Take a pencil and a piece of paper, draw a line from the top left corner down to the bottom of the page, about 1/4 way toward the right, and you have what happened to the probabilities of records over the last week. Miguel Cabrera was hurt, and the probability of his breaking any RBI record is basically zero. Manny Machado hasn’t hit a double in forever, and the most optimistic estimate of his breaking Earl Webb‘s record of 67 doubles is 0.5%. Regression is rearing it’s ugly head on Manny. Chris Davis hasn’t hit a home run since he hit four in four games before the All-Star break. His probability of just catching Maris is worse than 1 in 1000. Someone is going to need to go on a tear soon to get back in the game.
re: Cabrera, thank Jim Leyland’s good friend Chad Fairchild. Cabrera’s spot in the order came up with 12 runners on base over the course of the game. Unfortunately, during the first opportunity (bases loaded, one out) Fairchild threw him out of the game for questioning a couple of called strikes. His replacements picked up 3 RBI between them.
Not sure exactly what Cabrera said, so it may have been justified. Just watching, though, he was not very demonstrative in questioning the calls, didn’t step out of the box, just turned his head back and said something. According to Fairchild, after the first one he was told to quit chirping or he’d be thrown out; when he said something the second time he was gone. Looked like a very quick trigger to me.
Just from a marketing point of view, it seems questionable to have your umpires ejecting one of the players that your customer’s are specifically paying to see. I know I’ll flip on the TV for an inning when I know he’s coming up to bat, so they’re losing eyeballs when he’s not playing.
Every game that Chris Davis bats more like Chris Davis and less like Miguel Cabrera improves Cabrera’s chances of winning back-to-back triple crowns.