Monday morning Pythagorean
Here's the Monday morning Pythagorean update, and it's not pretty from a Red Sox fan point of view.
| R/G | (rank) | RA/G | (rank) | Pythagorean | (rank) | W | L | W | L | Luck | Chicago | 4.69 | (7) | 3.73 | (1) | 0.604 | (1) | 37 | 25 | 42 | 20 | 5 | Minnesota | 4.72 | (5) | 3.79 | (2) | 0.6 | (2) | 37 | 24 | 36 | 25 | -1 | Anaheim | 4.69 | (7) | 3.98 | (4) | 0.574 | (3) | 36 | 26 | 36 | 26 | 0 | Texas | 5.57 | (1) | 4.74 | (9) | 0.574 | (4) | 35 | 26 | 33 | 28 | -2 | Baltimore | 5.24 | (3) | 4.6 | (7) | 0.56 | (5) | 35 | 27 | 36 | 26 | 1 | Toronto | 4.52 | (9) | 4.29 | (5) | 0.525 | (6) | 33 | 30 | 31 | 32 | -2 | Boston | 5.37 | (2) | 5.11 | (12) | 0.523 | (7) | 32 | 30 | 33 | 29 | 1 | Cleveland | 4.13 | (14) | 3.95 | (3) | 0.52 | (8) | 32 | 29 | 31 | 30 | -1 | New York | 5.1 | (4) | 5.05 | (11) | 0.504 | (9) | 31 | 31 | 30 | 32 | -1 | Detroit | 4.37 | (11) | 4.5 | (6) | 0.486 | (10) | 29 | 31 | 28 | 32 | -1 | Seattle | 4.18 | (13) | 4.61 | (8) | 0.456 | (11) | 28 | 33 | 26 | 35 | -2 | Oakland | 4.23 | (12) | 4.95 | (10) | 0.428 | (12) | 27 | 35 | 25 | 37 | -2 | Kansas City | 4.47 | (10) | 5.68 | (13) | 0.392 | (13) | 24 | 38 | 21 | 41 | -3 | Tampa Bay | 4.71 | (6) | 6.32 | (14) | 0.369 | (14) | 23 | 40 | 21 | 42 | -2 | |
|---|
| Chicago | 110 | 52 |
| Minnesota | 96 | 66 |
| Anaheim | 94 | 68 |
| Baltimore | 94 | 68 |
| Texas | 88 | 74 |
| Chicago | 102 | 60 |
| Minnesota | 97 | 65 |
| Anaheim | 93 | 69 |
| Baltimore | 92 | 70 |
| Texas | 91 | 71 |
| R/G | (rank) | RA/G | (rank) | Pythagorean | (rank) | W | L | W | L | Luck | Chicago | 6.5 | (2) | 3 | (2) | 0.805 | (1) | 5 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 0 | Cleveland | 5.33 | (5) | 2.5 | (1) | 0.8 | (2) | 5 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 0 | Anaheim | 5.5 | (4) | 3.17 | (3) | 0.733 | (3) | 4 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 0 | Kansas City | 7.83 | (1) | 5.33 | (10) | 0.669 | (4) | 4 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 0 | Minnesota | 5.83 | (3) | 4.17 | (7) | 0.649 | (5) | 4 | 2 | 3 | 3 | -1 | New York | 4.17 | (10) | 3.67 | (5) | 0.558 | (6) | 3 | 3 | 2 | 4 | -1 | Seattle | 3.67 | (11) | 3.67 | (5) | 0.5 | (7) | 3 | 3 | 2 | 4 | -1 | Oakland | 4.33 | (9) | 4.5 | (9) | 0.483 | (8) | 3 | 3 | 2 | 4 | -1 | Detroit | 3.5 | (12) | 4.17 | (7) | 0.421 | (9) | 3 | 3 | 2 | 4 | -1 | Toronto | 2.5 | (14) | 3.33 | (4) | 0.371 | (10) | 2 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 0 | Texas | 4.83 | (7) | 6.67 | (13) | 0.357 | (11) | 2 | 4 | 1 | 5 | -1 | Boston | 4.5 | (8) | 6.33 | (11) | 0.349 | (12) | 2 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 0 | Baltimore | 3.5 | (12) | 6.33 | (11) | 0.253 | (13) | 2 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 0 | Tampa Bay | 5.33 | (5) | 10.67 | (14) | 0.22 | (14) | 1 | 5 | 1 | 5 | 0 | |
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You could just see it in their faces last night, as they took the field. "We'd better pick it up tonight, or Lyford's going to slam us tomorrow morning. We need to re-gain his trust, earn a kind word or two..." So out they went and played, for the most part, a pretty good baseball game. Dumb baserunning mistake in the 2nd by Mirabelli cost them potential runs, but frankly, one dumb out on the bases is an improvement over much of what they've done.
But it wasn't enough. That 1 game doesn't get them off the hook for a putrid road trip, a dreadful week at the end of a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad month of baseball. The offense was completely missing in St. Louis. Absolutely unacceptable to get shut down by Matt Morris and Jeff Suppan the way they did. And then they moved into Chicago and forgot to take the pitching staff. I don't want to take the offense off the hook totally for what happened in Chicago, because it never, ever felt like they were going to have big games, but they did score 6 runs in each of the two losses.
I talked a little bit yesterday about what they've done over the past month, how bad it's been, particularly the starting pitching. Well, one game doesn't get 'em off the hook. They've had a terrible month, and it's a freakin' miracle that they're only 3 games out. Frankly, I expected the Orioles to come back to the pack. Well, they've done so. If the Red Sox had played 2 games over .500 ball for the last 4 1/2 weeks, they'd be in first place. They aren't, and show no signs of doing what's necessary to get there.
And yet... I still expect it to happen. I look at the rosters, and I think Boston's the best team in the East. I thought so before the season started, and I think so today. I think that at some point they'll get some home games (they've played 10 more on the road than at home), and Schilling will get back, and Arroyo will find himself again, and they'll go on a good run, 16-of-20 or something like that, and move into first place and stay there.
But man, the last month has left a stench...
- The starting pitching was very bad (4 times) and very good (twice). There wasn't much middle ground. In the two wins, the starting pitchers gave up 1 run in 15 innings. In the four losses, they gave up 23 runs in 20 2/3 innings. You're not going to win many games that way. (Though this team should, occasionally, be able to win at least one...)
- As bad as the week was, the Red Sox lost no ground in the division. In fact, not only did the Red Sox go 2-4 on the week, so did the Orioles, the Blue Jays AND the Yankees. In fact, the only AL East team who didn't go 2-4 were the Tampa Bay Devil Rays - who went 1-5.
- They did, however, lose ground in any potential Wild Card chase. They are now 9 games behind Chicago, who went 5-1, 3 1/2 games behind Minnesota who went 3-3 and 3 games behind the Angels who went 4-2.
- The other piece of good news is this - they've got 6 home games this week, against the weaker NL teams.
- Of course, while they're playing Pittsburgh and Cincinnati this week (who are awful, but helped the Red Sox tremendously by taking 4 of 6 from Baltimore last week), the Orioles are home to Houston and Colorado, who are even worse. The Astros and Rockies, who will be playing in Baltimore this week, are a combined 11-46 on the road. It would behoove the Red Sox to not depend too much on "the kindness of strangers" this week, because the Orioles aren't going to go 2-4 again, no matter how poorly they play.
- People have offered the suggestion that Wakefield might be missing Mirabelli, and I was very skeptical. Very skeptical indeed. "Preposterous," I thought. "Wakefield was struggling before Mirabelli got hurt, there's no real game-calling to do, Varitek's been no worse at stopping that knuckle-ball. Besides," I thought, "the problem with Wakefield can't really have been catcher-related, as the pitches that are really at issue here aren't getting to the catcher behind the plate - they're being caught by paying customers, in the stands..."
Well, it's just possible, barely conceivable, that I could have been, well...er... wrong. Small sample sizes and all that, but he was sure better last night with Mirabelli's return. And looking back at the game log, it turns out that, while he had struggled a little before Mirabelli's DL trip, it wasn't the same kind of struggle that he had without him. In his last 3 games with Mirabelli, the ones that I remembered as struggling, he gave up 11 runs in 20 innings, with the worst performance being 5 runs in 7 innings. In the 4 games with Varitek, he gave up 21 runs in 21 1/3 innings including a 6 runs in 5 IP start and a 7 runs in 5 2/3. It is not at all inconceivable that this is all just random sample size issues, but it's not debatable that he struggle with Varitek far more than he has struggled, thus far, with Mirabelli.
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