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Three nights watching the Jays battle the Yankees. I have some random observations.

First, the big brouha-HA!. I may be the only person in North America who believes Josh Towers may actually have been telling the truth when he said he wasn't trying to drill Rodriguez on Tuesday. Towers himself doesn't expect anyone to believe him and said he fully understood why Rodriguez and the Yankees assumed it was deliberate. But his point remains - why, with a runner already aboard, would he put Rodriguez on base and bring Posada to the plate? Rodriguez is now 5-28 (.179) against Towers in his career, while Posada has hit him as well as anyone on the Yankees team (11-26, .423.)

Anyway, Joe Torre was right. If you're really that upset and think something Has To Be Done - well, that something should have happened the next time the teams met. Which was at the Stadium back in July. Towers pitched the first game of that series and nothing happened. And Towers, as we've seen before, isn't shy about taking care of this type of business.

But the combination is irresistible. Towers is a fiery guy, who has done this before when the honour of the team demanded it. Towers also has the best control of anyone on the staff. So on the one hand, it's hard to believe Towers could miss his spot that badly; and on the other hand, it's easy to believe he could hit his spot that effectively. After all, it's hard to hit a guy in the leg on purpose. The upper body - say, the middle of the back - is a much more inviting target, and doesn't move around as much.

And, of course, Rodriguez, we all agree, had it coming. Mainly for being an irritating twerp, but there it is. He is an irritating twerp and he persisted in being an irritating twerp. Bob Elliott, the next day, remembered Hideki Irabu beaning Alex Gonzalez in a spring training game. Roger Clemens, then with the Jays, drilled Derek Jeter his next time up. In spring training, mind you. And Jeter dropped his bat and went down to first base. Which is the way you're supposed to take one for the team. Some of you may also remember Carlos Delgado bowling over Doug Mientkiewicz at second base a few years ago at Fenway. Mientkiewicz, playing out of position, didn't really know what he was doing in the middle of the diamond and the Red Sox thought Delgado should have cut him a little slack. So Derek Lowe drilled Delgado later in the game; Delgado took his punishment, smiling ruefully, and trotted down to first.

Anyway, this New York team is one scary outfit. It seemed to be Cano and Cabrera driving balls to the gap every other inning. You can see how that happens. After a pitcher picks his way through the minefield that is the top of the order - Jeter! Abreu! Rodriguez! Posada! Matsui! - there's almost a visible relaxation when you get to the bottom of the lineup. Thing is, Cano has an OBP of .357 and is slugging better than .500 - in other words, he's roughly equivalent to Alex Rios. Plus, since the All-Star Break, Cano has been completely out of his skull, posting a pretty nifty .419/.473/.749 line.

Clemens was interesting. It had been years since I'd seen him in person, and my first reaction was - wow! he's lost 5-6 mph off everything! He really is 45 years old! But it turns out that the old man actually knows how to pitch. He used the rest of his repertoire much more, and much more effectively, than he used to in the days when he could simply blow hitters away at will with the heater and the splitter. He brought out lots of curves and sliders and even mixed in a straight change once or twice. And he demonstrated to Reed Johnson that he's not so old that he can't get down off the mound and field his position.

But Derek Jeter looks really, really tired. He's 32 now, and he's played a lot of baseball over the years. I think he could use a little more time off than he's getting (he's played all but two games this year). He looked like an old man in the field last night - he's never been very good on balls hit to his left (which is kind of a problem if you play shortstop) - but I swear Troy Glaus (who is younger than Jeter, after all) would have made at least two plays that Jeter couldn't manage on Wednesday.

Well, I thought I'd make a Data Table. I just can't decide which one. Two subjects are on my mind. One is Run Support for starters. Here are the raw numbers, taken from yesterday's Gme Notes as distributed in the ball park. (I've updated the Halladay figure.)

Pitcher            Starts   Runs     Runs Per Start
Taubenheim 1 11 11.0
Halladay 22 134 6.1
Chacin 5 25 5.0
McGowan 17 82 4.8
TEAM AVG 113 533 4.7
Ohka 10 47 4.7
Burnett 15 66 4.4
Marcum 16 70 4.4
Zambrano 2 8 4.0
Litsch 10 37 3.7
Towers 15 53 3.5

There are a few other things we'd like to know, however. For example, how many of these Supporting Runs actually crossed the plate while the starter was still in the game? I remember noticing early on in the 2005 season that while Josh Towers and Dave Bush had both received identical run support through their first dozen or so starts, more than half the runs the Jays scored in support of Bush had actually scored after Bush had left the game. Which was why, despite similar pitching performances, and apparently equivalent run support, Bush was 0-5 at the time while Towers was 5-1. This year, the Jays scored 9 runs in A.J. Burnett's second start, but Burnett was long gone when all this good fortune happened.

Anyway - of the 533 runs the team has scored this season, 387 (72.6 %) came while the starter was still in the game. So let's do that table again, and add that bit of information. And as well as giving Runs Per Start, we'll give Runs Per Nine Innings.

Pitcher            Starts   IP     Runs   Runs in Game    Pct.  Runs Per Start    Runs Per Nine IP
Taubenheim 1 5 11 6 .545 11.0 10.8
Halladay 22 151 134 113 .843 6.1 6.7
Chacin 5 27.1 25 11 .440 5.0 3.6
McGowan 17 105 82 60 .731 4.8 5.1
TEAM AVG 113 681 533 387 .726 4.7 5.1
Ohka 10 56 47 30 .638 4.7 4.8
Burnett 15 94 66 52 .788 4.4 5.0
Marcum 16 97.2 70 50 .714 4.4 4.6
Zambrano 2 5.1 8 4 .500 4.0 6.8
Litsch 10 54.1 37 26 .703 3.7 4.3
Towers 15 85.1 53 35 .660 3.5 3.7
It's worth knowing, but as it turns out, this year all we're doing is confirming the obvious. Most of the runs in support of Roy Halladay come while Halladay is still in the game? Well, duh. Halladay pitches deeper into games than anyone else on the team. And everyone, even Josh Towers and Tomo Ohka, pitches deeper into games than Gustavo Chacin (not to mention Zambrano and Taubenheim.) So as it happens, the percentage of runs scored that come while the starter is still in the game matches almost perfectly how deep a starter goes.

I assure you, it's not like this every year!

The other thing I'd want to somehow take into account are the Excess runs. There comes a time when a team is just piling it on - why, just last night was one of those times, and good times they are! - but still. The Jays scored 15 runs while Roy Halladay was in the game last night - and four other times, they've gone into double digits behind Doc. That's a major reason why Halladay's Run Support is so much better than everyone else - he's been on the hill when the bats went completely berserk. This, of course, is an unfortunate waste of resources. After all, Roy Halladay doesn't need 10 runs to win a game (not normally - he did come away with a no decision in one of those five games.) But, alas, it's nothing you can plan or control, it's just Random Fate - and it's a special kind of bad luck, in a way.

Pitcher 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10+ runs

Halladay 2 - 3 2 2 1 3 1 3 - 5
McGowan - 1 1 4 3 3 - 3 - 1 1
Marcum - 5 - 1 4 1 2 1 - 1 1
Burnett 1 - 4 1 2 2 2 1 - 2 -
Towers - 2 5 4 1 1 - - - 1 1
Litsch - 1 4 2 1 1 - - - - 1
Ohka - 2 1 1 1 1 - 2 1 1 -
Chacin - - 1 1 - 1 - 1 1 - -
Zambrano - - 1 - - - 1 - - - -
Taubenheim - - - - - - - - - - 1

TOTAL 3 11 20 16 14 11 8 9 5 6 10
WINS 0 3 8 2 3 7 7 8 4 5 10
LOSSES 3 8 12 14 11 4 1 1 1 1 0


Pitchers winning with:
0 runs -
1 run - Towers, Marcum
2 runs - Litsch (3), Halladay (2), Burnett, Chacin, Towers
3 runs - McGowan
4 runs - McGowan, Marcum
5 runs - Burnett, McGowan, Towers
6 runs - Halladay (3), Burnett (2), Marcum (2)
7 runs - McGowan (3), Ohka (2), Halladay, Chacin, Marcum
8 runs - Halladay (3)
9 runs - Burnett, Marcum, McGowan
10+ runs - Halladay (4), McGowan, Towers, Litsch, Marcum

The AL is averaging 4.9 runs per game this season. So another way to look at pitcher Run Support is to simply make three categories: 3 runs or less is Below Average Support; 4-6 runs is Average Support; 7 runs or more is Above Average Support. Let's take one last look at the starters:

Pitcher         Starts    Below     Average        Above
Halladay 22 7 6 9
McGowan 17 6 6 5
Marcum 16 6 7 3
Burnett 15 6 6 3
Towers 15 11 2 2
Litsch 10 7 2 1
Ohka 10 4 2 4
Chacin 5 2 1 2
Zambrano 2 1 1 0
Taubenheim 1 0 0 1


It would be nice if you could actually tell the hitters to take it easy, Halladay's pitching - save some for the other guys. In 7 of his 15 starts, Josh Towers has had either one or two runs to work with. That the team has gone 3-4 in those games is really very impressive. And Jesse Litsch has had it just as bad, with the team scoring just one or two runs in 5 of his 10 starts. The young fellow most definitely rose to the occasion, winning three of them anyway.

Next time, I'm going to mess around with Inherited Runners. Which starters, if any have been snakebitten. And which relievers, if any, are bailing out their team mates.

9 August 2007: Bombers Away, Blast Ye! | 17 comments | Create New Account
The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
Mike D - Thursday, August 09 2007 @ 11:48 AM EDT (#172778) #
Magpie, your random observations are a treat to read, as always.
ayjackson - Thursday, August 09 2007 @ 12:00 PM EDT (#172779) #
I wonder aloud if there is a league-wide correlation between seasoned aces gettin better run support than rookie pitchers?
ayjackson - Thursday, August 09 2007 @ 12:03 PM EDT (#172780) #
I'm glad Rios got upset, but didn't charge Clemens.  There something wrong with charging 45 year-old HoFers in my book - you have to take your medicine if they decide to dish it out.  We didn't need to see Robin Ventura part deux.
paulf - Thursday, August 09 2007 @ 12:25 PM EDT (#172781) #
What do you call a ball hit to Jeter's left?
Base hit up the middle!

Seriously, Vernon's two-run single in the first is one that shouldn't have been. That's a play a major-league caliber shortstop should have made - especially a so-called Gold Glover. Thomas' single up the middle is another. Sure, it was hit pretty hard, but he didn't seem to make much of an effort other then flopping on the ground to his left. Then there was the error...

BigTimeRoyalsFan - Thursday, August 09 2007 @ 01:22 PM EDT (#172786) #
What do you call a ball hit to Jeter's left?
Base hit up the middle!

LOL. Excellent. How the guy won three straight gold gloves is beyond me. He is a below average fielding SS, and his defense, or lack thereof, may have cost the Yankees last night's game. He made at least 4 poor plays, all at big times.

Another random observation - I can't remember a game in at least the last month that Vernon hit the ball as well/hard as he did last night. That's what I'm most excited about, more than the 3 hits - the fact that he actually put good swings on the ball and drove the ball to the outfield. Hopefully he can turn things around and salvage his season to help the Jays stick around the wild card race. (Notice how it has come to the point I just want to see the Jays play "meaningful" games in September, I'm not even asking for them to make the playoffs!)
Ryan Day - Thursday, August 09 2007 @ 01:31 PM EDT (#172788) #

Here's something odd: Frank Thomas has yet to draw a walk in 7 August games. Meaningless, yet weird.

More meaningful, slightly, is the fact he's hitting 310/371/552 since the break.

Unfortunately, he seems to have stolen Troy Glaus' mojo, since Mighty Troy is hitting a not-so-mighty 191/255/351 over that time.

Also weird: In his last two starts, Roy Halladay has 17 Ks and 3 BBs in 13 innings.. yet he's still got a 5.54 ERA. He certainly doesn't look hurt, but something is definitely off.

HippyGilmore - Thursday, August 09 2007 @ 01:48 PM EDT (#172791) #

Also weird: In his last two starts, Roy Halladay has 17 Ks and 3 BBs in 13 innings.. yet he's still got a 5.54 ERA. He certainly doesn't look hurt, but something is definitely off.

Yeah, his luck is definitely off. His peripherals all season, to me, just prove that he's completely fine. the ONLY negative thing he's done is allowed his walk rate to increase a tiny bit, which isn't good but also doesn't mean he's hurt or "off". His K rate is actually up this year and his XFIP is 3.91, 6th in the American League. He's just fine.

Radster - Thursday, August 09 2007 @ 02:11 PM EDT (#172792) #

That is odd given that Wells has both a 6 game hit streak and an 8 game hit streak in the past month.

No question though that his on-base and power numbers are down and if his career numbers are any indication, the best part of his season is over: his OPS post All-Star break (.800) is worse than pre All-Star break (.835), with his best offensive months on average being June and July (August is his worst month).

Dr. Zarco - Thursday, August 09 2007 @ 02:26 PM EDT (#172793) #
Great stuff Magpie. Some of it is similar to a previous data table where you laid out every pitchers' stats/game score and went through "cheap wins" and "tough losses."

Anyway, then and now, the most remarkable thing on the page is that the Jays have gone 8-12 in games in which they have scored 2 runs. That's gotta be the best percentage in the league, to win 40% of games you score only 2 is terrific. It's also terrifically bad to lose 11 of 14 when you score exactly 4 runs. Ah, gotta love baseball for all the quirky numbers!
Chuck - Thursday, August 09 2007 @ 02:46 PM EDT (#172794) #

I wonder aloud if there is a league-wide correlation between seasoned aces gettin better run support than rookie pitchers?

I don't pretend to know if this is the case, but my WAG would be that no such correlation exists.

It's funny, when Halladay goes 13-5 with an ERA over 4.00, the argument used is that his hitters are confident of a good outing and hence are more relaxed and hence perform better, thus the good run support.
 
When Dave Stieb goes 14-13 with an ERA of 2.48, as he did in 1985, the argument used is that his hitters are confident of a good outing and hence let up at the plate knowing they don't need to be as focused, thus the poor run support.
 
Both arguments seem like post hoc rationalizations to explain away random chance. But I could be wrong. I've been wrong before.

dan gordon - Thursday, August 09 2007 @ 03:03 PM EDT (#172797) #

The comments about Jeter's fielding are interesting.  I was at the game last night, and a friend and I got to talking about Jeter's fielding.  We watched him quite a bit during the game, and compared his positioning to MacDonald's.  Jeter was consistently playing 10 feet or so closer to the batter than MacDonald.  Even when there was a very slow batter, like Thomas, at the plate, he was playing in.  I have read in several places that one of his main characteristics as an infielder is that he gets to and makes plays on slowly hit balls in front of him better than most shortstops, but otherwise makes far fewer plays than other shortstops do.  Obviously, playing in as far as he does helps him to make those plays on short balls, but greatly reduces his lateral range.  It was great to see this demonstrated on a couple of balls that got by him, that other shortstops would have had because they would be playing farther back.  Why he insists on doing it is beyond me, particularly with a guy like Thomas batting, where he would have all kinds of time to throw him out, even if he was much farther back.  A friend suggested he doesn't have confidence in his arm strength from farther back.  Whatever the reason, he is costing his team a lot of runs with his positioning.

Chuck - Thursday, August 09 2007 @ 03:11 PM EDT (#172799) #

Whatever the reason, he is costing his team a lot of runs with his positioning.

When I saw Wells' ground ball, I immediately thought he'd be out. And if you watch the replay, the look on Wang's face suggested he thought the same (though by now he should know better). A replay from a different angle showed just how shallow Jeter was. I don't know that I've ever seen a shortstop play so shallow without the infield being drawn in.

Mike Green - Thursday, August 09 2007 @ 03:16 PM EDT (#172800) #
ERAs should go up some in games in which a pitcher is given a lot of run support for two reasons.  Firstly, heavy run support happens more often with favourable offensive conditions (wind, temperature, humidity, park....)  Secondly, pitchers given heavy run support early pitch somewhat differently with a big lead, in particular becoming much less concerned about the solo homer.  The Matsui and Cano homers in the 7th inning last night would be a classic illustration.  When the score changes from 14-2 to 14-4 in the seventh inning, the win expectancy probably changes less than .1%.
Twilight - Thursday, August 09 2007 @ 08:42 PM EDT (#172809) #
True, but did you see Halladay on the bench after the seventh inning last night? He was righteously PO'd, discussing the inning with Arnsberg, incredibly agitated. It meant nothing in the context of the game, but Halladay is such a pitcher. I'd think his approach, whether you're ahead 12 runs, behind 12 runs, or even, is the same.

Great job as always Magpie.

GregJP - Thursday, August 09 2007 @ 10:44 PM EDT (#172813) #
Great post Magpie.  I very much enjoyed reading it.
Timmy - Thursday, August 09 2007 @ 11:28 PM EDT (#172814) #

I was at the game last night too.  A little different surrounded by so many people cheering for the opposing team.

Good observation about Jeter.  I thought that ball that Hill hit in the 3rd was a sure double play.  Looking at the replay, Jeter was quite a ways in when he caught the ball which might have played into why he just threw to first instead of tossing it to second.  When Thomas hit his double in the 7th, Cabrera was sort of just watching until it bounced off the wall.

krose - Friday, August 10 2007 @ 01:23 AM EDT (#172819) #
Great article Magpie. I wonder if there is a correlation between the number of errors behind a starter and lower run support for that starter. That is, the lower the run support, the greater the number of errors.
9 August 2007: Bombers Away, Blast Ye! | 17 comments | Create New Account
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