Nelson Cruz reached 20 home runs by the end of May as he went deep Saturday afternoon in the Orioles 4-1 win over the Astros. One third of the way through the season, he’s a little less than 1/3 of the way to the American League record. You can track the probability of him reaching and passing the record here.
I updated the Assigned Wins Tracker to reflect the final formula Tom Tango produced.
The Royals game against the Blue Jays has slugfest written all over it as Aaron Brooks and Marcus Stroman posted poor numbers in their short major league careers. Brooks showed great control in the minor league, and Stroman blew batters away.
The Cubs and Brewers continue their series with Jason Hammel facing Wily Peralta. Hammel is keeping both his hits and walks low, with a WHIP of just 0.90. Peralta might have thought he was pitching for the Cubs in May, with a 1.69 ERA and a 1-3 record.
Finally, Johnny Cueto brings his 1.83 ERA against the Diamondbacks and Brandon McCarthy. Cueto is the leading candidate for the Cy Young award this year, and part of that is 85 K and just 20 walks in 83 2/3 innings. McCarthy stands just 1-6 this season. He has great strikeout and walk numbers, 59 K and 12 walks in 68 1/3 innings. He gave up a ton of hits, however, 74, which may indicate poor defense behind him. Twenty nine of those hits went for extra bases, so batters hitting the ball hard means it’s not just the fielders.
Enjoy!
The Giants knocked around Cardinals starter Adam Wainwright Friday night, knocking him out of the top stop in Cy Young Tracker points. Wainwright held a nearly four point lead over Johnny Cueto going into Friday night, but lost 4.4 points as he allowed seven runs and did not get a win. Cueto pitches tonight in Arizona, so a good game from him would cement the NL lead.
Pablo Sandoval extended his hitting streak to 10 games, but he’s been hot since May 10th, reaching by a hit in 19 of those 20 games. That’s good for a .382/.392/.684 slugging percentage.
The Day by Day Database is up to date.
Miguel Gonzalez held the Astros hitless through five innings this Friday evening. Miguel came into the game with 54 hits allowed in 51 2/3 innings and a .271 BA allowed. He’s walked one and struck out one so far, so the Orioles defense is making all the plays behind him. The Orioles lead the Astros 1-0 in the top of the sixth in Houston.
Update: With one out in the bottom of the sixth, Jose Altuve singles to break up the no-hitter.
A friend of my nephew from high school was called up to the Red Sox today.
More changes to the Red Sox roster as 1B-catcher Ryan Lavarnway was placed on the 15-day disabled list with a left hamate fracture today. He left Thursday night’s game in the bottom of the fifth inning with a sore left wrist.
To fill Lavarnway’s spot outfielder/first baseman Alex Hassan — raised in Milton and BC High graduate — was recalled from Triple-A Pawtucket. Hassan will wear No. 68 — last worn by Jose Iglesias — and will be active for tonight’s game against the Rays.
Best of luck to Alex.
The Braves and Marlins start a series in Miami tied for first as Julio Teheran faces Tom Koehler. The Braves scored 12 runs in Teheran’s last two starts, even though he didn’t need them as he pitched 15 scoreless innings. He also pitched in two 1-0 wins. Koehler allows a .252 OBP this season at home, versus .341 on the road.
On the west coast, the Angels trail the Athletics by 1 1/2 games as Garrett Richards battles Drew Pomeranz. Richards walks a few batters, but makes up for it with home runs and strikeouts. He allowed just one long ball this season in 66 innings. Pomeranz has yet to allow a run in Oakland this season, giving up just five hits and five walks in 14 innings at home.
Enjoy!
Dr. James Andrews and Dr. Kevin Wilk are developing an iOS application to help youngsters avoid Tommy John surgery:
Perhaps one of the most practical sections of the app is the pitch counter and rest calculator. The pitch counter can be used to track how many pitches are thrown during a game and throughout the season.
Based on the player’s age, Throw Like a Pro creates specific guidelines with regards to numbers of pitches. The rest calculator outlines appropriate rest prior to resuming pitching.
I have some doubts as to the effectiveness of this, simply due to the fact that competitive athletes want to win, they don’t just want to develop. I hope there coaches take the rest factor seriously.
Nelson Cruz and Edwin Encarnacion lead the American League in home runs with 19 and 18 respectively, and are both off to a good start in trying to catch Roger Maris and his single season AL record of 61 homers. The probability of a hitter breaking one of the records depends on their intrinsic probability of hitting a home run in a plate appearance, the number of home runs hit so far, and the expected number of remaining plate appearances.
The following Google spreadsheets track that data for Cruz and Encarnacion. I use their Musings Marcels projections to determine their intrinsic home run rate. Encarnacion has the advantage there. Marcels predict his rate to be 0.0504 home runs per PA versus 0.0447 for Cruz. Since the Orioles played fewer games, Cruz has the advantage in remaining PA, 470 while Encarnacion comes in at 461. (It is close because Edwin gets slightly more PA per game.) Put it all together, and Encarnacion owns a slight advantage. The probability of his tying the record stands at 0.0000483, and breaking the record at 0.0000233. Cruz comes in at 0.00000994 for the tie, 0.00000443 for breaking the record. Obviously, both are big long shots at the moment.
Both links contain graphs showing how the players are progressing. I’ll update them daily.
Via Tom Tango, Twitter offers an interesting discussion on why the NL outdraws the NL.
https://twitter.com/MattGross87/status/472241704108826624/photo/1
As far as the graph is concerned, I suspect more competitive wild card and division races made a bit of a difference. Massive tie scenarios, until recently, usually focused on the NL, not the AL. The whole idea behind the wild card was to get more team involved in races late, but with the Yankees and Red Sox dominating for most of that graph history, that didn’t happen as often in the AL. I don’t think it’s the whole explanation, but it may be a contributing factor.
The Day by Day Database is up to date.
Edwin Encarnacion hit two home runs so far Thursday evening, bringing his season total to 18. The two dingers helped the Blue Jays to a 6-5 lead over the Royals in the seventh. With Nelson Cruz hitting 19 homers already two AL sluggers are making a run at Roger Maris‘s AL single season home run record of 61. This could be a very interesting race, as Cruz wears the PED taint and Edwin doesn’t. Since some people still consider the Maris record the only legitimate 61+ season, I wonder how the write will treat Cruz if he does indeed top 61. Normally, I would expect the person who hits that many home runs to win the MVP, but would the writers wonder if Cruz was getting help? Maybe Edwin will make it easy on everyone.
Felix Hernandez allowed one run in 8 2/3 innings Wednesday as the Mariners beat the Angels 3-1. LAnaheim did not score until there were two outs in the ninth, on a single by Mike Trout and a double by Albert Pujols. Those were half the hits allowed by Felix as he walked two and struck out nine.
That performance pushed him to the top of the AL Cy Young Tracker chart. He passes Masahiro Tanaka. Both pitchers hold 7-1 records, but Felix pitched 84 innings to Tanaka’s 70 2/3. Tanaka still holds some cards in the race, with fewer earned runs allowed, and a higher strikeout rate. There is a 1.1 point difference between the two, so a good start by Tanaka on Saturday should put him back on top. It’s a very tight race in the AL among the top five, with some very good pitchers lurking just below that line.
The Day by Day Database is up to date.
Via David Schoenfield, the American Sports Medicine Institute released a position statement on Tommy John surgery. Reading their nine recommendations to prevent the injury, numbers 2 and 9 stand out:
Do not always pitch with 100% effort. The best professional pitchers pitch with a range of ball velocity, good ball movement, good control, and consistent mechanics among their pitches. The professional pitcher’s objectives are to prevent baserunners and runs, not to light up the radar gun.
…
Pitchers with high ball velocity are at increased risk of injury. The higher the ball velocity, the more important to follow the guidelines above.
I would say it’s time to start drafting Tommy John type pitchers, but that would be too ironic.
The Astros won for the fifth time in a row, beating the Royals 9-3 Wednesday afternoon. It is the third time they scored nine runs in a game during the streak, after scoring just six runs during the four-game losing streak that preceded this run.
George Springer drove in two more runs on Wednesday, giving him 12 RBI in the five games. He also scored two more runs, giving him ten in the streak. With a home run today, seven of his nine hits have gone for extra bases. He is both setting up batter for RBI by getting on base, and driving home the runners ahead of him with extra base hits. He’s hitting himself into the Rookie of Year competition.
Henderson Alvarez and Jordan Zimmermann square off in Washington as the Nationals and Miami finished a rain-shortened series. Alvarez appears to pitch to contact, with a low walk and strikeout rate. The upshot is a somewhat high BA allowed, .282, but a decent OBP allowed of .327. He limits power, so the OBP doesn’t hurt him that much. He has given up a .350 BA on the road. Zimmermann slash line against is .299/.342/.439, not very good. He does better with runners in scoring position, however, which is why his ERA is not too high.
The Tigers continue their series in Oakland with another great match-up, Anibal Sanchez facing Scott Kazmir. Sanchez comes into the game with the second most innings pitched this season without allowing a home run. He trails David Hale by 3 2/3 innings, so Sanchez could take the lead this evening. Oakland does like to smack homers at home. Kazmir owns a 1.91 ERA at home, walking just two batters in 28 1/3 innings.
Finally, C.J. Wilson faces the King, Felix Hernandez as the Mariners try to even their series with the Angels. Wilson allowed five of his six home runs on the road, although Seattle is not that conducive to the long ball. Hernandez, a right-hander, is holding lefties to a .309 slugging percentage, versus .350 against righties.
Enjoy!
Zack Greinke struck out 11 Tuesday night without allowing a walk. While that was the best performance by a starter on May 27th in terms of walks and strikeouts, it was not the only outstanding one. Wade Miley struckout 11 and walked one. Collin McHugh recorded nine K without allowing a walk, and is turning out to be a very good starter for the Astros. All-in-all, 14 pitchers struck out at least four times more batters than they walked in their Tuesday starts.
David Price owns the best strikeout to walk ratio among major league starters. Photo: Robert Hanashiro-USA TODAY Sports
Pitchers with a four strikeouts for every walk are rare over a full season, although the numbers have been growing. In the 1960s (1961-1970) there were 28 such seasons, defining a full season as at least 162 innings pitched. With the lowering of the mound for the 1969 season, that total dropped to four in the 1970s. In the 1980s it rose to 10, in the 1990s to 41, and in the first decade of the 21st century hit 79. In the first three years of the 2010s, there were 29 such seasons. Pitchers recorded 14 such season in 2013, the most of the expansion ERA. So far in 2014, 26 pitchers with at least 50 innings have K:BB of at least 4.0.
| Pitcher | K per BB |
| David Price | 10.50 |
| Phil Hughes | 8.33 |
| Masahiro Tanaka | 7.90 |
| Tim Hudson | 7.33 |
| Bartolo Colon | 7.17 |
| Cliff Lee | 6.78 |
| Zack Greinke | 5.43 |
| Jose D Fernandez | 5.38 |
| Felix Hernandez | 5.29 |
| Dallas Keuchel | 5.08 |
| Brandon McCarthy | 4.92 |
| Corey Kluber | 4.88 |
| Adam Wainwright | 4.81 |
| Alex Wood | 4.58 |
| Kyle Lohse | 4.54 |
| Ian Kennedy | 4.50 |
| Stephen Strasburg | 4.50 |
| Madison Bumgarner | 4.41 |
| Dan Haren | 4.36 |
| Johnny Cueto | 4.25 |
| Rick Porcello | 4.22 |
| John Lackey | 4.21 |
| James Shields | 4.20 |
| Hiroki Kuroda | 4.18 |
| Nathan Eovaldi | 4.07 |
| Wei-Yin Chen | 4.00 |
Not all of these pitchers will last the season at this level. Jose Fernandez obviously won’t pitch 162 innings. Not all of these pitchers are getting good results at this level. Interestingly, two of the Yankees big three prospects, Ian Kennedy and Phil Hughes are on the list, and the third, Joba Chamberlain, has struck out 25 and walked six as a reliever. A third of the way through the season, however, the majors are well positioned to top the 14 who reached this level in 2013.
The Day by Day Database is up to date.
Jose Reyes led off the bottom of the fifth for the Blue Jays by lining a single off the butt of Rays pitcher Alex Cobb. Cobb limped around a bit after the hit, and everyone on the Rays was thankful it was to his bottom, and not to his face again. I suspect the butt shot did hurt him however, as four of the next five batters recorded hits, including back-to-back home runs by Adam Lind and Edwin Encarnacion. That performance breaks a 2-2 tie, and the Blue Jays take the field for the sixth with a 6-2 lead.
The as of Tuesday morning, the Oakland Athletics set atop Major League Baseball in runs scored per game, 5.06. This is highly unusual, since Oakland plays in a park that tends to suppress offense. The A’s score 0.82 fewer runs per game at home and allowed 0.42 fewer runs. Compare that to the Colorado Rockies, a hair behind Oakland at 5.04 runs per game. They score 3.18 more runs per game at home. If you consider the road environment neutral, then the Athletics at 5.43 are indeed the best offense in the league, while Colorado in road games ranks 21st at 3.57 runs per game. So while the two teams look a like at a gross level, Oakland owns the superior hitters.
What’s really fascinating, however, is that the offense is completely different home and road. It’s not that all the A’s stats go down the same amount at home. They perform differently. First of all, they actually own a better slash line at home, .258/.339/.438, versus .243/.333/.390 on the road. The team hits more home runs at home, and many more doubles on the road. They walk and strikeout a lot more on the road, so they get fewer chances to put the ball in play. So why do they score more on the road?
It seems the Athletics take advantage of opponents mistakes on the road more often than at home. At the coliseum, Oakland batters drove in 103 of the 106 runs they scored. On the road, they’ve driven in 139 of the 152 runs the team scored. That ten more runs that came on things like double steals, wild pitches and passed balls, general errors, balks, etc. Whatever they are doing, they hit they way they should at home and the way they should on the road. The result is the top offensive team in the majors.
Just started a new job today, so here is just a quick best of the best on a great day for pitching match-ups.
Alex Cobb leads the Rays against the Blue Jays and Mark Buehrle.
Max Scherzer and Sonny Gray meet in a battle of Cy Young candidates as the Tigers continue their series with the Athletics.
Jered Weaver and Roenis Elias meet in an AL West battle between the Angels and Mariners.
Finally, Alfredo Simon tries to prevent Zack Greinke‘s eighth win as the Reds face the Dodgers.
Enjoy!
LyfLines takes an in-depth look at the Red Sox ten game losing streak.
The Day by Day Database is up to date.
The camouflage hats the players are wearing today are so good, I thought for a second that Brian Wilson was pitching without a cap and had a tattooed, bald head!
Update: There’s something about Billy Hamilton at the plate that reminds me of Mickey Rivers. He just doubled in two runs in the eighth inning to cut the Dodgers lead to 4-3. Hamilton would have tripled on the play, except Skip Schumaker had walked to clog the bases. 🙂
Update: Kenley Jansen comes in to strike out Brandon Phillips with the bases loaded to end the threat. That gives Jansen 36 K in 22 innings this season. The Dodgers hold onto the lead 4-3.
Hyun-jin Ryu will face Todd Frazier, Ryan Ludwick, and Chris Heisey in the eighth as Ryu tries to keep his perfect game intact. The Dodgers lead the Reds 4-0 on three unearned runs against Johnny Cueto.
Dodgers pitchers come into the inning with 17 straight hitless innings.
Ryu reached on an error and scored in the bottom of the seventh. We’ll see if running around the bases takes anything out of him.
Update: Frazier doubles down the leftfield line to break up the perfect game.
Hyun-jin Ryu pitched four perfect innings so far for the Dodgers against the Reds. With Josh Beckett throwing nine no-hit innings against the Phillies yesterday, and the Phillies not getting a hit in the last inning of Saturday’s game, the Dodgers have gone 14 straight innings without allowing a hit! They lead the Reds 1-0, and we’ll see how long the streak goes.
Update: No team has ever thrown no-hitters in consecutive games, however:
it has happened once on consecutive days: On May 5, 1917, Ernie Koob of the St. Louis Browns no-hit the Chicago White Sox, and teammate Bob Groom repeated the feat in the second game of a doubleheader the following day.
Cool.
Update: Ryu stays perfect through five innings, and the team streak goes to 15 innings. Ryu struck out four so far, and he’s thrown just 56 pitches.
Update: The Reds try to bunt twice in the sixth, but go down 1-2-3. Ryu stays perfect, and the Dodgers hitless inning streak goes to 16. Ryu picked up two K in the inning to move his strikeout total to six.
Update: Ryu picks up another K as he remains perfect through seven innings. Justin Turner made two great plays at third in the game, both off the bat of Zack Cozart. Otherwise, he’s kept the Reds hitters off balance. The Dodgers are not doing that well against Johnny Cueto, as they lead 1-0.
This article from 2008 mentions a few long team hitless streaks:
With the Cubs holding the Astros hitless for 15 consecutive innings over two games on Sunday and Monday, here is a look at some other exceptional and rare no-hit feats in baseball history.
…
According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the last time a team pitched or succumbed to a streak of 15 consecutive no-hit innings was June 2-3, 1995, when the Expos held the Padres without a hit for that span. On Sept. 25-27, 1981, the Astros held the Dodgers without a hit for 16 consecutive innings.
The Dodgers streak is up to 17 innings.
The New York Mets fired hitting coach Dave Hudgens and cut reliever Jose Valverde after a 5-3 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates on Monday.
Minor league hitting coordinator Lamar Johnson will take over for Hudgens.
…
“Sometimes you make change for change,” manager Terry Collins said.
“This is by no means Dave Hudgens’ fault. Not whatsoever,” he said. “It’s about trying to get the execution better. We’ll see if change helps.”
Since the start of the 2011 season, the Mets scored 4.07 runs per game, which is right in the middle of the National League. Even scoring just 3.92 runs per game this season, the Mets rank 5th in the NL. I don’t really see where the offense is that big a problem.
The Red Sox ended their ten game losing streak with an 8-6 win over the Braves Monday afternoon. The offense was in the doldrums, having scored just 26 runs. David Ortiz, who did not drive in a run during the streak, drove in four today with a home run and a sacrifice fly.
I guess the relief from Bobby Valentine‘s tenure didn’t last that long.