Huzzah, More Baseball as Mariners Travel to Anaheim
| MARINERS (20-25) | ΔMs | ANGELS (17-27) | EDGE | |
| HITTING (wOBA*) | -5.6 (19th) | 1.4 | 4.4 (14th) | Angels |
| FIELDING (RBBIP) | 2.3 (16th) | -5.6 | -17.1 (27th) | Mariners |
| ROTATION (xRA) | 11.0 (7th) | -2.6 | -24.4 (29th) | Mariners |
| BULLPEN (xRA) | 5.6 (8th) | 1.2 | -7.5 (28th) | Mariners |
| OVERALL (RAA) | 13.3 (14th) | -5.7 | -44.5 (27th) | MARINERS |
Heartbreaking. It’s the word easily at hand for such a series as the one the Mariners just experienced. It’s hyperbolic, of course. Nobody’s heart was literally broken, I hope. Figuratively? I don’t know. Those weren’t the results that most of us were daring to think of after the Mariners seemed on the verge of .500 and had just reached second place in the division.
One thing I wonder is how it might feel to be an Indians fan right now and gone through that series. Have the Mariners had such a series go in their way? They must have, at some point, but if so it’s faded from my memory. This will fade too. Baseball is a long haul and in a sport where they say that failing 7 times out of 10 is a success, at the end of the year there aren’t a whole lot of people celebrating. So go find your light where you can. I’m sad the Mariners were swept. But I’m sad because I cared, so that’s something.
Moments Of Worth
As a sports fan, you can’t just look at a season as championship or bust. Maybe in select cases that makes some sense, but we’re all still here, and the Mariners have never won a championship. It’s about the experiences along the way, the things that lift your spirits, even if hope for a title has long since deteriorated. Approaching things as championship-or-bust isn’t sustainable. There have to be other upsides, other things that make it all worthwhile, and usually, there are. We’re all rational enough that we would’ve abandoned the Mariners entirely if we weren’t getting anything out of it. There’s something there, even if it too often feels like a barren emotional hellscape.
What is a baseball game but a baseball season crammed into three hours? Just as a season shouldn’t be winning-or-bust, a game shouldn’t be winning-or-bust, because of the same principles. A single baseball game is a collection of hundreds of individual events, all stringed elegantly or inelegantly together. Even if the ultimate event is a disappointing one, there can and often will be preceding events of worth. Moments that you’re glad you watched, in a game you sometimes wish you hadn’t. Moments you remember longer than you remember the final score.
Early Monday, the Mariners lost to the Indians. That much is typical, and that the Mariners lost in devastating fashion also seems typical. They wasted leads in the ninth and the tenth. Errors were committed in the bottom halves of both. Tom Wilhelmsen had the game in his glove, and he dropped it on the ground. If the Mariners were contending for the playoffs, this would’ve been a heartbreaker. As is, it just sucked. This game will subconsciously contribute to your negative impression of the city of Cleveland, even if you’ve never been for a visit. Ten years from now you’ll be in the Cleveland airport on a layover, and you’ll just feel kind of agitated, and you won’t be able to put your finger on why. There are much more palatable ways for a baseball team to lose.
But though the Mariners lost, this game came with particular moments of worth. There was Endy Chavez’s miraculous pinch-hit home run. There was Justin Smoak’s extra-innings home run. And there was a curveball. A curveball I’ll remember as long as I remember Tom Wilhelmsen dropping the baseball at first. An element of sports fandom is wanting to feel superior to other fans. A big part of that is a team seeming superior to other teams. A big part of that is a team making another team look feeble and stupid. In the bottom of the ninth on Monday, Tom Wilhelmsen made Asdrubal Cabrera look feeble and stupid. Wilhelmsen, of course, would look stupid himself moments later, but by that point the curveball was seared into my memory. You don’t soon forget a batter looking like this:
(.gif 1)
(.gif 2)
Baseball players, almost all of the time, manage to look like legitimate, talented baseball players. Tom Wilhelmsen threw a curveball that could make a man wonder what he’s doing. Yes, absolutely, the Mariners would lose the game. But they sure as hell didn’t lose all of it.
Today In Mildly Unbelievable
So much of baseball writing, it seems to me, ends up being the act of finding new ways to say the same thing as before. I don’t know how many times I’ve prefaced a post by saying something along the lines of “you already know this.” There are a lot of people writing about baseball, and things in baseball tend not to change that quickly. So there’s a lot of repeat coverage, with the challenge being to keep people interested. It’s not always easy, but it’s fun to feel tested, and let’s get this out of the way: you already know the gist of what’s going to follow. But, a list, of four numbers:
- 113
- 81
- 65
- 62
Those are four wRC+ numbers, through today. In case you’re not aware, wRC+ is basically OPS+, for smarter, smugger people. Now, a list, of four names, to whom those wRC+ numbers belong:
- Justin Smoak
- Munenori Kawasaki
- Jesus Montero
- Dustin Ackley
I’ve jumbled everything up. Try to match the number to the name. When you’re ready, proceed, for the answers:
- Justin Smoak
- Munenori Kawasaki
- Jesus Montero
- Dustin Ackley
This is why I said you already know the gist. You already know that Ackley is a huge disappointment, and that Montero is a disappointment of some other but similar magnitude. Whenever the Mariners lose, people get to talking about the letdowns on the team, and Ackley and Montero are two of the bigger ones. It’s not just that Ackley and Montero are failing to establish themselves as members of the Mariners’ core — it’s that, when you watch them, it can be hard to believe they were thought to be core components in the first place. They play bad and look bad. It’s like the Mariners wanted to make enchiladas, so they bought Quikrete and fabric.
They’re both being out-hit by Munenori Kawasaki. Kawasaki is basically the starter in Toronto right now with Jose Reyes injured, and while Kawasaki hasn’t been good, he’s been passable, and he’s been better than Ackley and Montero. The team didn’t even give serious thought to retaining Kawasaki on a minor-league contract last offseason. This was justifiable, because based on the observations, he did not look good, or even mediocre. There’s a reason Kawasaki was considered something of a mascot last summer. His one skill was his personality. He looked like one of the weakest-hitting position players in Mariners history, and I found it impossible to believe he’d homered before in Japan. I saw video and still I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that Kawasaki possessed some sort of offensive competence.
He’s slugging .301. He’s Reggie Willits. He just hit maybe the deepest batted ball of his career, and it came down in front of the track. Kawasaki’s offense is funny, even when it isn’t absolutely dreadful. But, at varying points, Dustin Ackley was considered automatic, Jesus Montero was considered an elite-level future slugger, and Munenori Kawasaki was considered perhaps baseball’s least threatening bat. It’s May 20, 2013, and Kawasaki’s out-producing the other two. Maybe it isn’t going to last this way. But it shouldn’t be this way at all.
Thankfully, there’s Smoak, and Smoak’s improvement. Smoak’s improvement allows us to try to reconsider Smoak, and it also allows us to be a little more patient with Ackley and Montero, perhaps. For the first time all season, Smoak’s slugging percentage is ahead of his OBP, and his OBP is good. He’s been swinging at more strikes and fewer balls, and there are signs the power is coming along, trailing the improved command of the zone. If you arbitrarily select April 22 as a starting date, here’s Smoak since then, including Monday:
- 86 plate appearances, .314/.442/.529, 16 BB, 17 K
That right there is a hell of a hitter. A better hitter, naturally, than Justin Smoak actually is, but if Smoak’s greatest ability is keeping people from completely giving up on him, then he’s putting on another classic display. Yes, we’ve all been tricked by Justin Smoak in the past, but stretches of trickiness are stretches of productivity, proofs of concept that Justin Smoak can be a legitimate major leaguer. Where Smoak once again looked dead, now Smoak once again looks promising, and because he’s in the midst of a hot streak, we get to daydream again, like we have so many times. Sure, he won’t actually bat .300. But Smoak, in the past, showed great command of the strike zone. He lost that, and now he might be getting it back, since part of the reason for his batting adjustments was allowing him to wait a little longer to commit. Drawing walks goes a long way toward making a hitter acceptable. Ask Munenori Kawasaki.
I think it’s easy to look at Smoak’s .320 BABIP, and compare it to his .263 career BABIP, and conclude he’s just riding a fluke. But on the contrary, I’m encouraged. Smoak’s actually hitting the ball harder, and better-hit balls are more difficult to turn into outs. Smoak’s always going to be slow and he’s probably always going to be shifted in the infield, but there could be some legitimacy to this. While I know I’ve been fooled before, at least he’s showing the potential progress that Ackley and Montero aren’t. And that makes me think that Ackley or Montero might still figure it out after they work through a few more kinks.
A month or so ago, Justin Smoak looked awful, Dustin Ackley looked awful, and Jesus Montero looked awful. Relative to March, the fact that one of them is showing signs of life is a great disappointment. Relative to April, I’ll take it. Munenori Kawasaki is presently out-hitting two presumed parts of the Mariners’ long-term core. But at least he’s not out-hitting Justin Smoak. It could always be worse. We know this, because it has been.
A Thing Worth Keeping An Eye On
Danny Farquhar is only in the majors because the Mariners needed an extra arm for the bullpen after Hector Noesi had to be used as a spot starter because of Aaron Harang‘s aching back. Noesi obviously wasn’t optioned to Tacoma because they wanted to get him off the team, and he’ll likely be back as soon as he’s fulfilled the 10 day requirement that goes along with getting optioned out. However, Danny Farquhar might have shown enough in his one outing on Saturday to not be the one headed back to Tacoma when Noesi returns.
No, it’s not because he struck out five of the eight guys he faced in low leverage mop-up duty; it’s because of what he was throwing.
That’s a PITCHF/x plot of the 34 pitches Farquhar threw on Saturday. Forget the labels, as there’s basically three pitches there: a bunch of fastballs from 92-96, some cut fastballs from 89-92, and a few curveballs at 79.
Now, here’s a PITCHF/x plot of the 43 pitches Farquhar threw in the Major Leagues back in 2011, when he was a member of the Blue Jays.
There are three pitches there too, but as you can see, they are not the same three pitches. In 2011, he threw a fastball at 88-92, a slider from 80-84, and a single change-up at 79.
And now, here are those two charts overlayed on top of each other, and you see the changes by moving the mouse over or off the image.
Basically, the Farquhar who pitched in Cleveland on Saturday bears no resemblance to the one who pitched in the big leagues with Toronto, besides the fact that it is the same human being, anyway. That Farquhar was a garden variety sinker/slider minor leaguer, a guy who could get some ground balls against right-handers but was otherwise ill equipped to pitch in the majors. If you’ve ever watched a Triple-A game, you’ve seen 100 relievers just like him. This is the kind of pitchers that make up PCL pitching staffs.
The one that pitched for the Mariners on Saturday, though? A totally different guy. The fastball averaged 95, as he’s mostly swapped out his two seam for a harder four seam fastball — note that his fastest fastball in 2011 was still slower than his slowest fastball in 2013 — while the cutter sat at 91, and he mixed in few curveballs just for fun. And the entire delivery is just completely different.
You can see video of him throwing a pitch for Toronto here, then compare that to with Seattle in the second video. And here’s an overlay of his release points, both for 2011 and 2013.
As you can see, the release point has gotten much, much higher, and he’s now releasing at something close to 3/4 rather than side-arm. Basically, he’s gotten more vertical, and his stuff has taken a big leap forward in the process.
Not only is he throwing four or five miles per hour harder, the cut fastball is just a far better second pitch than anything he used to have, and unlike the slider, it’s not a pitch that has a huge platoon split. On Saturday, he threw eight cutters to right-handers and six of them to left-handers, and it was actually more effective against LHBs, getting two called strikes and a swinging strike.
A guy throwing 95 mph four-seam fastballs, mixing in a 91 mph cutter, and throwing the odd 79 mph curve just to throw hitters timing off – that’s not the stuff of some random dude called up from Tacoma to eat some innings in a pinch. Farquhar was destroying the PCL before he got called up, and after seeing what he was throwing, his dominance down there suddenly makes a lot more sense.
Basically, we can take Farquhar’s mediocre track record and almost entirely toss it out the window. You might look at him as a journeyman who pitched for four different Triple-A clubs last year, but there’s no way anyone would have tried to sneak him through waivers throwing what he’s throwing right now. What he showed on Saturday was the kind of stuff that good relief pitchers are made of. And, perhaps most importantly to the Mariners, he showed that he might be the kind of reliever that doesn’t have to be pulled whenever an opposite handed hitter comes to the plate.
For better or worse, the Mariners have built a bullpen full of slider-throwing specialists. With the exception of Tom Wilhelmsen, pretty much everyone else down there comes in and pounds opponents with sliders, leading to some crazy platoon splits. Carter Capps, Charlie Furbush, Oliver Perez, and Lucas Luetge all lean heavily on their slider and are best used situationally. The same is true of the returning soon Josh Kinney and Stephen Pryor. Whether it’s intentional development or not, the Mariners have seemingly turned out an endless supply of slider specialists the last few years.
Farquhar and Yoervis Medina are exceptions. Medina throws an 85 mph curve as his second pitch, but relies primarily on his fastball to go after hitters, as his curve isn’t a great weapon yet. Farquhar’s cutter looked like a real asset on Saturday, and he was throwing just as hard as Medina, whose velocity kept him on the 40 man for years even when he couldn’t get anyone out in Double-A.
With Farquhar, and maybe Medina to a lesser extent, the M’s now have two guys in their bullpen who might be more than just a platoon match-up specialist. Farquhar showed flashes of being a true middle reliever, the kind of guy the M’s could give multiple inning runs to without worrying about who is due up further down the line-up. Farquhar is much more interesting, and potentially much more valuable, than a redundant left-handed specialist.
If it’s me, Lucas Luetge is the guy heading back to Tacoma when Noesi returns to take the long man spot in the bullpen, and to be honest, I wouldn’t be in a huge hurry to replace either Medina or Farquhar with Josh Kinney any time soon. His rehab assignment is set to expire in 10 days, but I don’t know that adding a 33-year-old who throws a slider 50% of the time is actually going to help a bullpen that needs a real middle reliever. If Kinney throws decently in Tacoma, maybe you make the switch because it’s not a big harm to option Farquhar or Medina back to Triple-A and give the veteran another look, but Farquhar showed more interesting stuff on Saturday than Kinney ever has, and for a team building for the future, it’s probably worth getting a longer look at a kid who might have taken a big step forward in his career.
As a 5’10 26-year-old, Farquhar’s not exactly a franchise building block, but in his first outing, he showed the stuff of a guy who could fill a void in the Mariners bullpen, and maybe be a key middle reliever going forward. While the team didn’t get the results they wanted in Cleveland, Farquhar’s debut couldn’t possibly have been any more impressive.
The Cleveland Takeaway
Over the last four games, the Mariners launched eight home runs, getting two each from Smoak and Ibanez and one home run from Seager, Morales, Ryan (!), and Chavez (!!!).
Over the last four games, the Mariners scored a grand total of 15 runs, and went 0-4.
The Mariners entire plan to turn the team around in 2013 revolved around “hit more dingers”. They’ve succeeded in that goal, as with 53 home runs, they are now 6th in the majors in total home runs hit. They are 25th in the majors in runs scored, and are 20-25, on pace to win 72 games. Trading pitching, defense, and on base percentage for home runs has made them no better.
There is more to winning baseball than hitting home runs.
Game 44, Mariners at Indians
Iwakuma vs Kazmir, 9:05 am.
Scott Kazmir is healthy again, and is currently throwing as hard as he did when he was a top prospect. Don’t think of Kazmir as the broken terrible pitcher of the last few years. His fastball has been up to 96 and his slider has some bite again, so the M’s will have their work cut out for them today. As always, the key with Kazmir is to not give him free outs, and make him throw strikes consistently. Patience, not aggressiveness, should be the trait of the day.
1. Saunders, CF
2. Bay, LF
3. Seager, 3B
4. Morales, DH
5. Morse, RF
6. Smoak, 1B
7. Shoppach, C
8. Andino, 2B
9. Ryan, SS
Game 42, Mariners at Indians
Felix Hernandez vs. Justin Masterson, 10:05am
Well this has certainly been a frustrating series. The M’s bats have come alive late, only for the bullpen to cough up the lead again. You’ve got to be confident about this game, though, as the M’s start Felix.
Masterson’s Carter Cappsian arm angle has always produced huge platoon splits. This year he’s been successful against lefties largely due to BABIP and HR/FB luck, and the M’s can trot out several hitters who will get a long look at the ball. Saunders and Seager can hopefully get on base for the incandescent Raul Ibanez. Honestly, match-ups like this are why Ibanez is here. He’s a streaky hitter on an insane tear and he’s facing a pitcher who plays to Ibanez’s strengths.
1: Saunders, CF
2: Ackley, 2B
3: Seager, 3B
4: Morales, DH
5: Morse, RF
6: Ibanez, LF
7: Smoak, 1B
8: Montero, C
9: Ryan, SS
James Paxton starts for Tacoma this afternoon in the finale of the 4 gamer against Memphis against ex-M’s fireballer Maikel Cleto, aka the guy the M’s swapped for Brendan Ryan.
Taijuan Walker and Tyler Pike also start in AA and A, respectively, making this a pretty interesting day in the minors.
Go M’s.
Game 42, Mariners at Indians
Joe Saunders vs. Zach McAllister, 10:05am
Tough loss last night, as Jason Kipnis hit a walk-off off of Lucas Luetge. Today’s game starts before some in Seattle have woken up, but as all baseball fans know, you can’t sleep on a pitching match-up like this:
Saunders.
McAllister.
In the baseball mecca of Cleveland, Ohio. You’ll punch yourself in the face if you miss this.
McAllister is a fastball/slider guy with a change to lefties. As I’ve talked about, he’s perhaps best known for massive gaps between his ERA and RA, thanks to a slew of unearned runs. He’s got another 5 already this year, which is pretty remarkable. Still, his ERA is even prettier this year as he’s finally got his strand rate above 70%; even so, his career rate is in the mid 60s. Be patient, get some runners on base, M’s.
Michael Saunders hadn’t had a day off since his return from the DL, so he gets a day today. In his place, Endy Chavez leads off against the righty McAllister.
1: Chavez, CF
2: Ackley, 2B
3: Seager, 3B
4: Morales, DH
5: Morse, RF
6: Ibanez, LF
7: Smoak, 1B
8: Montero, C
9: Ryan, SS
SP: Saunders
Game 41, Mariners at Indians
Brandon Maurer vs. Ubaldo Jimenez, 4:05pm
Dave mentioned it on twitter, and Matthew mentioned it in his series preview, but because the Indians can stack their line-up with quality left-handed bats, this game represents the toughest test Brandon Maurer’s faced since his abbreviated start against Baltimore. Maurer’s last start marked a noticeable change in approach, as he largely ditched his slider to left-handers and instead relied on his curve ball, a pitch without the large platoon splits that sliders carry. It wasn’t a great start by any stretch, but the new strategy looked quite promising. He fanned a few lefties, kept the team in the ballgame, and while he gave up another two homers, he didn’t look completely helpless against left-handed line-ups.
That Maurer’s still in the big leagues, overhauling his approach on the fly, speaks to both how injuries have ravaged the M’s pitching depth and to Maurer’s ability to learn and adapt, perhaps the best qualities a young hurler can have. On the one hand, it seems counterintuitive that this should work – that you could pick up a new pitch, or radically alter your pitch-mix from start to start in the majors. On the other hand, failing on a big stage can be a hell of a motivator. Indians starter Ubaldo Jimenez should know – he’s gone from a 6+-WAR pitcher to replacement level in the past three years (!). The prime suspect for this mid-career collapse has been his diminished velocity. In 2010, his two- and four-seam fastballs averaged 97mph. In 2011, that fell to 94. In 2012, 93, and so far this year, he’s between 92-93. That’s a pretty big drop in a short time frame. Sure, King Felix’s velo’s dropped a similar amount, if not more, but it’s happened gradually, and his off-speed stuff and command mean he hasn’t paid a price in terms of results. Jimenez though…Jimenez has paid a price.
Jeff’s piece on him here and Kyle Boddy’s here have focused on the mechanical changes Ubaldo’s made since 2010. I’m not an expert on mechanics, though you can clearly see he’s made some changes. Whether they’ve in some way caused or accelerated the velocity drop, I couldn’t say, but recent changes haven’t (as yet) reversed it. Through most of April, Jimenez’s decline looked to be nearing a terminal phase, as he followed two awful starts against New York and Boston with a just-as-bad-in-context start against Houston. But since then, over the span of all of three starts, he’s been good again. Maybe he just needed Scott Kazmir to talk to him about how far it’s possible to fall, or maybe the raised front-shoulder thing that Jeff’s article mentioned actually helped in some way, but his K:BB ratio in those three starts is 20:6, and he’s given up only three runs.
Since I don’t know about mechanics, I thought I’d talk about his pitches. One way Jimenez has changed since his days as a Rockie is that he’s developed a split-finger fastball that’s all but replaced his change. He had one in 2010 with Colorado, but he started throwing it a lot last year, and that’s continued in 2013. He now throws it about 25% of the time to righties and lefties alike. The other change since 2010 is an increased utilization of his two-seam fastball, and this highlights how difficult it is to isolate variables in something like pitching. Not only did Jimenez use his sinker more with Cleveland, he used it in a specific way. Check it out in his usage tab at BrooksBaseball. Particularly against lefties, he’s used the pitch much more when he’s behind in the count. This may indicate he had more confidence in his ability to command the pitch, or it may be a decision to go for a grounder and not a K. Whatever the reason, it’s produced ugly, ugly results from the two-seamer – results that are ugliest this year. That’s to be expected in a way, though – every pitcher looks bad when they’re behind in the count, and if he uses a specific pitch in those situations, it’ll look like a bad pitch. Jimenez is perhaps more extreme than most pitchers in that the gap in his FIP in PAs that start 0-1 is about 3 full runs lower than it is when they start 1-0.
The M’s needed to make a 40-man move today to get some bullpen help. Yesterday’s spot start by Hector Noesi and 4+ innings of bullpen work that followed hollowed out the M’s pen, particularly righties. Thus, the M’s brought up Danny Farquhar today,* one of the two small righties they acquired in the Ichiro deal last year. Farquhar had a 30:4 K:BB ratio in just 20 innings, numbers which underscore how much he’s thrived since moving to the M’s org. Farquhar can touch 95 and has a funky delivery – something that’s helped him get lefties out as well as righties. But its his improved control since 2012 that’s really helped him get back to majors – he always walked too many, especially lefties, but the walks have dried up since moving to Tacoma (his combined K:BB with Tacoma in 36 2/3 IP is now 46:9). To make room, the M’s moved Stephen Pryor to the 60-day DL. Ryan Divish’s story on the move points out that a big part of his success has been trusting his curve ball more. Pryor was eligible to come back on May 30th, and though this move is retroactive, he’ll be out another month. He may be ready before then, but this allows the M’s to put off some potentially painful decisions – Francisco Martinez still isn’t hitting in AA Jackson.
Line-up:
1: Saunders, CF
2: Ackley, 2B
3: Seager, 3B
4: Morales, DH
5: Smoak, 1B
6: Ibanez, LF
7: Shoppach, C
8: Chavez, RF
9: Ryan, SS
SP: Maurer
Michael Morse was scratched with “eye irritation.”
I had a great time in Tacoma last night, but I was gutted that Oscar Taveras didn’t play for Memphis. Sounds like he won’t play again tonight, but if you’d like to catch him, it sounds like he’ll play this weekend. Michael Wacha was really impressive last night, blowing away Mike Zunino with high fastballs. Zunino’s clearly struggled with breaking stuff, but he’s struggled against just about everything at home, fastballs included. He’ll get there, but he’s going to need some time. Stefen Romero impressed me, though, making hard contact a few times when no one else on the team could figure Wacha out. Andrew Carraway looks to quiet Kolten Wong and the Redbirds tonight.
* Full credit to Shannon Drayer for essentially calling this on twitter last night. I was wondering who they’d bring up and what the corresponding move was, and she called both sides of the equation. Again, twitter is awesome.
Second Place Seattle Mariners Travel to First Place Cleveland Indians
| MARINERS (20-21) | ΔMs | INDIANS (22-17) | EDGE | |
| HITTING (wOBA*) | -7.0 (21st) | 2.9 | 28.3 (2nd) | Indians |
| FIELDING (RBBIP) | 7.9 (8th) | -1.8 | 8.9 (7th) | Indians |
| ROTATION (xRA) | 13.6 (7th) | 3.4 | 3.0 (12th) | Mariners |
| BULLPEN (xRA) | 4.4 (11th) | 2.3 | -2.2 (21st) | Mariners |
| OVERALL (RAA) | 19.0 (10th) | 6.9 | 38.1 (3rd) | INDIANS |
A team’s record in one-run games is a number worth paying attention to. Vastly outperforming .500 in that regard is often a fluke, but sometimes can be sustained with an especially dominant bullpen staff. Seeing a team that’s run itself well to the positive or negative side of even on those games can be a good hint that the team may not be as good or as bad as their overall record indicates.
The Yankees entered the series against the Mariners with a 7-2 record in one-run games. Additionally, the Yankees had had the benefit of playing the incredibly underwhelming Blue Jays seven times, during which they racked up a 6-1 record. Still — and even though the above ratings spit out a comparison that favored the Mariners before the series started — it’s hard not to have watched those past three games and wondered exactly how it is that the Yankees accrued so many wins this early into 2013. They don’t look particularly formidable.
In contrast, I think the Indians are a mixed bag. On one hand, they’re perhaps ripe for a similar regression in their record as it’s been bolstered by a very high 10-3 record in one-run games. The Indians’ pen has run themselves a very good ERA so far, but it’s also 0.75 better than their xFIP and much better than their xRA is saying they’ve independently performed.
On the other, their crop of position players have been excellent of late and their overall record is fair given the entire team performance.