Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
July 08, 2006
Beckett Bombed

The Red Sox beat the White Sox 9-6 today as Boston scored in five consecutive innings. David Ortiz remains hot, hitting home run 31 and Thome tried to keep pace with his 30th of the year. Beckett gave up all three White Sox home runs today, bringing his total to 26. Twenty two of those, however came on the road.

The single season record for home runs is 50, set by Bert Blyleven in 1986. Blyleven spread them out a little more evenly, allowing 31 at home and 19 on the road. It's not just Beckett, either. At Fenway this season, batters hit 71 home runs in 2553 at bats, or 1 homer every 36 at bats. In road games, batters hit 148 home runs in 3323 at bats, one every 22.5 at bats. Why is it so much harder to hit homers at Fenway this year? Ortiz has 21 of his 31 on the road. Schilling gives up many more on the road this season. Is the wind blowing in? Maybe the weird weather in the northeast is damping down the dingers.


Posted by David Pinto at 09:12 PM | Games | TrackBack (0)
Comments

I remember reading an article about a new project either at the park itself or right nearby. I know that having a higher wall behind homeplate creates a sort of backwind effect, this according to the tail end of an article I found here:

http://www.projectview.org/MathandBaseball/ScienceattheBallgame.htm

I'm not sure the recent renovations affected the height of the stands behind homeplate, but do remember reading about the construction of tall buildings near the park that might have the same effect. I can't recall quite when I read it, but am almost positive that someone very recently offered a scientifically based prediction that Fenway's homer rate would fall. Wish I could remember more.

Posted by: the other josh at July 8, 2006 09:45 PM

Oh, one other thing. Weird stat: Jermaine Dye was the sixth player this year to have a multihomer game against Beckett, according to rotoworld.com. Beckett now has 8 multi-homer games so far this season, and 6 of them involved the same player getting to him twice. In 1/3 of the games Beckett has pitched, one player from the opposing team has single-handedly accounted for 2 homeruns, and presumably, a minimum of 2 ER.

Though I've never really looked into it, this seems like a fairly strange and rather fluky stat. With a WHIP of 1.19 and BAA of .230 coming into today's game, you wouldn't expect the high 4 ERA. I can't imagine he's going to keep running into guys who manage to club 2 dingers off him in the same game, at least not at this ridiculous rate, so I sort of expect him to finish the season with a more respectable ERA.

Posted by: the other josh at July 8, 2006 09:56 PM

I personally think it is the switch to the new league, he has to learn the hitters and he is not able to throw his curve over consistently. His change up is thrown in the high 80's and the fastball is usually around 85, so not enough of a difference between the two pitches to consistently get the batters off balance. At 26 though, I will let him give up the solo home runs as he goes through the league.

Posted by: wayne at July 8, 2006 11:19 PM

There's big construction going on down the street a bit, which definitely channels winds into the park. The Globe had an article about this as well, and I go past there pretty often; the construction is at a point where it clearly affects wind patterns.

Posted by: Bryant at July 9, 2006 09:00 AM
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