career would look without those 2 years in New York....)
-- Royals 2, Mariners 1: Alex Gordon hit 2 doubles and has 45 on the year; Hal McRae (54 in '77) and Billy Butler (51 in '09) are the only Royals with a 50-double season.
-- Padres 7, Diamondbacks 6: Arizona's comeback from a 7-0 hole ran out of time, and they fell a half-game behind Milwaukee for the #2 seed.
- Hidden gem: Nick Hundley (4-2-3-2, HR, 2B) had his season chopped up by 2 month-long DL stints, but he's been on a rampage since returning from the last one. In his past 25 games, he's hitting .392 and slugging .750, raising his season slashes to .283/.350/.477. Hundley's OPS has improved year by year, from 75 as a rookie to 97, 102 and now 123 (before Sunday). And he's thrown out 34% of base-stealers, better than the NL average of 27%. Oddities: Although he's a RHB catcher who hasn't tried a steal in 2 years, Hundley has GIDP'd in just 8% of his career DP chances, below the overall MLB average of 10%. He's the rare Padre who hits better in Petco Park, with a career OPS .181 higher at home. And his career BA is .029 higher against RHPs.
-- Rangers 8, Athletics 1: C.J. Wilson fanned 11 in 8 scoreless IP for his 16th win, as Texas upped their lead to 2 games in the loss column.
- In his 2nd year as a SP, Wilson has cut his walk rate by 40%, upped his Ks by 9%, and averaged a half-inning more per game.
- Adrian Beltre hit 2 HRs and a double, and has 88 RBI in 110 games (130 RBI per 162 G). He's hit 19 of his 23 HRs at home in less than half his PAs, and his home OPS is more than 300 points higher in Rangers Ballpark.
- Mike Napoli reached in all 5 trips, pushing his slashes to .304/.405/.606, and swiped his 4th bag of the year.
-- Yankees 6, Angels 5: New York scored the last 4 runs, ending their 4-game skid (just their 2nd of the year) and slowing the Angels' surge. Curtis Granderson hit his 39th HR, his first in 12 games. Mark Teixeira brought in the tying run in the 7th with a sac fly to CF; the winning run scored on the play when Peter Bourjos, one of the top defensive outfielders in the game, dropped the ball on the warning track.
- Mariano Rivera closed out the 1-run game for his 40th save, #599 of his career, 2 shy of Trevor Hoffman's record. At 41, Rivera is the only pitcher with a 40-save season at age 40 or older.
- In a NY Times column today on the lack of attention as Rivera approaches the saves record, Jason Isringhausen (300 saves) is quoted thusly: “There’s going to be only two guys with 600 saves, and after Rivera, there won’t be anyone more. It will never happen again.” Um, Jason ... The MLB rate of saves per game has been virtually unchanged in the last quarter-century, right around 0.25 per game. The idea of a designated closer is more firmly entrenched than ever. Hoffman and Rivera started closing 18 and 15 years ago, respectively, and 4 of the top 5 in career saves were active within the past 6 years. The season record was set 3 years ago; the top 32 season save marks have all come since 1986, and 4 of the top 5 marks came in the last 10 years. Francisco Rodriguez is only 29 and he's almost halfway to the record. I take nothing away from the remarkable consistency and longevity of Hoffman and Rivera; I don't think it was ever likely that we'd see even one man get 600 saves. But the conditions for doing so have never been better. And most records are set under favorable conditions.
September 12th, 2011 at 1:46 am
Yankees 6, Angels 5
The bottom of the 5th was one of the most stressful 5th innings I can imagine. Angels batting, up 5-4. Leadoff hitter singles, then steals second. Kendrick hits a long fly to right-center, allowing Aybar to tag to third. Abreu walks, and then he steals second to eliminate the DP. Yankee SP Garcia falls behind Hunter, so he intentionally walks him. Angels have bases loaded with 1 out, up by 1, Yankees have lost 4 in a row, and Garcia is closing in on 100 pitches. Either during the AB to Hunter or the subsequent batter Trumbo, a splitter evades catcher Jesus Montero and rolls away. On third base, Aybar doesn't get a good read and chooses to stay put. He could have easily scored. Anyway, Trumbo pops up on a 3-1 pitch (I think), and finally Callaspo grounds out to end the inning. No runs in, Angels remain up 5-4.
If that inning goes differently, Angels certainly could have won. Yankees won't be favored in Seattle against King Felix tomorrow. If they lost that one for a 6th straight defeat, who knows where they'd find themselves. Maybe one game (one inning) is never that important, but it sometimes *feels* that way, for sure.
September 12th, 2011 at 2:35 am
"Cardinals 6, Braves 3 (wild-card gap down to 4 in the loss column)"
And, they're only 5 back in the loss column in the division race. Still a longshot, but since the Cards can make the playoffs if either of two teams falter, seems like their chances should be higher than the 7.7% ESPN has them pegged at tonight.
"Houston's 97th loss tied the franchise record."
And, there's still 17 days left in the season - ouch. Forget about 100 losses, 110 might not be out of the question.
Just for fun, I had half-an-eye on this series to see if we could get a game with 5 guys named Rodriguez. My interest was piqued by an Astros/Rays game earlier this year with 4 Rodriguzes. But, never came close to happening.
MLB.com says I-Rod is back on the active roster, but he seems to be a forgotten man. Since coming off the DL, he's had exactly one appearance, pinch-hitting and hitting into a DP (oops). Is he nicked again and day-to-day, or is this the end for Pudge?
September 12th, 2011 at 2:59 am
"Mike Napoli reached in all 5 trips, pushing his slashes to .304/.405/.606, and swiped his 4th bag of the year."
Wow, OPS over 1.000 (for you, John). Since 1919, only these catchers have done that in qualifying seasons: Piazza, Mauer, Campanella, Dickey, Rudy York, Gabby Hartnett and Chris Hoiles (yes, Chris Hoiles). Only Piazza did it more than once (thrice). Yes, I know Napoli is barely a half-time catcher and probably won't qualify for the batting title, but a great season nonetheless.
September 12th, 2011 at 4:18 am
Re: Saves record...
Great rant, JA. After Maddux & Clemens hit 300 wins, several writers assured us "there would never be a 300-game winner again"... Naturally, they did the same after Glavine & Johnson made it.
And of course, they'll probably do the same once Halladay & Sabathia get there.
September 12th, 2011 at 4:19 am
I figured this wouldn't make the Recap tonight, so wanted to be sure it got in.
In the game with Detroit vs Minnesota today: Detroit 2 - Minnesota 1...
Detroit's Victor Martinez ended up hitting into four double plays, becoming the first player to do that since Joe Torre on July 21, 1975, for the Mets against Houston, according to STATS, LLC.
Martinez grounded into double plays in his first three at-bats, then came up with a man on first in the eighth and hit a line drive that was caught by Parmelee, the first baseman. After diving toward first to make the catch, Parmelee simply reached out and touched the base to double off the runner.
"I felt like high-fiving Victor -- he was making outs like crazy for us," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire joked. "Apparently, it takes a great hitter to make eight outs in one game, because I've never seen anything like that. Even he looked like he was laughing after the line drive for the fourth one. If I were Victor, I'd probably go home and have a glass of ... orange juice. Maybe even with something else in it."
I don't know how the game came out when Joe Torre hit into 4 double plays in 1975 but V-Mart was sitting in the clubhouse with a 2-1 victory so the Orange juice with mabe something in it tasted mighty fine
September 12th, 2011 at 5:44 am
V-Mart could have grounded into 10 DP's, doesn't matter. Would have been the same game result.
I'm trying not to impede this thread with a dumb comment (too late?) but if Gardy wants a career in standup, then maybe he should go pursue it.
This year has been......um. Yeah.
September 12th, 2011 at 6:12 am
Another thought regarding the Saves record:
If the leaguewide scoring averages keep declining, the future should hold more Save opportunities, and thus more Saves. Notwithstanding the constant rates from the past 25 years.
Or am I mistaken?
September 12th, 2011 at 7:01 am
Someone will get to 600 saves again... But it is hard to pick a likely candidate to do so right now. Someone mentioned in an earlier post that the closing position is not one that people normally age out of gracefully. When you can't get the job done, they give the job to the next guy. It's also a position that is susceptible to the "Wally Pipp Syndrome." If you get hurt, often times the job is not simply waiting for you when you are healthy. Brad Lidge and Huston Street are two examples of well established closers who returned from injury to find someone else with the job. Joe Nathan, a closer with other-worldly production, also had to claw his way back to the position.
K-Rod was an excellent choice after his 62 save season and is still the most likely candidate to get there. He was only 26 in his record breaking season. But right now he is not even closing games, and has only totaled 83 saves and 18 blown saves in the three seasons since 2008. During that time Mariano has totaled 117 saves and 12 blown saves. So Mo River has outsaved K-Rod by 34 saves during what should have been prime years for Rodriguez (ages 27-29). Rodriguez can still get there - but he is going to have to start ripping off 40 save seasons in a hurry or his chances are going to fade. A good save total is like a good home run total. If a player has 291 home runs at the age of 29, but has seen his yearly totals diminish from 35 to 25 to 23, what would you say his chances at 600 would be?
So who is the next likely candidate to get there? When you look at the active leaders (and their ages) you can see why someone would say we are seeing the last of a kind with Rivera. Remember that Hoffman literally was dragged across the 600 save plateau. Mo will cross it like a marathon runner.
To get to 600 you can either get started very early, or close games into your early 40's. Getting a young start would appear to be the easier of routes. Do you want to know the next most likely candidates to reach 600 saves based on this premise? Neftali Feliz, Craig Kimbrel, and Drew Storen - who have 68, 44 and 39 career saves respectively. These players are also only 23 years old, which can put them well ahead of Mariano's pace since he didn't start closing until he was 27.
They are gonna need that head start since the employment security of a MLB closer is about the same as every other job in the country these days.
September 12th, 2011 at 7:38 am
Through the age of 26 Bobby Thigpen had 148 saves to Mariano's 5. Thigpen made it to the plateau alright - the 200 save plateau.
Greg Olson was even better - outpacing Super Mo 160 saves to 5 through age 26. Olson finished with 217 career saves.
Through the age of 28 Eric Gagne had 152 saves to Mariano's 84. Gagne finished with even less saves than Thigpen: 187.
Through the age of 28 Mitch Williams had 186 saves and had just finished the 1993 season with 43 while helping the Phillies to the World Series. Joe Carter illustrated how tenuous a pitcher's hold on the job is with one swing. Williams finished his career with 192 saves.
September 12th, 2011 at 8:10 am
does mo need another feather in his cap? hoffman was great but he can't hold Mo's jockstrap ... neither can K Rod... all this k rod talk is ludicrous. He is a loose cannon. you need to be consistent to do was MO does... K Rod is only consistently wild. does not bode well for 600 saves
September 12th, 2011 at 8:37 am
@5
Felix Millan hit four singles in front of Torre and was forced out at 2nd in all 4 DPs. Both batted only 4 times.
September 12th, 2011 at 8:48 am
Felix Millan? Harrumph. A poor man's Enzo Hernandez.
September 12th, 2011 at 8:55 am
In the series with the Mariners, Royals' pitchers racked up 51 k's in 4 games. I wonder what the record for most k's in a series is. Anyway, leave it to the M's to make the Royals pitching look good.
September 12th, 2011 at 8:57 am
K-Rod had some issues working against him:
(a) Closing for the Mets, as opposed to a better team. Obviously there are going to be fewer save opps;
(b) Injuries;
(c) His contract, which made him unusable as a closer for the latter part of this season. He was having an all-star year the first half, but the Mets had to move him so that his $17 million option would not kick in.
He could be back next year closing and reaching 600. Not beyond possibility.
September 12th, 2011 at 9:22 am
What's the holds record? Why don't we care about holds? Oh, that's right, because they're bullshit, and by extension, so are saves. Mo is one of the best pitchers of all time, but not because of some seemingly arbitrary counting stat.
September 12th, 2011 at 10:25 am
Mo's been amazing, and has a great team to save for for all these years.
Obviously it is easy to get a younger start than Mo, but a 15 year uninterrupted career of closing for a perennial powerhouse team?
I say Mo sets the record somewhere around 660 saves, and it sticks for a good long while.
September 12th, 2011 at 10:33 am
#14:
Are there fewer save opportunities with a worse team? I don't have the time to do the research, but I'm not sure about this. Yes, a save opportunity needs to be a win, but it also needs to be a *close* win, or reasonably so. IIRC, bad teams' wins have a higher percentage of close wins, largely because bad teams aren't good enough to blow teams out.
I seem to remember things like:
- Jeff Shaw and John Franco posting pretty gaudy totals for some pretty mediocre Reds teams,
- Trevor Hoffman spending the bulk of his career with the Padres, who haven't exactly sparkled, and,
- it seems to me, a lot of the time, that "every-team-needs-an-All-Star" bunk ends up putting a closer on one league roster or the other.
Like I said, I don't have research time, and this list is bordering on (okay, it IS) anecdotal. Just wondering if anyone's every investigated this conventional wisdom.
September 12th, 2011 at 10:40 am
The interesting thing about Hoffman and Rivera's save totals are is how irrelevant they are to our evaluation of their careers. It shows you that the save stat per se does not yet have sufficient refinement to reflect a perception of perceived excellence. The rest of Rivera's numbers are ridiculous, and his performance in high pressure situations is exceptional, so, he's a certain HOF.
There will be closers in the future (maybe some are pitching right now) who will be better than either Hoffman or Rivera. But you can also see a rubber-armed journeyman coming along and picking up a lot of saves over a long career, going from one team to the next.
September 12th, 2011 at 10:49 am
@8, Thomas Court -- Certainly, no current closer is likely to reach 600 saves, and as I said, it may be unlikely that anyone else ever gets there.
But what might Billy Wagner have done without the injuries in 2000, '04 and '09 -- or if he hadn't chosen to retire when he was still pitching brilliantly?
And while I don't consider K-Rod a good candidate to get there (he just had a convenient age and number of saves for my example), there's no obvious reason why he can't get back to closing and average 35 saves for a number of years. Sure, his stuff isn't great any more, and his conversion rate over the past 3 years was ordinary -- but isn't that true of about half the guys holding closer jobs? And since he's a free agent, I would expect him to get a closer job next year, if he doesn't mind pitching for a 2nd-tier club.
A hypothetical 600-save candidate won't need to be as great as Rivera for 15 years. He'll just need to stay healthy and consistently good, never have a bad year, and have a bit of luck with his team circumstances, like Hoffman.
P.S. I disagree with the notion that Hoffman was dragged across the 600 line, at least to the extent that it implies that another pitcher in the same circumstances wouldn't get the same treatment. Although his final season started off horrifically, after May 18 he didn't blow a save or a hold and allowed just 1 more HR the rest of the year. If he'd been with a non-contender that year, he probably wouldn't have lost the closer job.
September 12th, 2011 at 10:59 am
@17, John -- I don't have any numbers on it, but my hunch is that the quality of the team has litle effect on the number of save chances, except for a really bad team.
Randy Myers had 53 saves for the '93 Cubs, who won 84 games. Eric Gagne had 53 for the '03 Dodgers, who won 85.
Being on a great team is no great help for save chances, since they'll generally have a lot more blowout wins and/or more SPs who go the distance. Compare the Phillies and the Giants -- 44 saves out of 94 wins for Philly, 47 of 76 for SF.
September 12th, 2011 at 11:03 am
@5, Mike Gaber -- Nice catch on V-Mart. It's funny how GDP can come in bunches. He went a month without a single one (July 22-Aug. 21), then 3 in 6 games, then another 12 games with none, and then yesterday.
September 12th, 2011 at 11:04 am
@3, Doug -- Thanks ... I owe you 1.000. 🙂
September 12th, 2011 at 11:13 am
@3, Doug -- Napoli definitely won't qualify for the batting title, but if there was such a thing as a 2nd-half MVP, he might get my vote.
From July 4 to date, Napoli has played in 54 of 62 games (28 at catcher) and slashed .366/.452/.688/1.140. He's not an Arlington mirage nor a platoon hero; his home/road and left/right splits are almost identical. He's just crushing.
September 12th, 2011 at 11:42 am
@13 RichardKC, and leave it to the Royals to make the M's offense look amazing those first two games haha
September 12th, 2011 at 11:42 am
RE: The Braves...talk about limping towards the finish line. I'm very disappointed that they are playing so badly. Two starters are hurt, Lowe is looking awful. All the sudden starting pitching looks shaky...the bullpen looks tired (which I've been afraid of all along)...so now it's up to the kids (Teheran/Delgado) and I'm sure they are pushing up on innings limits for the year. The offense has been consistently inconsistent all year long and not once has the entire lineup been killing it simultaneously.
And then the Phillies look like a juggernaut even if they somehow make the playoffs...I guess the best scenario is to hope you win the WC and somehow pull off a shocker, but right now it looks like a tall task either way...
September 12th, 2011 at 12:08 pm
How about former O's pitcher Adam Loewen belting his first HR to tie the game after converting to a position player?
September 12th, 2011 at 12:49 pm
What's the holds record?
Mike Stanton, 266.
Everyone knows that.
September 12th, 2011 at 1:04 pm
So, the Tigers win nine straight and don't even get a recap? When we make it to the World Series, will it even be televised? Or will the network air highlights of the Boston and New York seasons?
September 12th, 2011 at 1:20 pm
@14
Felix Millan was a far, far better player than Enzo.
Felix played more than twice as much (6325 PA to 2612 PA) and outdid Enzo in every offensive category. Neither was as good as their reps defensively, but there's precious little difference in their defensive production.
September 12th, 2011 at 1:25 pm
@28, Mayo -- Easy there, Skip!
What happened was, I had a separate piece about Fister's recent brilliance, so I left DET out of the recap -- then I didn't quite wrap up the Fister piece. Apologies.
September 12th, 2011 at 1:42 pm
On the saves for losing teams thing, somehow Soria managed 43 saves for the Royals last year (out of 67 team wins). Pretty sure that is a record for saved wins vs. team wins as a percentage, btw. (64.2%) And he has 160 saves through age 27. He seems a candidate for piling up a lot more of them.
September 12th, 2011 at 2:15 pm
@26 And against, the Orioles, too. There were a lot of bad feelings in Baltimore after he bolted to the Jays.
September 12th, 2011 at 2:23 pm
@4-Clearly Jamie Moyer is the next pitcher to reach 300 wins! After him, who knows?
Re: Saves for losing teams vs. winning teams
Bad teams tend get saves if they either have good pitching/bad offense or bad pitching/good offense. So their games will either be close and high scoring or close and low scoring. And you're definitely more likely to get saves if your team averages about 3.5 R/G and 3.5 RA/G. Hmm, maybe the teams that get the most save chances are the teams that are just above .500?
September 12th, 2011 at 3:44 pm
Mike Napoli's nickname should be "Welcome to the Napoli-est place on Earth"
September 12th, 2011 at 9:23 pm
A new leader in the category of saved wins/team wins: Bryan Harvey, who saved 45 of Florida's 64 victories in 1993, or 70.31%. And he didn't even get all of Florida's saves that year. Some kid named Trevor Hoffman had a couple before being dealt to San Diego midseason.
That's going to be hard to beat. The only others above 60% I've found so far are:
Eric Gagne, Dodgers, 2003, (55/85, 64.71%)
Joakim Soria, Royals, 2010 (43/67, 64.18%)
Mike Williams, Pirates, 2002 (46/72, 63.89%)
Randy Myers, Cubs, 1993 (53/84, 63.10%)
Francisco Rodriguez, Angels, 2008 (62/100, 62.00%)
September 12th, 2011 at 11:32 pm
Rather than blindly speculating about the relationship between wins and saves, couldn't we look at some actual numbers? There is some website with a lot of easily accessible statistics, if only I could remember the name....
I just ran a quick correlation between team wins and team saves over the past 5 seasons. The R-squared is 0.44, so it's a pretty strong correlation.
But I also ran the correlation just among teams with 71 to 91 wins, which represent 64% of all teams. There, the R-squared is just 0.19. So, the best teams do get a lot of saves, and the worst teams get very few, but it's true that among most teams closer to .500, the actual number of wins is not that important.
Anyone want to take a look at whether there are more saves for low-scoring teams, or in low-scoring eras?
September 13th, 2011 at 1:06 am
JT -- As the Tortoise said to Achilles: Now, could you just explain that "R-squared" business? And why are we talking about thermal insulation?
(I always did mean to take Stats 101, but somehow I never got around to it....)
September 13th, 2011 at 2:47 am
Now, could you just explain that "R-squared" business?
Um, no.
I've overstepped my bounds. I just run the numbers in Excel and regurgitate what it tells me. I *think* the R-squared being 0.44 means that a team's win total predicts 44% of what affects the team's saves total. I never took any stats either, and felt like an idiot when trying to understand the concept of "bootstrapping" last week. I'm always eager for a real statistician to come in and set us straight on these issues.
September 13th, 2011 at 11:03 pm
No, 0.44 means that 44% of the variation in the number of saves is explained by the variation in the team saves.
September 14th, 2011 at 2:06 am
You mean, is explained by the variation in team *wins*, right?
Which is what I meant, but I didn't word it correctly. As I said, I'm sort of a statistical dummy.
Thanks.