August 11, 2008
Games of the Day
Two surprise playoff contenders meet in Miami as the Cardinals face the Marlins in a four game series. Florida is two games behind St. Louis and five games behind Milwaukee in the wild card race, 2 1/2 back in the division. Joel Pineiro take the hill for the Cardinals. His strikeouts, walks and home runs are very similar to his 2007 effort, but his ERA is up .70 runs as more hits have gotten past the defense this season. Anibal Sanchez is coming along slowly, making his third start. The most encouraging thing so far is that he's not giving up extra-base hits.
The last time the Yankees met the Twins, New York needed a sweep to move past Minnesota in the wild card race. The same logic applies now. The Yankees trail Minnesota by 2 1/2 games and Boston by four in the competition for the last playoff spot. Sidney Ponson tries to get the Yankees back to winning after a sweep in Anaheim. Despite his 3-1 record with the Yankees, his 17 walks and five home runs allowed in 40 innings makes me think that record could be a lot worse. Glen Perkins doesn't strike out many batters, but like many Twins pitchers his walk total is so low he still maintains a 2:1 strikeout to walk ratio. He can be taken deep at home, however, as nine of his 13 homers allowed came in the Metrodome.
The White Sox try to make it three out of four against Boston in the series as they send John Danks against Josh Beckett. Josh seems to be allowing runners to score from first as he's allowed a high slugging percentage with men on base, but a low one with men in scoring position. Danks big improvement over 2007 is his home run rate. He'll likely pass his 2007 inning total tonight, but has allowed 17 fewer long balls.
The Phillies head to the west coast to take on the Dodgers. Derek Lowe owns a better ERA than Kyle Kendrick, but Kyle collected 10 wins while Derek suffers with 10 losses. Kendrick's ERA jumps to 4.79 on the road, but he's still managed a 6-2 record. Lowe posts a 2.72 ERA at Dodger Stadium, but he's just 6-5 there.
Enjoy!
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Posted by David Pinto at
09:11 AM
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The Yankees still rely on home runs and walks to score runs. They're just not getting as many of either as they used to. They rank seventh in the AL in both categories, which is why they rank seventh in runs scored.
The Twins have outscored the Yanks but get their runs with lots of base hits. They don't hit many home runs and they don't walk much. That series will be an interesting contrast of styles.
Twins lead the league in hitting with RISP and that is not a sustainable way to keep scoring runs.
As a White Sox fan, I must keep telling myself that.
I don't think the Yankees have enough to overcome the 4 good teams in front of them, too many injuries and not enough firepower to overcome their mediocre pitching -- for once.
The NYY need Moose to win every time thru the rotation, have Ponson and Pettite who are both mixed bags at this point then not much else. Giese pitched well but it looks like the pen is falling apart from over exposure. They'll be lucky to hang in.
Thing is, if you don't swing for the fences, which the Twins (except Morneau) never do, you might be able to sustain a very good batting average with RISP. Minnesota has been able to sustain it for 117 games now.
The Twins lead the league in singles, which means they basically just try to meet the ball. That goes against sabermetric dogma, of course, but they're making it work for them.
Should have said that Kubel swings for the fences, too. He just doesn't do it as well as Morneau. And to be honest, even these guys will take a base hit.
One other thing: Minnesota's formula probably works better this year than it would have in the bash-and-crash days around the turn of the millenium. If this was 1996 and the AL was pounding out a record 2,742 home runs, a singles-based offense would get clubbed into submission unless the pitching staff was truly exceptional.
This year home run production is down 19% per game compared to 1996. There's more of a chance for a singles-hitting team, though Minnesota's pitching staff is only middle-of-the-road in staff ERA.