Look: I am eager to learn stuff I don't know--which requires actively courting and posting smart disagreement.

But as you will understand, I don't like to post things that mischaracterize and are aimed to mislead.

-- Brad Delong

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Everything that appears on this blog is the copyrighted property of somebody. Often, but not always, that somebody is me. For things that are not mine, I either have obtained permission, or claim fair use. Feel free to quote me, but attribute, please. My photos and poetry are dear to my heart, and may not be used without permission. Ditto, my other intellectual property, such as charts and graphs. I'm probably willing to share. Let's talk. Violators will be damned for all eternity to the circle of hell populated by Rosanne Barr, Mrs Miller [look her up], and trombonists who are unable play in tune. You cannot possibly imagine the agony. If you have a question, email me: jazzbumpa@gmail.com. I'll answer when I feel like it. Cheers!

Thursday, September 19, 2013

The Tigers-Mariners Series

The Tigers have won 7 of the last 9, and just took 3 of 4 from the Mariners. Why am I so worried?

Taking 3 out of 4 from anybody this time of year - even the dreadful [18 under .500 coming in] Mariners is not a bad outcome.

But dig a little deeper. Two wins barely eked out, and the middle one a nail-biter into the 8th inning.

And the loss - OMG: an 8-0 thrashing in a game where Verlander had a decent, but not outstanding, start.  I don't know what I feel worse about, the 2nd most powerful offense in MLB [5.02 runs per game] getting shut out for the 11th time, vs only twice last year, or giving up 8 runs to the 25th best offensive team in MLB, with an average of 3.8 runs per game.

Plus, today's win might have been due to a bad call at the plate. None of the replay views I saw was definitive, but Prince was probably out.

[As an aside, I don't feel bad about aggressively running Prince from first on a double down into the left field corner. It takes perfect execution by three defenders {and the umpire} to get even the slow-footed Prince out.]

In the series, the Mariners actually outscored the Tigers, 16-15.

Fifteen runs in 4 games is a paltry 3.75 per.

Looking for a bright spot, 7 of the Tigers 15 runs came after inning 6 in this series, and they're at 30% for the month in late inning run production.

On the downside, the Mariners also got 7 runs after inning 6 - though 5 of them were in the 8-0 blow out.

The Tigers were really lucky to get three wins in this series against a team that they should have been able to toy with.

And that is not encouraging.

1 comment:

The Arthurian said...

I don't know how you do it, Jazz, but you make baseball interesting! :)