Weekend of our Discontent
Monday, June 19 2006 @ 05:15 PM EDT
Contributed by: Magpie
There was, I'm fairly sure, weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth...
For those of you who have never heard of Josh Johnson, they guy who out-pitched Roy Halladay yesterday also sports the best ERA in the major leagues, and batters are hitting .221 against him...
I was scrolling through yesterday's Chat log to see what people were saying, and while I did see some comments of...how shall I put this... bewildering stupidity ("Glaus is a joke"), some legitmate concerns are surely being raised.
A little grousing about the Blue Jays' ability, or lack thereof, to hit with runners in scoring position. On the face of it, this seems an odd concern - the Blue Jays went into the weekend leading the league in runs scored. They must have had at least a couple of hits with runners on in order to that to do that. But they did manage to strand 15 baserunners yesterday, which will get your attention. If it doesn't make you actually, certifiably, crazy. So, just so everyone knows... with runners in scoring position:
RK TEAM G AB R H 2B 3B HR TB RBI BA OBP SLG OPS
1 Chicago Sox 69 593 290 179 27 5 27 297 271 .302 .378 .501 .879
2 Texas 70 635 290 191 47 4 22 312 282 .301 .384 .491 .875
3 NY Yankees 66 635 309 182 31 1 29 302 298 .287 .394 .476 .869
4 Toronto 69 625 264 175 39 4 25 297 249 .280 .354 .475 .830
5 Cleveland 68 652 289 185 31 1 25 293 268 .284 .371 .449 .820
6 Baltimore 70 672 268 192 33 4 18 287 255 .286 .365 .427 .792
7 Seattle 69 617 277 161 30 3 23 266 251 .261 .352 .431 .783
8 Minnesota 68 581 252 164 29 3 15 244 237 .282 .356 .420 .776
9 Detroit 70 577 237 154 31 8 16 249 220 .267 .340 .432 .772
10 Boston 67 658 262 170 34 1 16 254 244 .258 .364 .386 .750
11 LA Angels 68 563 228 145 26 1 18 227 219 .258 .318 .403 .721
12 Kansas City 68 546 208 144 34 1 11 213 195 .264 .331 .390 .721
13 Tampa Bay 69 511 205 121 24 3 16 199 183 .237 .320 .389 .710
14 Oakland 67 553 215 128 28 5 13 205 200 .231 .332 .371 .703
Yes, the team at the bottom of the list is the one sitting in first place with the ten-game winning streak. Go figure.
I've noted people worrying about Gibbons' habit lately of starting baserunners - this especially blew up when Russ Adams and Vernon Wells combined for the old "strike 'em out, throw 'em out" double play. Gibbons is obviously trying to avoid the more traditional form of double play, which the Blue Jays offense was providing in truly frightening quantities early in the season. So... exactly how often are these things happening anyway?
The Jays have 18 runners caught stealing this year. Of those, 6 were part of Strikeout-Caught Stealing double play: 1 in April, 3 in May, 2 so far in June.
I think you can expect to see this line continue to increase, just as the Grounded Into double plays rate continues to decrease. Which it has, by the way: 27 in April (23 games), 26 in May (29 games) and 12 in June (through the first 16 games.)
There are only two ways to stay out of the double play - you either start the baserunners, or you bunt. The Blue Jays do not bunt - only two men have successfully dropped down a sac bunt this year (Hill and McDonald). They're not good at it, and they don't really believe in it. If this team is going to stay out of the DP, they'll do it by starting baseruners. Sometimes you end up with a different kind of double play. It's the price you pay.
It's impossible to tell whether these K/CS double plays are coming from botched hit-and-runs, two strike steal attempts, or whatever. Twice Troy Glaus was the batter who struck out - as Glaus is the least likely man on the team to put the ball in play, these were most likely two-strike steal attempts rather than attempted hit-and-runs. (The batters on the other occasions were Hill twice, Overbay, and Wells.)
It is also impossible to know if any of the other 12 times a runner was caught stealing occurred as part of a botched hit-and-run. After all, if there were fewer than two strikes on the batter, the at bat continued without the baserunner. I can think of one probable instance - when Eric Hinske was caught stealing in extra innings against the White Sox. I remember that Hillenbrand swung and missed that pitch, but delivered a walkoff home run moments later. Overbay and Hillenbrand both have a caught stealing on their log that I'm pretty suspicious about, as well.
As for the other times caught stealing... we find two occasions when a runner was picked off by the pitcher (Wells and McDonald). Alex Rios has been caught stealing four times, Wells and Hill once apiece on what seem to have straight SB attempts, I can't be sure. Finally, there was whatever game Bengie Molina was playing with his brother..
Someone also said that the Blue Jays are incapable of winning a 2-1 or 1-0 game. I don't know about incapable, but it's true that they haven't won any games 2-1 or 1-0. They haven't lost any either. They haven't played any.
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