Recovering what was lost

 

Old Detroit:  W 2, L (-1); 14 – 3.  (41 PA, .400, .475, .686;  14 ip, 7 er, 4.50 ERA).  Questions you probably have about the Wolverines’ performance on Monday:  

 

1.) How did the Wolverines score 14 runs, raising their July offense to 8.65 runs per game (more than 2 runs per game better than the next most offensive team, the Tornados)?    They sent 10 players to the plate.  9 reached safely at least once.  Seven reached safely at least twice.  Three reached safely thrice.  Ke’Bryan Hayes, Rafael Devers, and Josh Bell all homered.  They had 14 hits and 5 walks while making 21 outs.  They wanted to play the other two innings but everyone else said “enough already, we’ll just extrapolate from here.”

 

2.) How did the Wolverines only allow 3 runs with a 4.50 ERA?  Simple: Mike Minor  pitched 6 innings there, allowing 4 earned runs.  He pitched those innings for the Toledo Mudferrets.  That left an ample 8 innings fir Walker Buehkler, Andrew Kittredge, and Sam Clay.  They only allowed 3 runs. The database assessed them for 3.2 runs, but the standings rounded those back down to 3. 

 

3.) But how is this possible? Didn’t Sam Clay pitch?  Wasn’t he your second-string junk lefty reliever at the last draft?  Yes, he was, 5th on my overall depth chart for my main draft objective, second among my “only if no one else is available”  list.  And you are no doubt remembering his Wolverine debut: 0.1 ip, 3 er, a nonuple chulk.    But perhaps you missed his second Wolverine performance: 0.2 ip, 0 er.  And yesterday he went an entire inning:  0 er, only 8 pitches required.  

 

I have discovered the key to getting the most out of Sam Clay:  never use him for just one-third of an inning. All he needs to be great is to be left in there for two or three outs.  

 

 

 

Flint Hill: “L”, 6 – 4.  (37 PA, .286, .459, .357;  1.3 ip, 1 er 6.92 ERA).  Questions you probably have about the Tornados:

 

1.)  Why does the computer call this a loss?  Flint Hill outscored its opponent! But the Flinties lost ground to the Wolverines. Don’t be so heartless!  Even an inanimate database understands that it feels like a “loss” when your team loses ground in the standings, no matter what the score was. 

 

2.) How can the T’s be in second place if they only get one extra base hit a game — a triple from Nick Gordon, whoever he is?  Well, they got 9 walks to go with their 8 hits, meaning they made 20 outs but reached base 17 times, almost as good as the Wolverines.  You did notice, didn’t you, that they are second in the league in runs scored per game in July?

 

3.) Yeah, but Hirokazu Sawamura give up a home run in only 1 1/3 innings pitched. That’s more extra bases than they entire team got in 6 2/3 innings!   State your inquiry as a question, please. 

 

 

 

DC:  W, 7 – 5. (26 PA, .304, .385, .609;  17.6 ip, 13 er, 6.65 ERA).  Questions you probably have about the Balk:

 

1.)  .609 slugging percentage!  Wow!  I wish MY team could do that.  How did they manage it?   By not sending many men to the plate — only 6 — and having Joey Gallo who hits homers all. The. Time.  And Jorge Alfaro, who hits them sometimes, too. 

 

2.)  On the other hand, a 6.65 ERA is about as bad as a .609 SLG is good. What happened to the poor Balk? 

 

Thing 1 happened:  Dylan Cease got to the 6th inning only having allowed 3 runs.  But the 6th inning went like this:  Kirilloff Hit by pitch.  Wild pitch. Kepler Walk. Mound Visit. Mound Visit. Sano strike out.  Nick Gordon — hey, we know this guy! — triple.  Mound Visit, where Larussa says “Dylan, cease!”  

 

and Thing 2 happened:  Joe Musgrove served up a homer to Trea Turner in the first inning.  In the second he gives up a walk and a double, and a run on a single by the opposing pitcher, then a run on sacrifice bunt, then a run on a sacrifice fly, then a run on a Josh Bell single. Musgrove goes three more scoreless innings, finishing the fifth inning on his 100th pitch.  That’s when Brian Snitker said “Musgrove, you must go visit the showers.” 

 

3.  Why weren’t things even worse?  Martin Perez and two relievers combined for 7.3 ip, 2 er, or things would have been much worse. 

 

 

 

Kaline: (-1) – (-7).  47 PA, .179, .298, .359;  13 ip, 6 er, 4.15 ERA).  Questions you probably have about the (QYPHAT) Drive:  

 

1.  Was any EFL pitcher better than Kwang Hyun Kim yesterday?  Not according to Baseball Reference, which gave him a game score of 71 for his seven shutout innings with only 3 hits and 2 walks allowed.  That was the second highest game score of the day for all of MLB. (Wily Peralta, who is not in the EFL, got a 77 for the same line, roughly, except Peralta struck out 6 while Kim only struck out 2.)

 

2. Was any EFL hitter worse than Jonathan Schoop yesterday?  Not according to Baseball Reference, which lists him as the 246th best hitter of the day out 246 MLB hitters.  This is not entirely fair, since AJ Pollock also went 0 for 5 with 3 strikeouts, but he gets listed as the 245th best out of 246.  But that is irrelevant to your question since Pollock is not in the EFL. 

 

3. Has any MLB player ever been named Crochet, as Garrett is?  Not according to Baseball Reference. Nor has anyone been named Knit, Quilt, Embroider, or Applique.  There’s never been a Tat or a Sew, either, although there have been Tatises and Sewells (and a Sewald pitches pretty well for the Mariners this season). But Crochet is not entirely alone as a member of the Needlework ethnic group in organized baseball.  Dennis Stitch played 44 games for the Butte Copper Kings of the Pioneer Rookie League in 1985.  

 

 

 

Peshastin: L, 3 – 4.  (30 PA, .231, .276., .385;  5 ip, 2 er, 3.60 ERA). QYPHAT Pears:  

 

1.) Is the Pear offense as pathetic as Jamie said it was Monday?  Jamie had them at 1.78 runs per game.  They scored 3 Tuesday, with Victor Robles’ double doubles and Yoan Moncada’s single triple.  That lifted them to 2.05 runs per game.  So the answer is “no.”    

 

2.) Then why are the Pears suddenly drifting so quickly out of the race?  Well, perspective is important here.  The Pears are now 7 games out, a drop of 3.5 games in 5 days. This kind of drop is unusual in EFL, but it happens during losing streaks in MLB relatively often.  Even with the drop, the Pears are only 1.8 games behind the Tornados, while they are still 2.3 games ahead of the Kangaroos. 

 

3.) How much of the Pears’ slump can we blame on Juan Soto? Soto went 0 for 4 Monday, 212th best on the day.  That doesn’t sound much like Ted Williams, does it? But it’s only one day. For the month so far, through Monday’s games, Soto is OPSing .504. Pretty bad. 

 

 But it’s the 4th best on the team:

 

#1:  Yoan Moncada: 1.143

#2:  Jazz Chisholm:  .558  

<Gasp!>  That’s a shocking drop!  The second best Pear hitter has an OPS less than half that of the best batter.  Let me get my breath…

 

#3:  Ozzie Albies: .522

#4:  Juan Soto:  .504

#5:  Tom Murphy:  .500

 

The worst on the team: Mike Zunino:  .083 OPS in July.  That’s 0 for 11 with one walk.  

 

The team OPS in July for the first 5 days of the month is: .488. 

 

So, no, it’s not Juan Soto’s fault. Without him it would be a little bit worse. 

 

 

 

 

Canberra:  W, 5 – 3. (31 PA, .321, .355, .464.   4.7 ip , 3 er, 5.74 ERA). QYPHAT Pears:  

 

1.  Did the Captain Kangaroo find the hitting it needed?  Last month the ‘Roos accumulated 173 replacement plate appearances, averaging 5.77 replacement PA’s per game.  With the Mets making up missing games, Canberra had to cover 30 games in June.  The bare minimum it would take, with perfect allocation of the team’s plate appearances to cover all the bases, is 27.9 PA per game or 837 PA total.  The Captain did a great job of spreading his scarce PA efficiently — he ended up needing only 867 PA to finish the month, or only one surplus plate appearance per game. (Vlad Guerrero accounted for 21 of the surplus PA, which I am certain Ryan did not mind indulging.)  

 

This month the ‘Roos have already amassed 28 replacement PA in 5 games. That’s an average of 5.60 per game. So, no, the ‘Roos appear to not have found the PA they needed. 

 

 

2.  Wouldn’t things be much worse if they hadn’t gone out and grabbed some hitting?  Yes. 

 

 

3. Did the Wolverines blunder by trading Nate Lowe to the ‘Roos?  Lowe is OPSing .933 in July.  That’s the fourth best on the Kangaroos. Javier Baez is #3 (.946).  Vlad Guerrero is # 2 (.953).  And, as everyone anticipated, Eric Haase is #1 (.1.308).  If Nate Lowe were still on the Wolverines’ roster he would be #8 on the OPS list, right after JP Crawford.  He’d help the team average, but it isn’t a disaster as of right now.  (On the other hand, the Wolverines were the last to drop out of the Haase bidding, which seems like a blunder in retrospect.  Haase’s 1.308 would be third best for the month on the W’s.) 

 

 

 

Haviland:  DNP, 3- 0. (34 PA, .323, .382, .613;  2.7 ip, 2 er, 6.67 ERA).  QYPHAT Dragons:  

 

1.) Another team with a slugging percentage in the .600’s and an ERA in the 6’s.  How many does this make so far?   Just 2.  I don’t see why you’re making a big deal about this fluke. 

 

2.)  When you lost the first version of this post you were struggling to make a pun involving the last names of the two Dragons who homered Monday, Brandon Lowe and Jonah Heim.  Are you still going to inflict that pun on us?   No. God as spoken. 

 

3.) Have the Dragons fallen out of the pennant race?  I am reluctant to reach that conclusion.  They have slipped 2.7 games further from first, are now over 10 games out, and  have fallen into 7th place.  All these are millstone milestones. But the Dragons have still used only 6 pitchers, and are running some replacement innings.  Let’s see where they stand when those two issues are resolved. 

 

 

 

 

1.)  Why do you usually type “no pitching” as “no pithing” on your first attempt.    To head off the temptation to pith one’s players before it grows anywhere near to action.

 

2.) Why haven’t you conceded the Super Shortstop race to Trea Turner yet?  He hit another homer yesterday and his season OPS is up to .892.    I have to admit that Trea Turner is my favorite active shortstop at the moment — my apologies to JP Crawford (who is a close second) and Carlos Correa.  But the race among the great SS we drafted last spring — Turner, Correa, and Seager — has Correa ahead on fWAR at 4.0 to Turner’s 3.7 (and Seager’s 0.7). And Crawford 1.9, which is currently 8th in all of MLB.  

 

Fernando Tatis Jr. is currently the most WARful shortstop according to Fangraphs at 4.2 WAR on the season so far. 

 

3.) How did Shohei do Monday?  Not so good: 1 for 5. A single single. 

 

 

 

Pittsburgh:  “W”, 4 – 5. (30 PA, .231, .300, .308;  9.7 ip, 5 er, 4.64 ERA). QYPHAT Alleghenys:  

 

1.) Who’s afraid of the Alleghenys?  I am.  I thought about drafting Trevor Larnach, but didn’t.  I ended up with Adolis Garcia a month later. Larnach’s line: ,263, .360, .431.   Garcia’s:  .270, .305, .522.  Larnach was the only Allegheny to get on base twice Monday.  He also stole a base.  On the whole I’d take Larnach for his higher OBP and lower salary. The Alleghenys are always doing stuff like this to me. I also like their Dalbec for Altuve trade.  And I want Max Muncy back. 

 

2.)  But the Alleghenys haven’t won the championship in ages.   Be careful now.  They won since the Wolverines last won.  They’re the last non-Johnson franchise to have won. Their name is on the trophy far more times than anyone else.  

 

3.)  Who is Vladimir Gutierrez?  I don’t know.  I don’t think I’d ever heard of him when the Alleghnys got him.  He did a nice job Monday: 6 ip, 2 er. Does this help you understand why I remain afraid of the Alleghenys?

 

 

 

 

1.)  No one walked for the Cascades yesterday.  Is this typical for them? No.  They are the only EFL team with an OBP more than 100 points higher than their batting average:  .354 to .252.  This is a goal I like to set for my team and my players, but it’s rarely met by individuals.  The Cascades are doing it as a team!

 

2.)  Is Kevin Gausman for real?  Well, he twirled another 7 inning gem, with only 2 earned runs allowed.  

 

3.) Will the Bellies finish above .500?  Yes, if they don’t sell off a lot of assets to get better next year.  They have the fourth best record in July in the EFL. 

 

 

 

Portland:  “W”, 5 – 10. (26 PA, .217, .308, .478;  5 ip, 7 er 12.60 ERA).  QYPHAT Rosebuds:  

 

1. How did Portland “win” with THAT awful score?  It’s very late here.  I doubt I can articulate this.

2. Max Kepler homered twice. Did you notice?  Yes, I did. His July OPS is up to 1.598, his SLG leads the league at 1.182, and he’s tied with Dominic Smith and Shohei Otani for the EFL lead in homers with 

3 this month.