A 3-3 week that's a preview of the remaining five weeks of baseball - not enough offense to beat good pitching, struggling "aces," and a team that's playing out the string without half of its opening day position players, including its two best.
- I said last week that, barring a massive fluke, the Red Sox were not going to make the playoffs. Yes, they are mathematically still in it, but they're too wounded for it to happen. They're still likely to win 90+, and finish with one of the top 6-8 records in baseball, better than at least a couple of playoff teams, but they aren't going to be one of them themselves.
- During the offseason, there was a lot of talk about this being a "bridge" year, and a lot of people who thought that the team that the front office put together was inadequate, that it wouldn't produce offensively, that it wasn't as good as Tampa or New York, and that it wouldn't make the playoffs. Those last couple of items are going to end up being technically correct ("the best kind of correct") but the people that said them were completely wrong. If this team had Dustin Pedroia for 150 games instead of 75, Kevin Youkilis for 150 instead of 102, and Jacoby Ellsbury for 150 games instead of 18 (six healthy), they'd be ahead of Tampa right now. That's before even considering Mike Cameron, who played 48 games, none of them while healthy, or the three weeks they played with the top four catchers in the organization all on the DL. This was just "one of those seasons." We've seen its like before - 2005 had a similar flavor for a period in August, and 2001 was epic just like this, but that's just the way it happens sometimes. They've got nothing to be ashamed or embarassed about - it's just the way that it went.
- The ejection of Adrian Beltre from Wednesday night's game is perhaps the single-most inexcusable action that I've ever seen from an umpire. He was facing into the Mariner (3rd base) dugout, from his position at third, talking in Spanish to his good friend Felix Hernandez, and the home plate umpire was so insecure and power-drunk that he threw him out. If he didn't cost himself a possible MLB career, he should have. Or at least cost himself a good long time before it starts, because he's clearly not ready for prime time. It's not that I think Beltre's presence would have made a difference in the outcome, because I don't. I don't think that they were going to win that game with or without him. But he's been the best hitter on the team of those that are still healthy, and there was no legitimate reason for him to be thrown out. The crowd wasn't sitting in the rain to watch Dan Bellino.
- Red Sox Player of the Week - Victor Martinez, who hit .417/.400/.792/1.192, and almost single-handedly won the first two games of the Tampa series. It's not his fault that there was no one on base for any of his three home runs.
- Red Sox Pitcher of the Week - Jon Lester, who, coming off the disastrous debacle a week earlier, was stellar over seven innings in the one game that the Red Sox didn't manage to give away to the Rays.
AL Pythagorean Projection Report - 8/30/2010
| | | | | | | | Projected | Actual | |
|
|---|
| R/G | (rank) | RA/G | (rank) | Pythagorean | (rank) | W | L | W | L | Luck |
|
|---|
| New York | 5.36 | (1) | 4.11 | (4) | 0.62 | (1) | 81 | 49 | 80 | 50 | -1 |
|
| Tampa Bay | 4.97 | (3) | 3.85 | (2) | 0.614 | (2) | 80 | 50 | 80 | 50 | 0 |
|
| Minnesota | 4.8 | (5) | 4.03 | (3) | 0.579 | (3) | 76 | 55 | 75 | 56 | -1 |
|
| Texas | 4.85 | (4) | 4.2 | (5) | 0.565 | (4) | 73 | 57 | 73 | 57 | 0 |
|
| Chicago | 4.74 | (6) | 4.2 | (5) | 0.555 | (5) | 72 | 58 | 70 | 60 | -2 |
|
| Boston | 5.02 | (2) | 4.53 | (9) | 0.547 | (6) | 72 | 59 | 74 | 57 | 2 |
|
| Oakland | 4.05 | (11) | 3.79 | (1) | 0.531 | (7) | 68 | 61 | 65 | 64 | -3 |
|
| Toronto | 4.65 | (7) | 4.4 | (8) | 0.525 | (8) | 68 | 62 | 68 | 62 | 0 |
|
| Detroit | 4.5 | (8) | 4.6 | (10) | 0.49 | (9) | 64 | 67 | 65 | 66 | 1 |
|
| Los Angeles | 4.38 | (9) | 4.6 | (10) | 0.478 | (10) | 63 | 68 | 63 | 68 | 0 |
|
| Cleveland | 4.02 | (12) | 4.85 | (12) | 0.414 | (11) | 54 | 76 | 53 | 77 | -1 |
|
| Kansas City | 4.09 | (10) | 5.28 | (14) | 0.386 | (12) | 50 | 80 | 55 | 75 | 5 |
|
| Seattle | 3.25 | (14) | 4.3 | (7) | 0.375 | (13) | 49 | 81 | 51 | 79 | 2 |
|
| Baltimore | 3.68 | (13) | 5.08 | (13) | 0.356 | (14) | 47 | 84 | 48 | 83 | 1 |
|
Top 5 projections (using current winning %)
| New York | 100 | 62 |
|
| Tampa Bay | 100 | 62 |
|
| Minnesota | 93 | 69 |
|
| Boston | 92 | 70 |
|
| Texas | 91 | 71 |
|
Top 5 projections (starting with today's record, using Pythagorean winning %)
| New York | 100 | 62 |
|
| Tampa Bay | 100 | 62 |
|
| Minnesota | 93 | 69 |
|
| Texas | 91 | 71 |
|
| Boston | 91 | 71 |
|
Standings for the week
| | | | | | | | Projected | Actual | |
|
|---|
| R/G | (rank) | RA/G | (rank) | Pythagorean | (rank) | W | L | W | L | Luck |
|
|---|
| Detroit | 6.71 | (1) | 3 | (2) | 0.814 | (1) | 6 | 1 | 4 | 3 | -2 |
|
| Oakland | 4.83 | (4) | 2.17 | (1) | 0.813 | (2) | 5 | 1 | 4 | 2 | -1 |
|
| Chicago | 6 | (2) | 4.5 | (11) | 0.629 | (3) | 4 | 2 | 3 | 3 | -1 |
|
| Boston | 3.5 | (9) | 3.17 | (5) | 0.546 | (4) | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 0 |
|
| New York | 5.67 | (3) | 5.5 | (12) | 0.514 | (5) | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 0 |
|
| Baltimore | 3 | (12) | 3 | (2) | 0.5 | (6) | 3 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 1 |
|
| Tampa Bay | 4.33 | (5) | 4.33 | (8) | 0.5 | (6) | 3 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 1 |
|
| Cleveland | 4.17 | (6) | 4.33 | (8) | 0.482 | (8) | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 0 |
|
| Minnesota | 2.86 | (13) | 3 | (2) | 0.478 | (9) | 3 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 0 |
|
| Texas | 3.57 | (8) | 4 | (7) | 0.448 | (10) | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 1 |
|
| Los Angeles | 3.17 | (11) | 4.33 | (8) | 0.36 | (11) | 2 | 4 | 1 | 5 | -1 |
|
| Seattle | 2.5 | (14) | 3.5 | (6) | 0.351 | (12) | 2 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 0 |
|
| Toronto | 3.86 | (7) | 5.57 | (13) | 0.338 | (13) | 2 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 |
|
| Kansas City | 3.5 | (9) | 7.5 | (14) | 0.199 | (14) | 1 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 1 |
|
Labels: MLB, pythagorean, Red Sox
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Comment?
<< Home