Archive for the 'Splits' Category

On the heels of yesterday's meltdown by the Yankees in Citi Field, Mike Axisa in his post on the River Avenue Blues blog  highlighted the great discrepancy this year by Mariano Rivera at home and on the road. Maybe I haven't been paying  enough attention, but thing that surprised me most was that Rivera has yet to allow a run at home.  How unusual is this?  Here are the most consecutive shutout home appearances by a pitcher to start a season. Read the rest of this entry »

As of this writing, Mark Teixeira's got 4 HR and 10 RBI already in April (through 4 and a half games...)

Check out his career Aprils:

His OPS is about 1.500 right now and he's already got more HR than every year but 2005 and is tied with his 4 HR in 2008.

It may not mean much in the end, but Tex fans have got to feel good about his hot start.

Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe has theorized that the Red Sox have held Josh Beckett back until the 4th game of the season because he has historically pitched poorly against the Texas Rangers, against whom the Red Sox open the season with a 3-game series.

Indeed, Beckett's numbers against the Rangers are among the worst of his career:

These are the clubs with the higher tOPS+ against Beckett, which is a split of his personal OPS+ against broken out by team.

In fact, of his 246 career starts, his two starts against Texas last year were the 20th- and and 33rd-worst Game Scores of his career.

Abraham surmised that if not for the opening series against the Rangers, Beckett would have been the #2 starter this year.

On our Trevor Hoffman Hall of Fame post, a couple of readers remarked on his career W-L record of 61-75 as being a detriment to his HOF credentials. This doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but let's explore the issue a little bit.

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After Victor Martinez left via free agency, the Red Sox yesterday re-signed team captain Jason Varitek.

Obviously he brings a lot more to the team than just what he does with his bat, as well as more than other on-field things like game-calling. But is it worth it?

Let's take a look at some numbers.

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A reader named Stan wrote in and pointed out that the Giants currently have a 1.85 ERA for the month of September:

Does anybody know which teams (Giants or otherwise) have matched such a good ERA in any month? This is not something we can search for in the Play Index (yet).

When the Red Sox signed John Lackey as a free agent, I was among many folks who criticized the move, citing Lackey's historical performance in Fenway Park. His numbers so far this year among his career worst, in particular his 95 ERA+. Are his difficulties this year due to Fenway Park? Let's investigate.

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Back at the end of April, we were marveling at the great starts posted by Robinson Cano and Kelly Johnson. Let's take another peak at how these two doing are doing with a little over a month left in the season.

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The Mets and Cardinals played 13 innings last night after playing 20 earlier this season. As of yesterday, there have been 276 team games in extra innings this year, so an average of about 9 per team. The Cardinals have been in 9 games, going 4-5, while the Mets (visible on the same link) have played in 12, going 4-8.

Incidentally, on that detailed standings page, you can also see that the teams with the best winning percentage in extra innings are the Royals (7-2), Astros (6-2), and Orioles (7-3) despite the fact that each team is in the bottom 7 in overall W-L% this year. Weird. Neil put it best in a chat window to me just now: "Further proof that winning close games is more luck than skill".