April, 16, 2012
By Tony Jackson | ESPNLosAngeles.com
The Dodgers will begin a three-game series in Milwaukee on Tuesday night. The Brewers are one very roundish, slugging first baseman shy of the National League Central-winning team they were last year, but thanks to an overturned positive performance-enhancing drug test suspension, they are still pretty good -- and certainly better than either the San Diego Padres or Pittsburgh Pirates, those NL bottom feeders against whom this gaudy, early season Dodgers record was fashioned.
The Dodgers will face three starting pitchers with ERAs of at least 5.91 in this series, but don't be misled by that. This early in a season, when mathematics tend to be skewed, a single bad outing can inflate a pitcher's ERA, and those starters are Yovani Gallardo, Zack Greinke and Randy Wolf, so they know what they're doing.
In other words, this is the first major test for these Dodgers. By lunchtime Thursday, when the matinee series finale will be over, we should have a much clearer picture of what the rest of the summer will be like.
Still, when you start a season by winning nine of your first 10 games, it means something. And it might mean something more come September.
"It's nice to get off to a good start,'' Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said. "Obviously, it's 10 games. We have 152 left. There is a long way to go. We're going to hit rough patches, and you never know when they're going to come. That is why it's always good to get out of the blocks with a good start.''
I was talking with a scout -- beat writers spend a lot of time before games talking to scouts -- who was just shaking his head at how many bad teams there are in the NL this year. That might be the best thing the Dodgers have going for them right now, especially because there is a team in their own division, the Padres, that might be counted among those pretenders. The Dodgers already have played the Padres seven times this season, winning six of them, and get to play them 11 more times.
After the Brewers comes a three-game series against the Houston Astros, who are a semi-respectable 4-5, but many baseball insiders felt coming into the season that they were the worst team in the majors. So how much does a 4-5 start for the Astros mean? About as much as a 9-1 start by the Dodgers means.
My point is this: The Dodgers are going to run into good teams, better teams than they are, at various points during the season. But they also are going to run into a lot of bad ones. It is one thing to say you can't really measure a team by how it performs against subpar opponents. But that is why it is so important to win those games, because by doing so, you give yourself a margin for error when you play the tougher teams.
To that end, a 9-1 start is a 9-1 start, regardless of who the opponents have been. Because those are nine wins in the standings. Nine wins in the can. Nine wins that ultimately could make the difference in whether the Dodgers reach the playoffs.
Because, in theory at least, those wins may be a little tougher to come by starting Tuesday.
Dodgers are not this good Los Angeles has played pushovers, while Milwaukee has faced a gauntlet
Originally Published: April 16, 2012
By Paul Swydan | FanGraphs
Early in the season, a team's schedule can have an outsized impact on our perception of how good it is. Teams with easy schedules have an opportunity to get out of the gate fast and wow observers, while teams with more difficult schedules might look like lemons in the early going. We have two such teams this week in the Los Angeles Dodgers and Milwaukee Brewers, respectively.
The Dodgers, who ranked 19th in the ESPN.com Power Rankings before the season started, have been on a meteoric rise. They shot up to 11th place last week, and have climbed all the way to fifth this week. Their 14-place jump in the rankings is the second highest jump thus far (the Mets, who have jumped 17 spots, have made the biggest jump since the first rankings).
And there is, without question, reason for optimism at Chavez Ravine. In Matt Kemp and Clayton Kershaw, they have two of the 10-15 best players in the game, and a healthy Andre Ethier can be a terrific Robin to Kemp's Batman. Adding Mark Ellis should help turn what was an average defense into an elite one, and if Dee Gordon matures, the team will have a dynamic force at the top of the lineup. Gordon electrified the ballpark with his walk-off single on Sunday, the team's second such win in three days, and Aaron Harang added his own flair for the dramatic by tying a Dodgers record with nine straight strikeouts on Friday.
But the Dodgers aren't this good. A large part of their MLB-best 9-1 start to the season has been aided by their opponents. Thus far, the Dodgers have played only the San Diego Padres -- against whom they are 6-1 -- and the Pirates, whom they swept three games to none. If you'll notice, those two clubs rank 30th and 28th respectively in this week's rankings, and neither squad has been higher than 23rd. And with good reason -- the Padres don't have a single elite hitter on their roster, and outside of Andrew McCutchen, neither do the Pirates.
The situation on the other side of the coin isn't much more promising. Pitchers like Cory Luebke, Erik Bedard, Edinson Volquez and Joel Hanrahan are pretty good, but they aren't exactly household names. But while the Padres and Pirates aren't chock full of superstar talent, the Dodgers still didn't exactly blow either team out of the water -- their margin of victory in six of their nine wins was two runs or fewer. A win is a win, but their 9-1 record isn't as shiny as it really seems.
While the Dodgers have taken advantage of a cream-puffish slate to start the season, the Brewers have had a rather fierce road to travel in the season's first two weeks. Series losses to the third-ranked St. Louis Cardinals (they dropped two of three) and a sweep this weekend at the hands of the Braves -- who rebounded nicely this week to improve to 13th in the rankings -- have the Brewers off to a sluggish 4-6 start. As a result, they have fallen four spots from last week, back to 16th place.
Not only have the Brewers had the misfortune of some tough matchups in two of their first three series, but they have also had some bad home run luck, as well. Entering Sunday's action, their 13.6 percent HR/FB ratio was tied for fifth highest in all of baseball. Things didn't improve any on Sunday either, as Braves' hitters Chipper Jones and Jason Heyward both took Brewers starter Chris Narveson deep. Nevertheless, the Brewers aren't going to allow 1.3 homers per game all season. That would come out to roughly 210 homers allowed, which is a number that only one team has allowed in the past three seasons (the 2011 Orioles gave up 210 homers).
One of the best ways to figure out what a team's ERA will be like moving forward is with xFIP, which is a regressed version of FIP that replaces a pitcher's (or pitching staff's) actual home runs allowed with the amount of home runs he (or they) would normally be expected to allow. It is here that we see light for the Crew. While the Brewers' pitching staff entered Sunday with a 5.54 ERA that ranked 28th in the game, its 3.72 xFIP ranked 12th. One of the main victims has been Opening Day starter Yovani Gallardo. While Gallardo certainly hasn't covered himself in glory in his first two starts, he isn't going to allow four homers for every 10⅔ innings he works -- that would equate to more than 75 homers allowed over a 200-inning season.
Gallardo isn't the only Brewer who has been victimized in the early going. Zack Greinke and Randy Wolf both have endured BABIPs above .400 in the early going, and the staff as a whole entered Sunday with a .335 BABIP, a mark that was second worst in the game. When that regresses back to a more normal rate (team BABIPs ranged from .265 to .307 last season), Brewers pitchers will suddenly look a lot better. At the dish, Nyjer Morgan has started slowly, as has perennial slow starter Aramis Ramirez:
Aramis Ramirez by month
Month
|
wOBA
|
Mar/Apr
|
.342
|
May
|
.333
|
June
|
.365
|
July
|
.377
|
August
|
.383
|
Sept/Oct
|
.375
|
Ramirez is rarely a bad hitter (the league average wOBA for a National League third baseman last year was .303), but he is almost always better after Memorial Day (see table). When he kicks into high gear, the Brewers' offense should be just as lethal as it was last season.
Teams have no control over who they play, and one of the hallmarks of a good team is taking care of business against lesser opponents, so the Dodgers have nothing for which to apologize. But while they may look like world-beaters now, they will probably look much more mortal once their competition stiffens. The opposite is true of the Brewers, who have endured some bad luck at the hands of difficult foes thus far. And if you switched the early-season schedules of these two clubs, there is a good chance their fortunes would be reversed.
Interestingly enough, the Dodgers and Brewers match up this week in Milwaukee. Perhaps the Dodgers will keep flying high while the Brewers remain sluggish, but chances for a market correction -- especially since Milwaukee is so strong at home -- are good.
A triple play, a strikeout machine and more
April, 16, 2012
What a weekend.
A team pulled off a triple play and a walk-off win in the same inning. Aaron Harang did something that Sandy Koufax, Clayton Kershaw and Fernando Valenzuela never did. It was a Friday the 13th for the ages. And if Matt Cain is now in favor of having the National League adopt the DH, you could understand why.
Fortunately, our Useless Information Department investigators were out in force. So let's take a look at all that madness.
Triple-double department
Now here's something you don't see every day: On Sunday, the Dodgers turned a triple play in the top of the ninth inning, then won on a walk-off hit in the bottom of the ninth.
• The Dodgers were the first team to cram a triple play and a walkoff win into the same inning since the 1942 Cubs pulled off that trick against the Reds on Aug. 22, 1942 -- except the Cubs did it in the 11th inning. They turned a triple play on a popped-up bunt in the top of the 11th, then manufactured the winning run off Reds reliever Junior Thompson in the bottom of the 11th.
• But it's even more rare for a team to do something like that in the ninth inning. Retrosheet has assembled box scores dating all the way to 1918. And the Dodgers are the ONLY team with a triple play and a walk-off hit in the ninth inning of any game in the last 95 seasons.
• Dee Gordon was in the middle of that triple play, then got the walk-off hit in the bottom of the ninth. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Gordon was just the second player in the last 15 seasons to participate in a triple play at any point in a game, then get a walk-off RBI later in the game. The other : Prince Fielder, for the Brewers, on Sept. 6, 2009. Prince's triple play, for the record, came in the top of the sixth inning.
• Dodger Stadium has been around for 50 years, but this was just the fifth triple play turned there -- and only the second by the Dodgers. To put that in perspective, the Dodgers played 45 seasons in Ebbets Field -- and there were eight triple plays there.
• Finally, the legendary Bill Chuck reports this was just the second 2-5-6-3 triple play ever. The other? It took place on May 21, 1950 (Cardinals versus Phillies).
Nine lives department
Speaking of great Dodgers feats … here's one that eluded Koufax, Kershaw, Fernando, Drysdale, Nomo, Hershiser and every other luminary ever to throw a pitch for the Dodgers -- until Friday.
But on an incredible Friday night at Dodger Stadium, Harang struck out nine hitters in a row. Nine. So how astounding was that?
• Harang had gone 42 consecutive starts without striking out nine hitters in a game -- then he struck out nine hitters in a row. Of course he did.
• Only four other starting pitchers in history have ever struck out at least nine straight hitters. And it's quite the funky list: Your record holder is Tom Seaver (10 in a row in 1970). The three others with nine: Ricky Nolasco in 2009, Jake Peavy in 2009 and Mickey Welch in 1884. Bet you never thought you'd ever read those names in the same sentence.
• But what did Harang do that those other men did not? He got his first nine outs of the GAME via those nine punchouts in a row (after a leadoff single). Hard to do, friends.
• Our favorite streak guru, Trent McCotter, checked in with all the relief pitchers who ever whiffed at least nine in a row (though obviously not in one game): Eric Gagne (10; May 17-21, 2003), Ron Davis (9; May 4-9, 1981), Armando Benitez (9; Sept. 8-14, 1998) and Joaquin Benoit (9; May 17-23, 2010).
• And who's the only starting pitcher ever to pile up nine straight K's over multiple games? It was none other than Stephen Strasburg, over the first two starts of his career, June 8-13, 2010.
• Want to guess the last right-handed starter before Harang to have nine strikeouts through the first three innings of any game (not necessarily in order)? Good luck. It was the Astros' Don Wilson, on July 14, 1968. Wilson wound up punching out 18 that night.
• But Harang didn't even get a win in this game, because the Padres scored five runs off the L.A. bullpen in the last three innings to tie the game -- only to give the game back to the Dodgers on another bizarre feat. The Dodgers had two outs in the ninth and nobody on; two Padres relievers then walked four hitters in a row. According to SABR's Bob Timmerman (via Dodgerthoughts.com's Jon Weisman), it was the first game to end on four straight walks since May 19, 1989, when the Giants walked the Mets' Lenny Dykstra, Tim Teufel, Howard Johnson and Darryl Strawberry in succession with two outs in the 10th.
• One thing Harang did do, though, was wind up with 13 strikeouts -- on Friday the 13th. He was the first pitcher to whiff 13 on any Friday the 13th, according to Elias, since Dwight Gooden did it June 13, 1986.
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