Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Instapundit » Blog Archive » JAMES PETHOKOUKIS: Growth only way to avoid U.S. economic collapse. Lucky this baby didn’t lan…

Instapundit - JAMES PETHOKOUKIS: Growth only way to avoid U.S. economic collapse.

Money quote: "At least, if you were trying to kill private-sector led economic growth, it’s hard to see what you’d do differently."

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Avertible catastrophe

Remember the old adage about not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good? Well, that's like the organizing principle of the environmental lobby and the Federal government.
Why does neither the U.S. government nor U.S. energy companies have on hand the cleanup technology available in Europe? Ironically, the superior European technology runs afoul of U.S. environmental rules. The voracious Dutch vessels, for example, continuously suck up vast quantities of oily water, extract most of the oil and then spit overboard vast quantities of nearly oil-free water. Nearly oil-free isn't good enough for the U.S. regulators, who have a standard of 15 parts per million -- if water isn't at least 99.9985% pure, it may not be returned to the Gulf of Mexico.

When ships in U.S. waters take in oil-contaminated water, they are forced to store it. As U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the official in charge of the clean-up operation, explained in a press briefing on June 11, "We have skimmed, to date, about 18 million gallons of oily water--the oil has to be decanted from that [and] our yield is usually somewhere around 10% or 15% on that." In other words, U.S. ships have mostly been removing water from the Gulf, requiring them to make up to 10 times as many trips to storage facilities where they off-load their oil-water mixture, an approach Koops calls "crazy."

If we had a leader in the White House, a President with some executive experience or even just concern about doing the right thing, the oil would still be leaking into the Gulf of Mexico, but the effects might not be quite so catastrophic...

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Kagan’s Abortion Distortion

Kagan’s Abortion Distortion - Shannen W. Coffin - National Review Online
Is this a "smoking gun"? Even if it is, does it matter with 59 Democratic Senators?

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Tuesday, June 29, 2010

The Poetry Corner

A young man of spirit, named Epstein
Attempted to build a great ball team.
But the DL soon filled
with the highly-paid, skilled.
Now he hopes to awake from this bad dream.


A back, ribs, a foot and a finger
and some of them starting to linger.
But they'll still play good ball,
and the whole team won't fall
'til Jon Lester goes down with a stinger.

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Brown a no on "financial reform" bill

According to Sissy Willis,
Scott Brown "has listened to his constituents," an aide in our junior Senator's office just told us, and will definitely vote "no" on the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform bill should it come to the floor.
This is a good thing. Now, honesty compels me to admit that I don't know exactly what this bill would do1. But it can almost always be truthfully said of anything that, if Chris Dodd and Barney Frank and Barack Obama are fer it, I'm agin it. So, Go Scott! Vote no! Kill that sucker!


1 - Of course, neither do its authors. They just think that they do.

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Monday, June 28, 2010

Monday Pythagorean Report - 6/28/2010

I said last week that this would be a tough one. In some ways, it turned out to be tougher than I even expected...

  • Of course, I expected it to be a tough week because they were facing both Ubaldo Jimenez and Tim Lincecum. They went on, of course, to beat both of them1. I would not have bet that before the week started without getting really good odds.
  • When I say it was tougher, I'm referring, of course, to the injuries.
    • To start with the least serious, there doesn't seem to be much concern about Buchholz, who slightly hyper-extended his knee running the bases and is not expected to miss a start. It caused one tough afternoon, as the bullpen had to cover the last eight innings of Saturday's game, but doesn't look like a long-term issue.
    • Next is the broken left thumb on Victor Martinez' hand. Treatment and recovery times aren't known yet, but there's a chance that he won't have to be DL'ed. If he is, it is unlikely to be much more than 3-4 weeks. The concern there is that they don't appear to have a good option to back up Varitek during that stretch if a DL stint is necessary.
    • Finally, the big one is obviously Dustin Pedroia. He's one of the best two or three players on the team, a player who gives them excellent defense and outstanding positional offense at an important defensive position. And he's going to be gone for an extended period of time. Anything under 6-8 weeks would be unexpectedly positive.
    They've got to circle the wagons and survive for the next 40-50 games, which won't be easy. I suspect that they both can and will stay competitive for this stretch, but it's going to be tough to put on a great run right now and build a cushion in the division.
  • Thanks for nothin', Mr. Broxton.
  • So the Red Sox are potentially looking at adding Josh Beckett, Jacoby Ellsbury and Dustin Pedroia to their club at or around the trading deadlines. Anyone else going to acquire that much talent late in the season? I don't think so...
  • So, during their 3-3 week, the Sox lost one game in the standings to the 4-2 Yankees, who now lead the AL East by two games. But they gained one game against the 2-4 and no-longer-looking-unbeatable Rays, and, for the first time since the first week of the season, are in an "if the season ended today" playoff spot. The Sox' lead in the Wild Card race is one game over Tampa and 3 1/2 over the Angels.
  • I hate interleague play. I'm glad that it's over.
  • So twice in the last three Saturdays they've had a starter emergency, losing one just before game time or after only one inning of work. And twice the bullpen and offense have covered the emergency to come out with wins.
  • The "summing up baseball in one word - youneverknow" stat of the week: Boston Red Sox pitchers, on this six game trip through the NL West, hit .364/.429/.455/.883 in 16 plate appearances. DH David Ortiz, playing as a pinch-hitter and 1B-man, hit .143/.200/.357/.557 in 15 plate appearances.
  • Red Sox Player of the Week - In his last action for a while, Dustin Pedroia was clearly the player of the week, albeit in only three full games. He hit .462/.588/1.231/1.819 in his 17 plate appearances, a performance that was so robust that we can pad it with 10 hitless PAs and he'd still have hit .261/.370/.696/1.066 and been worthy of Player of the Week honors.
  • Red Sox Pitcher of the Week - Jon Lester was excellent in defeat on Tuesday, allowing Colorado only one run in six innings before being pulled for a pinch-hitter, then dominated the Giants, outpitching - badly outpitching - the two-time defending NL Cy Young winner, Lincecum. For the week, he allowed only two runs in 15 innings pitched, with more strikeouts (15) than hits (11) and walks (2) combined.

1 - Yes, they lost the game that Jimenez started. I don't care - they beat him. They scored 6 runs against him in 5 2/3, knocked him out before the end of the sixth, and took a one-run lead into the ninth. Yes, Papelbon blew the game, but they beat Jimenez.


AL Pythagorean Projection Report - 6/28/2010
ProjectedActual
R/G(rank)RA/G(rank)Pythagorean(rank)WLWLLuck
Tampa Bay5.01(4)3.79(1)0.626(1)47284431-3
New York5.45(2)4.12(3)0.626(2)472847280
Texas5.35(3)4.27(5)0.602(3)453046291
Boston5.49(1)4.6(10)0.581(4)453246311
Minnesota4.6(6)4.03(2)0.561(5)42334134-1
Toronto4.58(7)4.43(8)0.515(6)393740361
Detroit4.53(8)4.46(9)0.507(7)383640342
Los Angeles4.77(5)4.79(11)0.498(8)393943354
Chicago4.38(10)4.43(7)0.494(9)373739352
Oakland4.05(12)4.19(4)0.484(10)374037400
Kansas City4.5(9)4.93(12)0.458(11)35413244-3
Cleveland4.18(11)5.22(13)0.4(12)30442747-3
Seattle3.4(14)4.28(6)0.396(13)304531441
Baltimore3.49(13)5.33(14)0.316(14)24512352-1

Top 5 projections (using current winning %)
New York10260
Texas9963
Boston9765
Tampa Bay9567
Minnesota8973

Top 5 projections (starting with today's record, using Pythagorean winning %)
New York10161
Tampa Bay9864
Texas9864
Boston9567
Minnesota9072

Standings for the week
ProjectedActual
R/G(rank)RA/G(rank)Pythagorean(rank)WLWLLuck
Texas7.67(1)3.5(6)0.808(1)51510
Chicago5(6)3(3)0.718(2)42511
Oakland4.67(7)3.17(4)0.67(3)4233-1
Kansas City3.67(9)2.67(1)0.642(4)4233-1
Los Angeles5.17(5)3.83(7)0.633(5)42420
Boston5.5(3)4.83(9)0.559(6)33330
Seattle3.33(11)3.17(4)0.523(7)33330
Baltimore6.17(2)6(13)0.513(8)33421
Tampa Bay2.67(12)2.67(1)0.5(9)3324-1
New York5.5(3)5.67(11)0.486(10)33421
Detroit4.33(8)5.83(12)0.367(11)24240
Minnesota2.67(12)4.67(8)0.264(12)2415-1
Cleveland3.67(9)6.67(14)0.251(13)2415-1
Toronto2.67(12)5.17(10)0.23(14)15241

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Friday, June 25, 2010

Epic fail - Geography division

This ought to be unbelievable, but, sadly, isn't. Here we have a Democratic county supervisor in Milwaukee arguing in favor of a boycott of Arizona. (One might think that the county supervisors in Milwaukee might have better things to do with their time, but if you're a liberal, I suppose you have to do things like this for simple ego maintenance reasons.) And she notes that actually, she might be more open-minded about Arizona's actions if the situation were a little bit different.
If this was Texas, which is a state which is directly on the border of Mexico, and they were calling for a measure like this, saying that they had a major issue with undocumented people flooding their borders, I would have to say - I would have to look twice at this. But this is a state that is a ways removed from the border, and, um, it doesn't make sense to me...
There's a little more babbling which is even less coherent, but no stupider. And there's actual footage of this brilliant oratory.



It's possible that, if given an unlabeled map of the United States and asked to write in the place names, I'd get a couple of them switched. I don't think so, but it's possible. And that isn't necessarily a big deal. It's a huge country, and the fact is, there's no particular reason for me to know which one's Kansas and which one's Nebraska, or which of those two is Alabama and which is Mississippi. But even if you were ignorant of Arizona's location a month ago, the level of stupidity required to engage in a debate over this topic, with all of the national coverage and debate which has taken place, without realizing that it shares hundreds of miles of border with Mexico is staggering. This is someone who's too stupid to realize that she's too stupid to be engaged in this discussion.

And she's an elected official...

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Wordle puzzle - 06/25/10

Late 19th century English novel.



The answer to last week's puzzle is P.G. Wodehouse's Mike (specfically, the second half, usually published separately as Mike And Psmith.)

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Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Duh

This has got to be some sort of a joke, right?
The chairman of the Business Roundtable, an association of top corporate executives that has been President Obama's closest ally in the business community, accused the president and Democratic lawmakers Tuesday of creating an "increasingly hostile environment for investment and job creation."

Ivan G. Seidenberg, chief executive of Verizon Communications, said that Democrats in Washington are pursuing tax increases, policy changes and regulatory actions that together threaten to dampen economic growth and "harm our ability . . . to grow private-sector jobs in the U.S."

"In our judgment, we have reached a point where the negative effects of these policies are simply too significant to ignore," Seidenberg said in a lunchtime speech to the Economic Club of Washington. "By reaching into virtually every sector of economic life, government is injecting uncertainty into the marketplace and making it harder to raise capital and create new businesses."
Who'd a thunk it? Mr. Seidenberg, I've just one comment to make here.

Duh.

The big question is, what the hell took you so long? At what point did it actually begin to dawn on you that the tax-tax-tax-spend-spend-spend entitlement program might not create the absolute best environment for business growth? And, more importantly, why did it not dawn on you somewhat earlier than it did?

Or, more likely, what government policies that you thought were going to benefit you and your organziation at the expense of competitors are no longer worth what you thought they'd be?

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ThinkGeek's best cease-and-desist - ever!

While this is very funny, it's a little sad and scary, too. How much did those lawyers get paid for producing a document as nonsensical as this cease-and-desist? Did one of them, at any point, stop to actually consider what he was doing?

And who, at the National Pork Board, sicced the lawyers on the case in the first place?
Recently we got the best-ever cease and desist letter. We're no stranger to the genre, so what could possibly make this one stand out from the rest?

First, it's 12 pages long and very well-researched (except on one point); it even includes screengrabs of the offending item from our site. And we know they're not messing around because they invested in the best and brightest legal minds.

But what makes this cease and desist so very, very special is that it's for a fake product we launched for April Fool's day.

It wasn't the iCade, or the Dharma Initiative Clock, or even the Tribbles 'n' Bits Breakfast Cereal.

No, it was the Canned Unicorn Meat.
Click and read.

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Tuesday, June 22, 2010

"Better to keep your mouth closed and be thought a fool..."

"...than to open it and remove all doubt."

There are many different ways to lose a job. And there are many phrases that end up being synonymous with "I quit." As Gen. Stanley McChrystal demonstrates.
In the eight-page article, released to reporters on Monday ahead of publication, McChrystal appears to belittle Vice President Joe Biden and accuses Karl Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador to Kabul, of undermining his war plan within the administration.

Asked by the Rolling Stone reporter about what he now feels of the war strategy advocated by Biden last fall – fewer troops, more drone attacks – the article reports that McChrystal and his aides attempted to come up with a good one-liner to dismiss the question. “Are you asking about Vice President Biden?” McChrystal reportedly jokes. “Who’s that?”

Later in the article, McChrystal turns more serious when asked about cables sent last fall to Washington by Eikenberry. The cables called into question the major troop increase advocated by McChrystal’s team and the U.S.’s backing of Afghan President Hamid Karzai – views that the ambassador had not previously raised with McChrystal or his staff.

“I like Karl, I’ve known him for years, but they’d never said anything like that to us before,” McChrystal is quoted as saying. “Here’s one that covers his flank for the history books. Now if we fail, they can say, ‘I told you so.’”
I am not at all up on the ins and outs of what we're currently doing in Afghanistan, and have no opinion about McChrystal as a strategist, tactician, leader, general or anything else. I am up on Joe Biden, and you'd have to search far and wide to find someone who is more contemptuous of him than I am. And I've got no difficulty with McChrystal's description of Eikenberry's cables. Politicians play political games, setting themselves up to benefit whatever happens whenever possible, and covering their flanks as best they can always. So I assume that McChrystal is 100% accurate with all of these comments.

That said, he cannot make those comments and remain in that position. It is completely unacceptable for a general to allow himself to be quoted demonstrating that level of contempt for the civilian leadership that out-ranks him on the chain of command. The contempt may be appropriate, the comments may even be mild, and shared by every member of the service in Afghanistan - the general cannot be quoted as making them. He has to go.

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Monday, June 21, 2010

Monday Pythagorean Report - 6/21/2010

The unsung hero of the week is whoever managed to convince them that winning the first two games of a series did not actually create a barrier to winning the third.

  • So they've tied the Rays in the Wild Card race, and sit just one game back of NY in the AL East, with the same number of wins (43) as the Yankees and more than anyone else in baseball. It's worth looking back a mere five weeks, to May 17, as Boston lost in New York to fall a season low 8 1/2 games out of first place. In the 32 games since then, they've made up 8 1/2 games on the Rays and 5 1/2 on the Yankees. Their 187 runs scored are the most in baseball over that stretch; their 113 runs allowed better than all but the Mets (who have actually played two fewer games over that stretch and allowed more runs/game than the Sox.) They've obviously got the best Pythagorean record in baseball, and their 24-8 actual record is matched only by Atlanta. And 32 games is nearly 20% of the season. This is an extended run of outstanding baseball by the Red Sox.
  • Their opening day leadoff hitter has played in zero of those 32 games. Their opening day starter has started once, allowing 5 runs in 4 2/3 innings before going to the DL. Their opening day CF has hit .271/.314/.312/.626 while struggling to play in 13 of those 32. None of that means, of course, that we should expect them to play better, because sustaining a 122-win pace for a long time just doesn't happen. But it does mean that they've covered, very nicely, for some of the inevitable problems that crop up in a long season.
  • In other words, this looks a lot like the team that many of us thought it was coming into the season, and not much like the one that so many people were so quick to panic about during that 4-9 start.
  • "Maybe the Sox can catch the Rays this season; maybe they cannot." - Tony Massarotti, four weeks ago today. In that piece, he also said that the Rays were "younger, faster, hungrier and stronger than these Sox," for which I mocked him. Do you suppose he'd like to "revise and extend his remarks?"
  • Potential tough week coming, as they go out on the road to NL West parks, playing without a DH, and face two of the best pitchers in baseball in Ubaldo Jiminez and Tim Lincecum. 4-2 this coming week would be, I think, as impressive as 6-0 this last week.
  • Red Sox Player of the Week - First, let's note that Daniel Nava, who has hit everywhere that he's played, has hit in Boston as well, with a solid .316/.409/.474/.883 week. Then, it's hard to bypass the .353/.538/.882/1.420 that David Ortiz put up. But the award goes to Dustin Pedroia, who's clearly over his slump, and hit a spectacular .522/.556/.783/1.339 for the week. (Yes, Ortiz' OPS was higher. No, OPS is not the be-all, end-all.)
  • Red Sox Pitcher of the Week - As you'd expect in a 6-0 week, there are a lot of good pitching performances. Solid bullpen performances from Okajima, Bard and Atchison warrant mention, as well as a good start from Lester and a solid and promising debut from a clearly not-quite-ready Felix Doubront. But Clay Buchholz with two good starts and Jonathan Papelbon, who finished five of the six games, split the award this week.




AL Pythagorean Projection Report - 6/21/2010
ProjectedActual
R/G(rank)RA/G(rank)Pythagorean(rank)WLWLLuck
New York5.45(2)3.99(3)0.639(1)44254326-1
Tampa Bay5.22(3)3.88(1)0.632(2)44254227-2
Minnesota4.77(5)3.97(2)0.583(3)402940290
Boston5.49(1)4.58(10)0.583(4)413043282
Texas5.14(4)4.33(5)0.578(5)402941281
Toronto4.74(6)4.37(7)0.537(6)383238320
Detroit4.54(9)4.34(6)0.521(7)353338303
Los Angeles4.74(7)4.88(11)0.487(8)353739334
Chicago4.32(10)4.56(9)0.476(9)323634342
Oakland4(12)4.28(4)0.469(10)333834371
Kansas City4.57(8)5.13(13)0.448(11)31392941-2
Cleveland4.22(11)5.09(12)0.415(12)28402642-2
Seattle3.41(13)4.38(8)0.387(13)274228411
Baltimore3.26(14)5.28(14)0.293(14)20491950-1

Top 5 projections (using current winning %)
New York10161
Tampa Bay9963
Boston9864
Texas9666
Minnesota9468

Top 5 projections (starting with today's record, using Pythagorean winning %)
New York10260
Tampa Bay10161
Boston9666
Texas9567
Minnesota9468

Standings for the week
ProjectedActual
R/G(rank)RA/G(rank)Pythagorean(rank)WLWLLuck
Texas5.67(4)2.83(3)0.78(1)51601
Chicago4.5(7)2.33(1)0.769(2)51601
Boston6.17(2)3.33(4)0.755(3)51601
Detroit6.33(1)3.67(5)0.731(4)42511
Toronto4.5(7)3.83(6)0.573(5)33421
Minnesota5.67(4)4.83(9)0.572(6)33421
Kansas City5.83(3)5.33(10)0.541(7)3324-1
Seattle2.33(14)2.5(2)0.468(8)33421
New York3.5(12)3.83(6)0.458(9)33330
Oakland3.83(11)4.33(8)0.444(10)3324-1
Tampa Bay4.5(7)5.33(10)0.423(11)3324-1
Los Angeles4.67(6)6.33(14)0.364(12)24331
Cleveland4.17(10)5.83(13)0.351(13)2415-1
Baltimore3.33(13)5.5(12)0.286(14)24240

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Friday, June 18, 2010

Wordle puzzle - 06/18/10

One of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite books.



The answer to last week's puzzle is John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.

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Monday, June 14, 2010

Out of control Congress, in more ways than one...

Remember, elected officials deserve some small perqs, because they are public servants.

Let me first note that we do not necessarily know everything that was said to the Congressman, as there may have been interaction that didn't make the video. That said, it's hard to come up with a scenario under which his [that is NC Congressman Bob Etheridge's] behavior comes close to being justified.

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Monday Pythagorean Report - 6/14/2010

Look, it isn't that a 4-3 week is awful, and there's nothing embarrassing about 2-1 vs. the Phillies (and Cole Hamels is a good pitcher), but 2-2 in Cleveland just isn't good enough, not when you're in third place and trying to make up ground...

  • One of the local radio personalities made a comment on Thursday morning that Wednesday's 11-0 loss to Cleveland "felt like two losses." Poppycock. Sometimes, you get a great game thrown against you, and that's what happened. Masterson was masterful, and the eight runs given up by the bullpen in the 8th inning were utterly irrelevant to the final outcome. If you're going to have a shutout, and a game in which you allow 11, you might as well do them both the same night. I'd much rather lose 11-0 than 11-10 one night and 1-0 the next.
  • The real problem in Cleveland wasn't Wednesday, it was Thursday. If you take a 5-0 lead with Jon Lester on the mound, that's a game you should win. I wanted them to beat Masterson on Wednesday, but at the end of the night, it was just one bad game, and you have those. Thursday was the one that hurt, as they gave up the big lead early, and then the small lead late, as they took a lead in the top of the ninth only to lose it in the bottom.
  • The "you can describe baseball in one word - youneverknow" stat of the week: the Red Sox were 0-2 in the games started by Lester and Buchholz, 4-1 in the other 5.
  • As great a story as it was when Darnell McDonald made his Red Sox debut, it was topped on Saturday. McDonald had been in the majors before, had been drafted and made his way through the minor for years. What happened with Daniel Nava is almost inconceivable. Cut from a college team, cut from an independent league team, undrafted out of high school, undrafted out of college, his rights purchased by Boston for $1, and yet all he's done, everywhere he's been, is hit. Everywhere. A 27-year old rookie, he finally gets a Major League at-bat because two outfielders are out with broken ribs caused by collisions with the third baseman and a highly-touted prospect isn't quite ready, he hits the first pitch he sees in the major leagues for a grand slam that erases a one-run deficit. Just an unbelievable story. Closer to a real-life Rocky scenario than anyone since Jim Morris.
  • A word of praise for Scott Atchison. There's obviously nothing special about two runs in three innings, but in the circumstances - making his first major league start with about 15 minutes of warning, matching his longest career appearance - it was all that they had any right to ask for.
  • It's easy to claim, after a game, that you "had a feeling," or "knew that was going to happen." I was not surprised, for example, by how well Justin Masterson pitched. I had a feeling that game was going to go that way. But honesty compels me to confess that a) I KNEW they were going to win Thursday after they got up 5-0, and b) I thought Saturday was likely unwinnable when I saw Scott Atchison take the mound in the top of the first. I was obviously wrong on both.
  • Red Sox Player of the Week - In six games, J.D. Drew hit .333/.545/.667/1.212 with one HR and six walks.
  • Red Sox Pitcher of the Week - The best performance of the week was Daisuke Matsuzaka's 8 scoreless inning, 5 K/2 BB/4 H victory over the Indians.



AL Pythagorean Projection Report - 6/14/2010
ProjectedActual
R/G(rank)RA/G(rank)Pythagorean(rank)WLWLLuck
Tampa Bay5.29(3)3.75(1)0.653(1)41224023-1
New York5.63(1)4(3)0.652(2)41224023-1
Minnesota4.68(7)3.89(2)0.584(3)37263627-1
Boston5.43(2)4.69(9)0.566(4)372837280
Texas5.1(4)4.48(7)0.559(5)352835280
Toronto4.77(5)4.42(6)0.534(6)343034300
Los Angeles4.74(6)4.74(10)0.5(7)333336303
Detroit4.37(9)4.4(5)0.497(8)313133292
Oakland4.02(12)4.28(4)0.471(9)313432331
Chicago4.31(10)4.77(11)0.453(10)283428340
Kansas City4.45(8)5.11(13)0.437(11)28362737-1
Cleveland4.23(11)5.02(12)0.422(12)26362537-1
Seattle3.51(13)4.56(8)0.383(13)243924390
Baltimore3.25(14)5.25(14)0.294(14)19441746-2
Top 5 projections (using current winning %)
Tampa Bay10359
New York10359
Minnesota9369
Boston9270
Texas9072
Top 5 projections (starting with today's record, using Pythagorean winning %)
Tampa Bay10557
New York10557
Minnesota9468
Boston9270
Texas9072
Standings for the week
ProjectedActual
R/G(rank)RA/G(rank)Pythagorean(rank)WLWLLuck
Texas6.57(2)3(2)0.808(1)6152-1
Chicago5.33(6)2.83(1)0.761(2)5142-1
New York6.83(1)4(5)0.727(3)42511
Cleveland5.71(4)3.71(3)0.687(4)5243-1
Tampa Bay6.17(3)4.83(10)0.61(5)4233-1
Boston5.57(5)4.43(8)0.604(6)43430
Los Angeles4.71(8)3.86(4)0.591(7)43521
Minnesota4.67(9)4.17(6)0.552(8)33330
Oakland3.86(11)4.29(7)0.452(9)3425-1
Detroit4(10)4.67(9)0.43(10)33421
Kansas City5.33(6)6.67(14)0.399(11)24331
Baltimore3.17(12)6.33(12)0.22(12)15150
Seattle2.57(13)6.57(13)0.152(13)16251
Toronto1.67(14)6.17(11)0.084(14)15150

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Scrap the department of education!

Mona Charen:
It is not kooky to favor the elimination of the Department of Education. That this proposal is routinely labeled "extremist" is a reminder of the one-way ratchet that operates in government. Enshrine something in a federal agency and it becomes sacrosanct. Democrats cheerlead for federal programs because they are the party of government, and Republicans quietly go along because they're afraid.

But if Republicans know how to argue for smaller government -- as Gov. Chris Christie is demonstrating in New Jersey -- they need not be intimidated. There are hundreds of federal programs that could be eliminated tomorrow with only the happiest consequences for the nation. And yes, the whole Department of Education could be scrapped. It vacuums up money and produces ... what exactly
I've long been in favor of abolishing the department of education, because I don't believe that there's any consititutional authority for the federal government to be involved in education, and I don't think they contribute anything beyond bureaucracy and regulation, neither of which provides much "education," at least not in the way we want to think about education. But I quoted this because I love the bolded part. It's a great statement of one of the big problems facing us as a nation right now.

Click over, read it all - it's an excellent piece.

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Friday, June 11, 2010

Wordle puzzle - 06/11/10

17th century.



The answer to last week's puzzle is Rudyard Kipling's story, How the Rhinoceras Got Its Skin, from the Just So Stories.

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Thursday, June 10, 2010

Congratulations!

Congratulations Meghan!
Maine Central Institute's Meghan Hughes took home a pair of titles, in the shot put (32 feet, 3 inches) and the discus (104-8).

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Tuesday, June 08, 2010

Nice piece

There's a very nice piece in today's Boston Globe about Zack McLeod.
The date was Sept. 5, 2008. BB&N was scrimmaging at Wayland. Earlier in the game, McLeod stepped in front of a receiver, picked off a pass in full stride, and scampered into the end zone.

Several generations of McLeods were going to be very proud.

His father, Pat, played for Montana State from 1979-82. His uncle, Mike, played for the Green Bay Packers in 1984. His grandfather, Jim, was a legendary high school coach in Wyoming.

But instead of joy, the touchdown is a footnote on the day Zack McLeod almost died. There was fear as Zack lay on the grass unconscious, his brain swelling from a traumatic injury.

“It was the most terrifying moment of any of our lives,’’ said cocaptain Jimmy McCafferty.

In a quick decision that saved his life, McLeod was airlifted to Boston Medical Center.

“When Zack left the scene I turned to the doctor and said, ‘How serious is this?’ And she said, ‘Well, he’s probably got about a 5 percent chance of survival,’ ’’ said Papas.
We've been watching this unfold for the last two years, as Zack's in the youth group at Park Street with our kids, and his mom is on the ministerial staff.

And right now, he lights up a room when he walks in.

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Monday, June 07, 2010

Monday Pythagorean Report - 6/7/2010

If you've been reading these reports over the years, you've seen me say, many times, that four out of six makes a good week. Four out of six, over 162, is a 104 win team. But some four out of six weeks feel like lost opportunities, and this was one of them.

  • The first of the two losses was by one run at home in a game in which they had runners thrown out at the plate for the first out of two consecutive innings, and left six men at third. The second came by one run in 11 innings to a bad team breaking a 10-game losing streak, in which they loaded the bases without scoring in both the sixth and seventh innings. So the two losses were by one run each - the wins were by 2, 5, 6 and 11. Which makes it frustrating, as they could so easily have won one or both of the losses.
  • They kept pace with Toronto, lost 1/2 game vs. the Yankees and gained a game on Tampa, as the AL East continues to tighten. There are 4 1/2 games separating four teams now, and they are clearly four of the best five teams in the AL.
  • Boston's going to have to play well in Cleveland to keep pace with New York, as the Yankees are going into Baltimore. But Tampa and Toronto are going to combine on three losses early in the week playing head-to-head.
  • The Red Sox have moved into second in runs scored in the AL. Only the Yankees are scoring more runs per game than Boston. Some of the offseason concern about the offense appears to have been overblown.
  • Red Sox Player of the Week - Kevin Youkilis had another great week, and Dustin Pedroia was productive coming out of a bad slump, but the player of the week is Victor Martinez, who hit .600/.667/.950/1.617 on the week.
  • Red Sox Pitcher of the Week - I've got a split-award this week, and Jon Lester, who threw 6 1/3 scoreless in his only start of the week, isn't one of them. First, Clay Buchholz, who threw a complete game shutout in his only start of the week, dominating the Orioles for nine innings. And he shares the awared with Daniel Bard, who threw four perfect innings in three appearances, including a dominating five outs on Saturday in an at-the-time tight game, coming in with the bases loaded and only one out, and allowing none of the runners to score.



AL Pythagorean Projection Report - 6/7/2010
ProjectedActual
R/G(rank)RA/G(rank)Pythagorean(rank)WLWLLuck
Tampa Bay5.19(3)3.63(1)0.658(1)38193720-1
New York5.51(1)4(3)0.642(2)37203522-2
Minnesota4.68(7)3.86(2)0.588(3)332433240
Toronto5.09(4)4.24(4)0.582(4)34243325-1
Boston5.41(2)4.72(9)0.562(5)332533250
Texas4.91(5)4.66(8)0.524(6)292730261
Detroit4.41(8)4.38(7)0.504(7)282829271
Los Angeles4.75(6)4.85(10)0.49(8)293031282
Oakland4.03(12)4.28(5)0.473(9)273130283
Kansas City4.36(9)4.95(11)0.443(10)26322434-2
Seattle3.63(13)4.3(6)0.422(11)24322234-2
Chicago4.2(10)4.98(12)0.422(12)243224320
Cleveland4.04(11)5.18(14)0.388(13)213421340
Baltimore3.26(14)5.14(13)0.303(14)17401641-1

Top 5 projections (using current winning %)
Tampa Bay10557
New York9963
Minnesota9468
Toronto9270
Boston9270

Top 5 projections (starting with today's record, using Pythagorean winning %)
Tampa Bay10656
New York10260
Minnesota9567
Toronto9468
Boston9171

Standings for the week
ProjectedActual
R/G(rank)RA/G(rank)Pythagorean(rank)WLWLLuck
Los Angeles7(2)2.86(2)0.838(1)61610
Boston7.5(1)3.83(3)0.774(2)5142-1
New York5.14(5)2.71(1)0.763(3)52520
Texas6.83(3)5.17(9)0.625(4)42420
Toronto4(10)3.83(3)0.519(5)33330
Tampa Bay5.33(4)5.33(11)0.5(6)33330
Kansas City4.14(9)4.43(7)0.47(7)34340
Detroit3.86(11)4.14(5)0.467(8)34340
Oakland4.71(6)5.29(10)0.448(9)34340
Cleveland4.43(7)5.43(12)0.408(10)34340
Minnesota3(13)4.14(5)0.356(11)25341
Seattle3.43(12)5(8)0.334(12)25341
Chicago4.17(8)6.83(14)0.288(13)24240
Baltimore1.83(14)6.67(13)0.086(14)15150

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Friday, June 04, 2010

Wordle puzzle - 06/04/10

19th century, story.



The answer to last week's puzzle is Charles Dickens' The Old Curiosity Shop.

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Thursday, June 03, 2010

More on replay

I told you that there were arguments against the instant replay policy I advocated earlier. Here are some of them from Fred Schwarz.
What if last night’s game had ended a little differently, with the runner being called out on a close play, and the Tigers had poured out onto the field and mobbed Galarraga, and then two minutes later the review guy had said, “Wait, he was safe.” Does anyone want to see that? (I know Rich does, but does anyone else?)
In that particular case? No. But that's less offensive than what we actually saw. And, frankly, it's less offensive than leaving him with a perfect game when one of the batters actually reached safely. So, while the aesthetics described here aren't great, they are better than a couple of the aesthetics we have now, when everyone knows a mistake was made except the guy who made it, and he's the only one that can correct it.

If reviews were done with a challenge system, as in football, what if the Tigers had already used up their challenges in last night’s game?
Instant Replay is not the same thing as Managerial Challenge.
Instant Replay does not need to depend on a Managerial Challenge.
Instant Replay and "challenge system" are not synonyms.

I agree that the challenge system is, well, significantly flawed. I think it's a terrible idea, and won't defend it.

Of course, it would still be better than the current system...
And unlimited challenges would be even worse, because any video-review system, especially one based on challenges, will only make games longer. Managers will use their challenges when there’s even the slightest chance of a reversal, or just to break the opposing pitcher’s rhythm or give their bullpen more time to warm up.
Thank you for correctly identifying some of the reasons that NO ONE is advocating a system of unlimited managerial challenges. Unless I've missed something. Is someone out there proposing a system with unlimited managerial challenges?

I thought not. Straw. Man. Even Major League Baseball wouldn't be so oblivious as to institute a system like that, not for more than a couple of games. Arguing against it is pointless, as there are no legitimate arguments for it.

But Instant Replay and "challenge system" are not synonyms. Arguing that a system of unlimited managerial challenges is a bad idea says nothing whatsoever about the virtues of other different replay systems.
Reversals in baseball can create more problems than they solve.
They certainly cause different problems. That doesn't mean more and it certainly doesn't mean more serious.
What if the umpire calls a ball foul and video shows it was fair? (Other than a home run, I mean.) Will he have to guess whether the third baseman would have thrown the batter out, or whether it would have been a double or a triple?
Yes, they'd need to institute rules to deal with that scenario. It could be a ground rule double, as when a ball bounces into the seats and everyone gets two bases, or it could treated like a "fan interference" double, where the umpire's discretion determines where any baserunners end up.

But for that complaint to be a legitimate argument against a replay system, you have to make the case that one of those scenarios is somehow worse than the current situation, where an umpire calls a fair ball foul and the batter pops out on the next pitch.
Or suppose there’s a runner on first with no outs, and he takes off for second on a 3-2 pitch. The ump calls the pitch a ball, but the review says strike. How can the umpire decide whether the runner would have been safe at second?
In the first place, a runner stealing second should be going hard all the way to the base, because there's already a scenario (check-swing) in which the umpire might make the call after a throw beats the runner. But again, this is an argument against that which no one is proposing. No one, that I'm aware of, thinks that we ought to have a replay official calling balls and strikes. It's a straw man. There are technological solutions to the ball/strike issue, but they don't involve umpires huddling around a video monitor after every pitch.
Baseball is full of contingent situations like this, where reversing a call would require an umpire to become clairvoyant.
No one disputes that there would need to be rules changes or additions to deal with new situations. That's a poor reason not to do something that would improve the game.
As with all review systems, video will not resolve the question;
It will certainly resolve some of them. It would have resolved that one last night.
instead, it will just create a new question of whether the reversal (or failure to reverse) was correct. ... Standards like “indisputable visual evidence” are meaningless, because there is no bright line between “probable” and “definite.”
This is a legitimate point. It is, in fact, the single strongest argument against instituting a system of replay. I don't think it comes close to being adequate, but it is certainly a valid point.
Putting it in “movement” terms, video review is not conservative. The sudden upsurge of enthusiasm for reform rests on a handful of dramatic cases, while ignoring the wider problems that it would create; it shows a touching faith in the capacity of experts and rules to remake the world and eliminate all difficulties (video reviews would be kept “expeditious” by fiat, and “unnecessary delays” would be eliminated by magic, just like cutting “waste and fraud” from the budget); and it seeks to i. the e. (for you readers, that’s NR slang for “immanentize the eschaton”) by piling on layers of bureaucracy and fancy techno-fixes that will only burn up time, add expense, and create confusion.
First, let me say that would be a far more compelling statement if he hadn't started with the touchy-feely observation that it would have been better to leave him with an undeserved perfect game than correct an obvious mistake.

I'm a fundamentally conservative person, and I have sympathy with this argument. I have written, often, of my concern about utopians, that is, those who would "immanentize the eschaton." And I've always been a fan of Buckley's description of a conservative as one who "stands athwart history, yelling 'stop!'" But I'm a fan of progress, too, and if there's a better way to do something today than there was yesterday, we ought to look at it. We ought be cautious about it, but "stop" just for "stop's" sake would have us all living in darkness. I have candles in my home, but I use my electric lights to read by. I've got an almanac by my bed, but use google far more often.
G.K. Chesterton once said that
In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.
I love that. I'm a huge believer in the law of unintended consequences.

All that said, the fact is that we know why this particular fence is across this particular road. When the game began, this was the very best way to enforce the rules. The number and position of the umpires have changed over the years, but putting an impartial arbiter on the field has been the best, the only way to ensure that the players follow the rules, and that we have confidence in the outcomes.

That is no longer the case. In 1950, there weren't high speed, high definition cameras aimed at all of the spots on the field. The technology didn't exist to seriously challenge the authority of the umpires. But now it does. Why is there an "upsurge" in concern? Because now, everyone in the world knows, before Galarraga makes it back to the mound, than Joyce screwed up. It may be "conservative" to leave obviously correctable mistakes alone, but it isn't good conservative. Many things that happen in this world are wrong and can't be corrected. But some can, and where there's both ability and reason to do so, there needs to be a good reason not to. Fred hasn't produced any.
In other words, video review is the Obamacare of baseball.
It would be an understatement to call that an overstatement...

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Duh - how did this happen? Duh...

The logical end-result the the "soft bigotry of low expectations:"
Well-connected Democrats are complaining that the Obama political operation since the 2008 campaign has been more clumsy than clever.

Obama’s been rebuffed by would-have-been top-tier Senate candidates in states — North Carolina and Illinois — where Democrats now face an uphill fight this fall.

House Democrats lost a special election in the liberal Hawaii district Obama grew up in, and they have griped that the president didn't do more to help ease one of the candidates out.

And the White House failed to head off bitter Senate primaries for three Democratic-held Senate seats — in Arkansas, Colorado and Pennsylvania — that Republicans could snatch away this fall. Last fall, Obama vacillated on how much to help Democratic gubernatorial candidates in New Jersey and Virginia — he worked hard in one case and kept his distance in another — and the party was routed in both instances.

One senior House Democrat said it is baffling "how one group of people can be so good at campaigning and so bad at politics" — a phrasing nearly identical to that of a second veteran House Democrat who expressed the same sentiment.
In Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand famously said that "contradictions do not exist. When you are faced with what you believe is a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong." I don't think that that's correct in every single possible situation, but I think it is here. The premise that's wrong is that the Obama campaign was "so good at campaigning." The fact is that he gaffed and blundered all over the campaign trail, all over God's creation, and was dragged across the finish line by the most biased mainstream press operation in history. A press corps that was enamored of every move he made.

There was no background checking, no pushback on the things he said that were clearly false, no attempt whatsoever to "vet" him as a potential chief executive. It was obvious from day one that he had done absolutely nothing in his life to qualify him for the position that he now holds, but the people who present the campaign story to the country weren't interested in that, either. The inability to speak off the cuff - ignored. The vacuousness of the rhetoric - ignored. The hard left voting record - ignored. The radical friends - ignored. The lack of any kind of managerial experience - ignored. The corrupt bargains for his housing and Michelle's job - ignored. The press had room in their dispatches for one Hero - Barack, the ONE - and one villain - Sarah Palin. And that was the storyline. He won the election not because he ran a great campaign, but because his campaign was, and was going to be, called great no matter what he did. He was the "Great Black Hope," and once he became a viable candidate, he was going to win regardless of what happened.

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Will this be the impetus for baseball to move?

So the blown call by Jim Joyce in Detroit last night, costing Armando Gallaraga the official perfect game which everyone knows that he actually threw, brings up this again.
And baseball people continue to support the current system, a system in which n-6 (where n is the number of people in the world) people know that a runner being called out is safe or that a runner being called safe is out, and the 6 who don't know are allowed to determine the outcome anyway. Even more frustrating is the belief that some kind of replay usage would require long periods of time or limited manager challenges. Why on earth doesn't MLB just place another umpire somewhere where he can see all the replays, and let him correct the obviously wrong calls?
Obviously, in the regular season, we're talking about n-4 instead of n-6, but the point is the same. The NHL reviews every goal in every game from the league office in Toronto, and if there's a question, they determine what the truth is. The NBA reviews foot position on every three-point play, they review all plays that are close on the clock. There's absolutely no good reason for baseball not to have someone in front of a bank of replay screens correcting the obviously wrong calls on the field. But instead, we're sitting here this morning, following the historic third perfect game of the last month, and baseball is faced with a historic event that a) everyone understands occurred and b) it can't recognize because one of its umpires made a call that transformed that event into just another game.

Now, I can understand the people who don't want any replay at all. This is the way we've always done it, people are fallible, the human element is part of the game, etc., etc. I even agree with parts of their sentiment. I just think that their answer is the wrong one. The human element will always be part of the game, because it's played by humans, but the more the game is determined by the actual performance of the players of the field as opposed to the perceptions of the umpires, the better off the game is.

The position that I do not understand is the one espoused by Jayson Stark, who wants to "give each manager one challenge a night to use however he wants to use it -- except for ball/strike calls." Why get the manager involved at all? If the call is wrong, and it's correctable by replay, why wait until the manager gets a look at it and then challenges before letting a guy with video screens tell the ump that he got it wrong? Why add that extra step? Doesn't that just increase those delays that you're concerned about? In fact, if the players and umpires both know that correctable bad calls will be immediately corrected by a replay official, then the repeated long arguments over blown calls go away.

And what if that had been Joyce's second blown call of the game, and Leyland had challenged the first one in the sixth inning? We'd be in exactly the same situation today, except that baseball would be even more of a laughing stock. We'd be looking at an obviously blown call that cost a player an official perfect game despite the fact that you'd implemented rules to specifically overrule bad blown calls, only you weren't able to use it because the manager had already used his challenge!

In fact, this is a relatively simple problem. Somewhere in the league offices in New York, there are already all of the video feeds from all of the games. Set up 16 multiple monitor viewing stations, put an umpire or two in front of each, and give them the equipment to communicate with the head umpire on the field and the authority to correct the obviously blown calls. All of them. If it isn't obvious, play continues. If it is, you take the base-runner off the field or put him back on. If the NHL can do that - and it can - then why not baseball?

Does that make everything perfect? Obviously not. Some calls are not obvious, and then you live with the call that the guy on the field makes. This doesn't address balls and strikes at all (though there is technology to take care of that, too) and that's far and away the biggest source of umpire influence on games. There's no system that will be perfect because they're all run by human beings who are inherently fallible. But it's ridiculous that a multi-billion dollar organization allows itself to be put in the position of living with and defending obviously wrong decisions - from employees who are, at best, an ancillary part of the product - when they are so easily correctable.

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Tuesday, June 01, 2010

Red Sox in May - By The Numbers

AL Pythagorean Standings for May 2010
ProjectedActual
R/G(rank)RA/G(rank)Pythagorean(rank)WLWLLuck
Toronto5.66(3)4.03(3)0.65(1)191019100
New York5.9(1)4.55(6)0.616(2)18111613-2
Boston5.72(2)4.55(6)0.603(3)171218111
Minnesota4.75(6)3.86(2)0.594(4)17111612-1
Tampa Bay4.21(10)3.52(1)0.581(5)171217120
Texas4.89(4)4.85(12)0.503(6)141315121
Los Angeles4.79(5)5(13)0.481(7)141514150
Detroit3.88(11)4.12(5)0.474(8)121412140
Kansas City4.34(8)4.62(8)0.472(9)14151217-2
Chicago4.37(7)4.7(9)0.466(10)131413140
Oakland3.54(14)4.04(4)0.44(11)121616124
Seattle3.74(12)4.81(10)0.387(12)1017819-2
Cleveland4.3(9)5.7(14)0.373(13)1017918-1
Baltimore3.57(13)4.82(11)0.366(14)101810180

We all knew that the AL East was the strongest division in baseball, but that's a scary-good month for four teams from the same division to put together. Overall, Tampa remains in first on the strength of their very hot start, but three of their division rivals outplayed them in May. I remain a Blue Jay skeptic, but they've played very well so far.


Red Sox Hitting - May 2010
PlayerABRunsHits2B3BHRRBIBBSBBAOBASPctOPSRCRC/25
Kevin Youkilis82292742717310.329.521.6831.20429.0512.74
David Ortiz801629401027100.363.424.7881.21123.5810.72
Adrian Beltre11116379152550.333.364.568.93220.306.34
J.D. Drew102213390218101.324.381.471.85118.366.46
Victor Martinez8714247061950.276.315.563.87815.546.17
Marco Scutaro11117298003170.261.359.333.69312.423.45
Dustin Pedroia10818237027160.213.325.333.65911.323.14
Darnell McDonald78319301722.244.263.321.5836.422.59
Jason Varitek3278103450.250.351.563.9146.336.59
Bill Hall50711004820.220.250.460.7105.903.78
Jeremy Hermida744143011540.189.228.270.4984.231.73
Mike Lowell3538400650.229.325.343.6683.553.06
Mike Cameron1746200210.353.389.471.8593.076.98
Jonathan Van Every1564101120.267.353.533.8862.836.43
Daisuke Matsuzaka201000000.500.500.5001.000.496.13
John Lackey100000000.000.000.000.000-.07-.88
Tim Wakefield300000000.000.000.000.000-.27-1.69
Angel Sanchez300000000.000.000.000.000-.30-2.50
Jacoby Ellsbury1411000210.071.133.071.205-.49-.94

Totals1005166274623421611163.273.350.466.815161.195.25

Youkilis and Ortiz had outstanding months, while Beltre, Drew and Martinz were very good. Varitek and Cameron were productive in limited at-bats.

Really, that is, I suspect, what a good offensive month for a team always looks like - a couple of dominant performances, two or three strong supporting performances, and then some guys whose struggles don't really stick out. Frequently, fans will look at a team and say, "yeah, they're doing well, but wait until Pedroia gets going, too!" But the fact is, everybody has ups and downs, hot and cold streaks, and rarely is everyone all hitting at the same time. This is what a productive team looks like. And this is why having hitters in every spot matters. You need everyone to win a game offensively once in a while to be a dominant team.


Red Sox Pitching - May 2010
PlayerGamesWLSvIPHRERBBKERAK9BB9HR9Runs Saved1RS/IP
Jon Lester6500442410917451.849.203.480.4112.210.28
Clay Buchholz65103835141319253.085.924.500.475.180.14
Manny Delcarmen1201014 2/38336121.847.363.680.614.400.30
Daniel Bard1210111 1/37216110.798.744.760.003.720.33
Scott Atchison10002 1/3400010.003.860.000.001.180.50
Bill Hall10001000000.000.000.000.000.500.50
Hideki Okajima100008 2/3944374.157.273.122.080.370.04
Joe Nelson50006633154.507.501.501.500.030.00
Ramon Ramirez100009 1/3955594.828.684.821.93-0.29-0.03
Jonathan Papelbon902510764383.607.202.701.80-0.95-0.10
Jonathan Van Every100012220118.009.000.009.00-1.50-1.50
John Lackey532031 1/333181818185.175.175.171.44-2.19-0.07
Tim Wakefield712027 1/3301818695.932.961.981.65-4.21-0.15
Daisuke Matsuzaka632034 1/327232221255.776.555.500.52-5.67-0.17
Scott Schoeneweis500048885518.0011.2511.250.00-5.98-1.50
Josh Beckett3010172016146207.4110.593.181.06-7.42-0.44

9918116260 1/32291321241162014.296.954.010.93-0.620.00

Jon Lester, other than the month of April, has been the best pitcher in the AL for the last two years. I've said before that I thought there was a Cy Young award in his future - it's not at all inconcievable that this would be the year. He probably won't put up a 1.84 ERA the rest of the way, but he was a dominant pitcher in the month of May. Clay Buchholz has helped him carry the rotation, as the rest have been inconsistent (Matsuzaka, Wakefield), mediocre (Lackey) or bad (Beckett). Manny Delcarmen appears to be a productive pitcher again, which is helpful, and Papelbon's eight good and scoreless outings are masked by the one disaster outing, four runs in 2/3 inning.





1 - Runs Saved - How many fewer runs the pitcher allowed in his innings pitched than the average AL pitcher has allowed in that number of innings. The AL average in 2010 thus far is 4.54 runs allowed per nine innings.

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