Some Context
Dave · May 30, 2012 at 8:43 pm · Filed Under Mariners
May 20th to May 28th: 314 PA, 12 2B, 3 3B, 6 HR, 33 BB, 75 K, 29 runs
May 29th to May 30th: 94 PA, 10 2B, 0 3B, 5 HR, 10 BB, 14 K, 31 runs
The Mariners scored more runs in the last two games than they did in the eight games leading up to yesterday’s outing.
The Mariners line for the night: .426/.481/.830. That’s a .545 wOBA and a .261 wRC+. The best single season wRC+ of Babe Ruth’s career was 235.
The average leverage index of pitches thrown by Beavan and Iwakuma tonight: 0.18. 1.00 is average.
Michael Saunders was the Mariners fifth best hitter tonight – he hit .500/.500/.833.
Goodness.
Especially after how horrible the team has looked recently… this was great! A perfect storm of Texas mistakes and Mariners all being right on top of their game.
BTW think about tonight’s game, and then realize just how great the Babe was that year.
For once my fantasy tendency to keep Mariners on the team pays off!
And, with that shellacking, the team’s run differential is slightly in the black!
So, what was the secret for tonight’s game, then? The lack of Ichiro in the lineup?
^Uh, no.
Oh. Thanks for clearing that up.
🙂
No silly, it’s not the absence of Ichiro. Clearly it’s the presence of Chone Figgins back at his comfort spot of #2 in the battin order.
If the “average” Ichiro was in the lineup, the score might have been 24+.
Globalalpha may be on to something! It’s the whole prodigal son angle.
Figgy left his home (the #2 behind Ichiro), complaining about how if he just were in the #1 spot things would go better. He gets in the #1 spot; for a short period things are going really great – then things turn on him, the fans start booing, his teammates stop returning his calls. He thinks “Oh! If only I were back in the #2 spot! Things were comfortable, and I was safely hidden behind Ichiro’s massive shadow!” He crawls back to Father Wedge, who says… “Welcome home, my son, and welcome back to the #2 spot because we’ve studied your matchups against this pitcher and you’ve obviously got his number, having gone 3 for 4 against him over your career!”
Okay, now the narrative is falling apart – I don’t know who to put in as the other son. Plus Wedge swears a lot, which doesn’t really work in a biblical setting.
And every starter had at least 1 hit and 1 run scored. That doesn’t happen very often.
Goodness Gracious!
Another cool stat for context posted by Baker: only the 7th time in MLB history a team has had 8+ runs in back-to-back innings.
There is no secret for tonight’s game. It’s a fluke. A magnificent, glorious, long overdue fluke.
How many times has a team been the victim of a perfect game and later that year went on to score 21 runs?
And, of those, how many were managed buy a guy who used to have a fierce mustache but is now clean-shaven?
There is no secret for tonight’s game. It’s a fluke. A magnificent, glorious, long overdue fluke.
And yet, many people will struggle mightily to come up with a reason for it. Lineup, lucky socks, phase of the moon…
My reason is that I actually had selected Holland in the Pick 6 yesterday. So, you are all welcome.
The Mariners are the second team in major league history to score 20 or more runs in a game in the same season in which they had a perfect game pitched against them. On June 12, 1880, Lee Richmond threw a perfect game against the National League club from Cleveland, a team that earlier that season had a 22-3 win over Buffalo.
Moar context: the M’s have scored about one third of their runs (73) in thirteen games against the Rangers and Rockies.
Let’s not think about the other forty games…
The stat line for May 20th – 28th covers nine games… even crazier context.
That nails it perfectly.
Baseball is a stupid game to bet on, because the worst teams still win over a third of their games, and a team with a terrible offense can score 22 runs against a good pitcher. Each plate appearance has an on-base percentage of either .000 or 1.000. You can beat the odds in a single game and usually will (or have the odds beaten against you).
If you had a rewind to yesterday, you’d still, if forced to bet on the game, take the Rangers and the under for runs scored by the Mariners.