Sigh.

And, the second I get excited, they lose. Oh well, hell of a streak - let's start a new one, tomorrow. My feelings today are exactly what they were the day in 2004 that their 10-game win-streak was snapped. I was visiting Boston, having lunch at Miracle of Science, watching them lose to the Rangers. I told the bartender, "Man, I forgot what it's like to lose." Turns out he was a Yankees fan, so wasn't exactly sympathetic. But anyway, this whole "forgot what it's like to lose" thing is pretty cool - I wouldn't mind feeling it again. And I don't think I'll ever get used to this whole "defense" thing.

Goodness

Damn, that was one hell of a game. Pitching, hitting, defense, and now four-fifths of an entire division has been swept. Three games ago, following the sweeps of three of NL's bottom-dwellers, I said "I can't get too excited, yet...The next three games should tell us a lot." Well, they did, and I'm convinced - this team has clicked. Now I'm excited.

Anticlimactic

So the Pedro game - matchup of two aces of two top teams in their respective leagues - wasn't quite as exciting as I had hoped. And the "Pay-dro" and "Who's Your Daddy" chants were embarrassing. Pedro left after three, and as everyone noted, it was the most runs he gave up since Sept 19, 2004 and his shortest outing since Sept 26, 2003. But neither of those starts were actually worse than this one - in the 2004 outing (against the Yanks) he gave up 8ER in 5IP, much better than 6ER in 3IP, and the 2003 outing was nothing but a tuneup for the playoffs. So when was the last time he actually pitched worse than yesterday's start? I can answer that...because I was there. April 12, 2003: 4.1 IP, 10 ER on 9H and 4 BB, at home against the Orioles (who went 71-91 that year). Has to be the worst start of his career. Not a fun Opening Day.

Mets-Sox, Game 2

I think I'll actually play hooky for this one. Some fantastic tributes to Pedro's Boston days at 12eight and Joy of Sox. And it's wonderful to see that booing him is basically off the table. I do think it's worth remembering that - off the field - he could sort of be a pain in the butt; I consider myself to be pretty patient with players, but his moodiness and petulance could be pretty trying at times. Plus there's a good article by Seth Mnookin about revisionism regarding his signing with the Mets (on a related note, it sure is funny to see the Boston sports papers taking Pedro's side for a change). But these aspects of his personality, and the realities of baseball today, don't diminish anything about tonight's game. It'll be wonderful (though a bit sad) to see him take the mound in Fenway, to a standing ovation. And very odd to root for people to score a boatload of runs off him.

Mets-Sox, Game 1

I know I should be watching the game (well, technically, I should be "working"...whatever); but I just can't because this piece of internet awesomeness is consuming all my bandwidth. And all my attention. And all my plans for the near - and distant - future.

Clutch hitting revisited

So I did look it up and the “Is David Oritz a Clutch Hitter” was a chapter in Baseball Between the Numbers. The conclusion was that there is some indication that clutch hitting exists, but not much. And as I pointed out yesterday, the “ability” does not carry over from year to year. By the measure they were using, Ortiz’ 2005 season was the best clutch season in the AL in the 35 years of data that they have. Interestingly, there are about 10 NL seasons that are more clutch (although 6 of those were Barry).

One “conclusion” was that the best hitters are the most clutch hitters. Which makes sense.

The writer poo-poos the common sabremetric belief that clutch hitting does not exist by accumulating the net impact in win expectancy for every at bat. So for instance, when the Rangers had 4-2 lead on Saturday (or whatever it was) with two outs in the 9th and two men on base, they were likely to win the game something like 96% of the time – they used real game data as in every situation that this situation occurred 96% of the time the team with that two run lead actually won. So Ortiz has increased his team’s win percent from 4% to 100%. My problem with this stat is that it likely includes at bats by Tony Womack as much as David Ortiz.

Another problem with it and was something that I touched on yesterday (I think) is that it is very difficult to define clutch. And using this stat it considers all at bats. So if some player who it is generally agreed is not a clutch hitter, like say, I don’t know say Alex Rodriguez, hits a home run in to lead off the fourth in a zero-zero game, he increases his team’s win expectancy from around 50% to maybe 66%. And sure it is less of an impact that a HR to lead off the 8th in a tie game, but I think we would all agree that a 4th inning HR is not clutch.

They also broke it up into raw data and per AB data relative to one’s baseline performance – so in a nutshell Ortiz would be expected to get more runs added than Tony Womack.

So the answer is, well there is no real answer. And obviously I have way oversimplified the data. A few other interesting tidbits from the article…. Ortiz was not a clutch hitter in the regular season in 2004. In fact he had only one year (2000) that he was credited with even one extra win. In 2005, Ortiz was credited with 7 wins. Bill Mueller was one of the worst clutch hitters – and in 2003 he had one of the worst clutch seasons of all time. The worst clutch hitter of all time was Larry Bowa.

Raining on the parade

So this 9-game winning streak is obviously supercool, particularly with all the walkoffs by Ortiz, and the pitching holding up when it needed to. It's the Sox's longest win streak since August-September 2004, when they took complete control of the wildcard spot by blowing through the entire AL West (winning 14 of 15, with 10 in a row). But I'm finding myself unable to get too excited about it, in terms of what it means for the rest of the season. Am I alone in this? It's possible my problem is just that it's too early in the season. But I think it's something more...

1. The NL East - at least the three teams we've faced so far - is a joke. We've discussed already how much the NL sucks (they're now 65-109, or .373, in interleague play). And yet the Braves, Nats, and Phillies are among the worst in the NL, going a combined 79-98 (.446) against NL teams.
2. Before this win streak, the Sox were in a 6-10 slump, losing series to the the Twins (swept!), Yanks, Rangers, and Jays. Remember how despondent everyone was?
   

So I can't get too excited, yet. Maybe things have turned around - with Lester arriving, the bullpen (possibly) stabilizing somewhat, and hitting becoming more timely - but it's pretty hard to tell when they're playing teams like the Phillies, Nationals, and Braves. The next three games should tell us a lot.

Boooooo

Papelbon gave up a run, and his ERA doubled. Hard to do that in late June.

I blame Jeff Horrigan.

Ani-ball

Anibal Sanchez just made his major league debut, in Yankee Stadium. 5.2 IP, o ER. And a strikeout-to-walk ratio of infinity, which is pretty good. Marlins won 5-0; that trade keeps looking better and better, I guess. Of course, if he stays in the rotation, he'll face the Sox later this week...

This is just sad.

Yesterday in interleague, the AL outplayed the NL 11 games to 2. Bringing their season record to 97-56. That's a .634 winning percentage.

One way to think about this: the Mets are easily the best team in the NL. But if we were to give the average AL team (say, Seattle, or Minnesota) an NL-only schedule, they'd be up on the Mets by about 2 games.

Another way to think about this: the Royals have a winning record against the NL.

(We've discussed this here before, but it goes without saying that because of this, Bronson Arroyo would not being doing anywhere nearly as well with the Red Sox as he's currently doing with the Reds...but don't tell him that...)