Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category

Cliff Lee's dominance of the Mets last night was the ninth time this season he has pitched at least 7 shutout innings in a start.

With a little over a month to play in the season, Lee has a chance to become the first pitcher since Dwight Gooden and John Tudor in 1985 to accomplish this 10 times in one season. Here are the pitchers who put up at least 8 such games in a season in the past 35 years: Read the rest of this entry »

-- Book it: The NL Central race is over. Milwaukee has a 9-game lead on St. Louis; they only split their doubleheader with Pittsburgh, but the Cards blew a 1-0 lead in the 9th and fell to LA.

• Just 10 of the Brewers' last 32 games are against teams with a winning record (6 vs. STL, 4 vs. PHI). Even if they go as bad as 15-17, the Cards would have to go 25-9 just to tie.
• Before their 23-of-27 stretch, the Crew were a half-game behind both the Cards and Pirates. The first win put them in front, and they haven't looked back.
• It's barely worth mentioning their soft schedule during this run -- 6-0 vs. dreadful Houston, 4-0 vs. collapsing Pittsburgh, 3-0 vs. irrelevant Chicago, 3-0 against the swooning Mets, 3-1 vs. the meandering Dodgers, 4-2 vs. the idling Cards. Or that before tonight, St. Louis actually had a better run differential than Milwaukee; those 1-run games are gone (Brewers 27-15, Redbirds 17-20), and they're not coming back.

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Johnny Cueto leads all of baseball with a sterling 1.89 ERA, despite racking up a low percentage of strikeouts.  Cueto, whose ERA has improved while his strikeout rates declined in each year of his career, has only struck out 83 batters in 128.1 innings this season.  This is  very striking considering the era in which Cueto is pitching. In fact, no pitcher since 1931 has posted an ERA+ as high as Cueto's 210, while striking out less than 6 batters per nine innings. Here are the leaders since 1920.  Read the rest of this entry »

Melky Cabrera is having a career year for the Royals. After looking "on the cusp" for several season with the Yankees and Braves, he's put it all together this year and has already reached career highs in HR, RBI, R, H, and SB, and currently has his career-best marks for BA, SLG, and OPS.

But what does the future hold for him? Read on for more. Read the rest of this entry »

-- Protecting a 4-3 lead, Antonio Bastardo fanned the first two men in the 9th, but Ian Desmond laced a 1-2 pitch 414 feet to LF. Washington won the game (and the series) on a bases-loaded HBP from Brad Lidge in the 10th. Roy Halladay left after 5 IP and a long rain delay.

• Batters behind in the count were hitting .067 off Bastardo before the HR -- 4 for 60, with 33 Ks.
• It was the 3rd game-ending HBP in the majors this year. All came in extra innings, and featured an IBB in the inning.
• But did the umpire blow a call on the HBP? Rule 6.08(b)(2) clearly states that the batter is not entitled to 1st base if he "makes no attempt to avoid being touched by the ball." Watch the video and tell me that Gomes made any attempt whatsoever to avoid being hit. There was no apparent argument from the Phillies.
• The Nats are still 3 games under .500, but they play tough at home, with a 36-25 record in Nationals Park.

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Just a quick tip--if you'd like to search the blog archives for posts mentioning your favorite player, team, or game, there's an easy way to do it:

• Use Google's advanced search option
• Enter baseball-reference.com/blog in the box toward the bottom labeled "Search within a site or domain"
• Then enter your search term at the top and press the search button

The other day, Joe Mauer made his first career start (and appearance of any sort) in right field for the Twins. He did well, although if you ask me his footwork looked a little tentative.

Anyway, it's not too unusual for catchers to split time at first base or DH during a season, but right field is less common. Here are the players to put in at least 20 games at both catcher and RF in the same season:

The first thing to notice is a lot of triples, which is not something we normally associate with catchers. I presume that's because the really slow runners who play catcher simply wouldn't have enough mobility to play in the outfield (counter to what that video of Mauer shows above, right fielders do occasionally have to move for batted balls.)

How about Brian Downing showing up on another unusual list? Recently he showed up on the list of great seasons by a leadoff hitter.

I just wanted to start a little discussion on wildcard teams--specifically the stipulation that the division winner with the best record cannot face the wildcard team in the LDS if that team is from its own division. Read the rest of this entry »

We're accustomed to seeing game-winning walk-off hits--they get replayed over and over on highlight shows. But how about hits that result in a game-ending loss?

Here are all the hits that ended losses since 1990:

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Tyler Clippard earned his 32nd Hold on Thursday with a perfect 8th inning against the Reds, striking out Jay Bruce and Drew Stubbs, and remains on track to break the mark of 40 set by Luke Gregerson last year.

[Pause for snorts and guffaws from the Hold skeptics.]

That's fine -- I'm not promoting Holds as a measure of relief performance, and you don't need to credit Holds at all to recognize Clippard's outstanding performance. He has a 1.58 ERA and 80 Ks in 68.1 innings, ranking 2nd in Ks and 3rd in IP out of all pure relievers this year.

Clippard has allowed a .158 BA overall (nice symmetry with that ERA), but just .058 with anyone on base (5 for 86) and .054 with RISP (3 for 56, with 26 Ks and 6 walks). Three for fifty-six?!? In 7 bases-loaded situations, he's allowed no hits, no walks, not even a sac fly.

Read the rest of this entry »