MLB 2014

[Paelos]

Aaron Harang had a no-hitter for the Braves through 7, but they had to take him out on 121 pitches and 6 walks. First time I've seen fatigue be that much of a factor over the no-no.

[Paelos]

Is Matt Cain struggling, or is this just bad luck?

[Ingmar]

2 bad starts and 3 strong starts in 5; not sure I am drawing any conclusions yet. He's been very good when he's been good (although lacking in run support, as is traditional for Matt Cain.) Also Coors Field and the Rockies offense is looking good so far, etc.

[Paelos]

I don't know how they get pitchers to actually play for Colorado.

[Phildo]

"Play here for a couple of seasons, then look incredible after we trade you to a team with a pitcher's park in the National League"?

[Goumindong]

I don't know how they get pitchers to actually play for Colorado.

They trade for them with all their "really good we promise" hitters who promptly drop 80 points in a pitchers park. /not bitter at all mariners fan

[Paelos]

Braves finally won again after losing 7 straight. They are streaky as hell.

Four teams are on my bricks list after the beginning of May, meaning they have no shot at making the playoffs: Houston, Cubs, Dbacks, and Padres.

[Phildo]

Uggla, man.  Uggla.

E:  At least B J Upton remembered how to hit once he got glasses that let him see the ball.  Has anyone in Atlanta started calling him Wild Thing yet?

[Paelos]

Actually with the glasses BJ had on before, they were calling him Urkel.



But yeah it's very Rick Vaughn.

[Paelos]

So the cubs walk Justin Upton to get to the braves best hitter. Walk off!

[HaemishM]

So the cubs walk Justin Upton to get to the braves best hitter. Walk off!

It's the Cubs. It wouldn't have mattered if it was the pitcher. Their bullpen is a fucking trainwreck masquerading as an extinction level event.

[Ingmar]

Speaking of intentional walks:

http://joeposnanski.com/joeblogs/the-intentional-walk-rage-system/

[Phildo]

Congratulations to the Cubs for 10,000 losses!

[Paelos]

So the cubs walk Justin Upton to get to the braves best hitter. Walk off!

It's the Cubs. It wouldn't have mattered if it was the pitcher. Their bullpen is a fucking trainwreck masquerading as an extinction level event.

Samardzija going 7 scoreless and getting a no-decision was the icing on the cake.

[Paelos]

I hate interleague.

[WayAbvPar]

I hate interleague.

LOLLostToMariners. John Buck ffs. Wow.

[Phildo]

I feel like there's no shame in losing to Iwakuma.

[WayAbvPar]

He is amazing. If they could get another bat or two and have one of their big 3 pitching prospects not have his arm fall off they might be able to hang around on the fringes of the wildcard race for a while.

[HaemishM]

I watched a bit of the Tigers/Mariners game on Saturday. Fuck, I thought the Cubs had some shitty batting averages in their starting 9 but fuck me. And yet, the Mariners have a better record. TBF, Cano wasn't in the lineup but it looked like a whole bunch of non-hitters and guys brought up too early from the minors. And they won because their pitcher (Chris Young) threw a pretty good outing. Just looking at their stats, their starting pitching looks pretty solid. How do you assemble a lineup of sub-.250 hitters?

[Paelos]

It's not just losing to Seattle, it's losing 6 games in a row now to the AL teams because the Braves can't hit when the pitch well, and can't hold leads when they hit well.

[WayAbvPar]

I watched a bit of the Tigers/Mariners game on Saturday. Fuck, I thought the Cubs had some shitty batting averages in their starting 9 but fuck me. And yet, the Mariners have a better record. TBF, Cano wasn't in the lineup but it looked like a whole bunch of non-hitters and guys brought up too early from the minors. And they won because their pitcher (Chris Young) threw a pretty good outing. Just looking at their stats, their starting pitching looks pretty solid. How do you assemble a lineup of sub-.250 hitters?

Saturday night was probably the worst lineup they can throw out there. Any time you see Willie Bloomquist doing anything other than stuffing sunflower seeds into his long face the lineup is suspect. The management built a fucking terrible team with no redundancy. If James Jones hadn't come up (with few expectations) and had a very solid year so far they would be even worse.

[Sjofn]

I don't like interleague, but that's mostly because I don't like the DH.

[Ingmar]

I like playing the A's but it isn't really worth having to play a bunch of other teams we have no real history with or reason to care about.

[Goumindong]

I watched a bit of the Tigers/Mariners game on Saturday. Fuck, I thought the Cubs had some shitty batting averages in their starting 9 but fuck me. And yet, the Mariners have a better record. TBF, Cano wasn't in the lineup but it looked like a whole bunch of non-hitters and guys brought up too early from the minors. And they won because their pitcher (Chris Young) threw a pretty good outing. Just looking at their stats, their starting pitching looks pretty solid. How do you assemble a lineup of sub-.250 hitters?

The answer is twofold

1) The M's don't spend enough and their general management is probably incompetent. We trade people who hit 280 in Safeco for people who hit 330 in denver and think we're going to come out ahead on that.

2) Safeco Field is aptly named

Not only does Safeco have one of the lowest total park effect but the effect is larger on the types of hits that people actually get (singles/doubles) they are the hardest and third hardest respectively. This means that overall batting averages plummet in Seattle

So if you take a look at the offensive Wins over Replacement for say, the Rockies you won't find it much higher than the Mariners even though 8 starters on the Rockies are hitting over .285 and 5 hit over .300 while only one person on the M's hits over 300 and the rest are below .285. The only outsized OWAR is the one guy hitting .350 and has 15 home runs.

To really see this effect, compare Cano's OWAR to say Corey Dickerson. Cano's OWAR is 1.8, blowing Dickerson's 1.1 out of the water. But Dickerson hits better than Cano (.345 to .330), has more home runs than Cano (7 to 2) on half the at bats and a lot of that has to do with just how easy it is to get hits in Denver.

Things are getting better though, our batting averages are going up since we replaced our hitting coach (this year?) so there is hope, if only so that the Mariner's can dash it, but hope nonetheless.

[Paelos]

Toronto is actually good now. Didn't somebody keep wandering into threads last year asking if Toronto won the World Series yet?

MAYBE THIS YEAR!

[Rasix]

Fordel

[Paelos]

The time is nigh Fordel!

[Bunk]

Toronto was supposed to dominate last year after the big trade for pitching, and they totally shit the bed. This year, no one expected anything going in.

They've got six guys with 9+ HRs and fricken Mark Buerle is on pace to win the Cy Young.

Two biggest reasons for the improvement?  Way less injuries, and they picked up a Catcher that actually knows how to call a game.

[Paelos]

Also don't underestimate the fact that the rest of the division is shitting the bed in everything but Interleague so far.

[Fordel]

[Ginaz]

Jays beat the Tigers today 7-3 to sweep the series. 

Start the Bandwagon, Fordel.  I'll be riding shot gun.

[JWIV]

Toronto needs to go shit the bed and join the rest of the AL East in being mediocre.

[Paelos]

Toronto needs to go shit the bed and join the rest of the AL East in being mediocre.

A Wild Orioles fan appears!

[JWIV]

Toronto needs to go shit the bed and join the rest of the AL East in being mediocre.

A Wild Orioles fan appears!

Just an insanely frustrating season. Even ignoring the Hunter closer experiment (which was fun in a lets load the bases and see what happens type way), our #1 pitcher  Tilly pitches a complete game shut-out and then we get this type of crap for his last few starts -

Tonight's line
Final line on Tillman: 1 inning plus 5 batters, 6 H, 5 R, 3 BB, 1 K, 1 HR.

[Speedy Cerviche]

Start the Bandwagon, Fordel.  I'll be riding shot gun.

Dammit I'll be in the trunk