The Long View Bridge

These updates usually focus on what has happened in the day or two since the last update.  Today I want to take a longer view: what’s happened since, say, July 1 in the EFL race — a period covering six weeks in a season with less than 8 to go, which puts us about half way across the bridge from midseason to end-of-season.

EFL
Team	Wins	Losses	Pct.	GB	RS	RA
Old Detroit Wolverines	72	40	0.641	—	603.2	449.3
Haviland Dragons	71	43	0.626	1.4	569.5	440.6
Portland Rosebuds	70	43	0.623	1.9	574.1	440.7
Pittsburgh Alleghenys	67	43	0.611	3.6	585	470.1
Peshastin Pears	63	50	0.556	9.5	539.3	474.9
Canberra Kangaroos	60	52	0.539	11.4	524.9	478
Flint Hill Tornadoes	53	59	0.474	18.7	472.8	494.7
Cottage Cheese	52	59	0.467	19.4	537.5	569.2
Kaline Drive	52	62	0.454	21	563.2	623
D.C. Balk	38	74	0.343	33.3	454.7	635.3

Old Detroit: W, 7 – 3.  (.333, .373, .583; 13 ip, 5 er) The Wolverines have recovered their standing as the best offensive team in the EFL thanks to a week-long slugging outburst, which continued yesterday.  This has lifted the W’s back into a lead of over 1 game — not exactly breathing room, but not locked in an unwanted embrace with  scaly Dragons and thorny Rosebuds, either. The last time the W’s were this far ahead was six weeks ago, on July 1.

Haviland: L, 11 – 14. (.341, .383, .682; 6 ip. 12 er). Vincent Velasquez came within a hair of chulking (4.7 ip, 9 er) and Kelvin Herrera triple chulked to complete a Dragon meltdown on the mound, big enough to undo a big day at the plate and set the Dragons back almost an entire game in the standings.  Still, compared to July 1, the Dragons have gained .002 in winning percentage and are .006 closer to the W’s. in winning percentage. The Dragons trailed the W’s by 1.4 games on July 1, the same margin as they do today.

Portland: “L”, 5 – 4. (.226, .317, .472;  14 ip, 3 er).  The Rosebuds came pretty close to matching the W’s pace on Tuesday, thanks to strong pitching from Tom Koehler and Chris Sale.  And they find themselves, like the Dragons,with a slightly better record than they had on July 1:  .006 better winning percentage, .008 closer to first.  Portland is now 1.9 games behind, precisely their position on July 1.

So, yes, the top three teams have played for 6 weeks and are in exactly the same positions in the standings as they were July 1.  Uncanny!  Did every team in the league essentially waste the last six weeks? 

Pittsburgh: L, (-1) – 2. (.172, .250, .241;  8 ip 2 er).  The Alleghenys not named Altuve went 1 for 25 Tuesday for a .040, .143, .120 batting line — a line that would be more accurately listed as -.040, .071, .040 once you take into account the two double plays Stephen Piscotty hit into. But Altuve went 4 for 4 to minimize the damage in the standings. So the current Allegheny winning percentage is .054 better than it was on July 1, slicing in half the Wolverine advantage over the A’s in winning percentage. And the A’s are now 3.4 games closer to first place, having passed the Kangaroos in the process.

Peshastin: W, 4 – (-1). (.200, .267, .350; 19 ip, 8 er).  Wade LeBlanc failed to blanc le Tigers Tuesday, allowing 4 er in 5 ip.  Max Scherzer bailed him out with 7 strong innings (1 er), and Brandon Finnegan added 6 competent innings so the Pears erased a bunch of replacement innings for the win.  Speaking of winning: the Pears gained .051 in winning percentage and 1.4 games in the standings since July 1, moving them past the Tornados and the Kangaroos.

Why did Peshastin gain fewer games with almost the same improvement in winning percentage as the Alleghenys?  I think it’s because the better a team’s winning percentage, the harder it is to improve one’s winning percentage.  So each unit of gain in winning percentage represents a bigger gain in games above .500 for the better team.  Perhaps a mathematician can corroborate this? Or discorroborate it? (Yes, Ryan, I will claim “discorroborate” is a word the next time we play Boggle. And now I can cite the internet as my proof.)

Canberra: W, 7 – 1. (.323, .382, .484;  21.3 ip, 6 er).  The Kangaroos had the best day of any team in the EFL, gaining 0.3 games on the red-hot Wolverines with Tuesday’s effort. Billy Hamilton led the way again, this time going 2 for 3 with 2 walks and three stolen bases, essentially adding 0.077 to the team’s official .866 OPS.  Unfortunately, six weeks of lackluster play has left the Kangaroos 5.5 games further behind the lead,two games closer to .500, with a winning percentage .029 weaker,  and down from 4th to 6th place.  The Kangaroos are not eliminated from the pennant race, but it would take a  near historic comeback at this point.

Flint Hill: W,  5 – 4.  (.316, .458, .474;  1 ip, 0 er).  A very good set of statistics for the Tornados, weakened only by lack of volume (only 24 plate appearances, and 1 inning pitched).  Despite the thinness of the stats, the Tornados almost kept up with the leaders yesterday — but not over the last six weeks. Compared to July 1, Flint Hill has lost .036 in winning percentage, 8.2 in games behind, and one place in the standings.

Cottage:  L, 5 – 7. (.300, .341, .450; 10.3 ip, 7 er).  A mediocre day for the Cheese, where Drew Smyly pitched well (6 ip, 2 er) but Luis Severino severely undermined him (4.3 ip, 5 er). Similarly mixed results on offense compounded the disappointing effect. Unfortunately, taking the longer view will not console the Head Cheese: his team was practically at .500 on July 1 (39 – 39, with a .498 winning percentage).  Now it is 6 games under .500, 7.9 games further behind the leaders, and .031 worse in winning percentage.  And the Pears have left them in the dust.

Kaline:  “W”, 1 – 5. (.188, .229, .344; no pitching) The Drive have been on a little run of late. Tuesday’s results will slow them down a bit. Five “oh-fers” among 10 hitters will do that, as will no pitching. Still, the Drive have had a very good 6 weeks. They kept pace with the Wolverines (22 – 12 over the 6 weeks), gained 10 games on .500, and improved their winning percentage by .076.  They started July accompanying the Balkans on their first trip through our vampire-infested forest.  Now the Drive have left D.C. to its own devices to threaten the Cheese and the Tornados — and will blow right past them if the next six weeks go like the last six.  In fact, Kaline is on pace to finish a hair above .500, if the Drive can keep this up.

DC: “L”, 4 – 3.  (.262, .295, .452; n 5.7 ip, 0 er).  The fates saddled the Balk with a loss, but it was undeserved.  Five relievers completed 5.7 innings, allowing only 1 hit and 3 walks. Balk hitters did reasonably well, except they only got two free passes (one walk, one HBP) so the OBP was a little low.  Still, taking the long view, the Balk have improved their winning percentage by .015, have clearly put themselves on a track to win at least 1/3 of their games and avoid any whiff of an EFL-record worst record. Only a little further improvement would enable the Balk to avoid a 100-loss season.