Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
August 06, 2005
Scoring Thief

Shea Hillenbrand just stole home in the Yankees-Blue Jays game to give Toronto an insurance run as they now lead 5-3. The last time Hillenbrand was caught stealing was in 2002. Since then, he's 7 for 7 stealing.

Randy Johnson has given up eight hits and five runs through three innings. Johnson and Mussina keep having starts like this. As long as that goes on, it's going to be difficult for the Yankees to put together a streak to put them back in control of the wild card or the division. I believe the Yankees are a .530 to .540 team, and that's probably not going to put them in the playoffs.


Posted by David Pinto at 05:36 PM | Base Running | TrackBack (0)
Comments

It's obvious. Randy pitches better when he has hair.

Posted by: Cameron King at August 6, 2005 06:43 PM

Maybe he's like Samson, eh?

Posted by: Todd at August 6, 2005 06:45 PM

Didn't Randy cut his hair off in Arizona? I'd have to say he pitched pretty well there.

Posted by: Chad at August 6, 2005 06:54 PM

Mediocre Yankee pitching is really nothing new... The Yanks team ERA was 4.67 after friday night. Compare that to their past few years (all playoff appearances):

2005: 4.67 (as of Aug 5th)
2004: 4.99+!
2003: 4.39+!-
2002: 4.33+!
2001: 4.43+-
2000: 5.06+*
1999: 4.51+*
1998: 4.05+!*
1997: 4.25
1996: 4.86+*
1995: 4.74

* - won World Series
- lost World Series
+ - won division
! - won 100+ games

It seems, the Yanks problem isn't that their pitching's lost its punch. They've even won the World Series twice, with higher ERA's.

I think they'll miss the playoffs this season....and I've been thinking that since early July.

I think the difference between Boston and NYY, is their slugging %:

Yanks: .355
BoSox: .358

It's slight, but I think it's enough, because their OBP is just about identical:

Yanks: .453
BoSox: .452

...so they're getting about the same amount of guys on base, but Boston is moving the runners a hair better.

Posted by: Devon at August 7, 2005 12:01 AM

Devon,

I don't know where you got those Yankees pitching numbers, but they are all wrong. Look at
Baseball Reference for a list of recent Yankees ERAs. You also get OBA and slugging backwards.

Posted by: David Pinto at August 7, 2005 08:50 AM
Post a comment









Remember personal info?