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Memphis wins the first game, 7-0. Austin Love got the 7th, fanned the first two, walked a batter on four pitches, and ended the game on a lineout. Had a couple pitches at 98.7.
Two really strong games by Mathews in a row.
Yup, should have had Soto at the plate dead to rights.
Brand new ballgame after 5, tied at 4. Hopefully the Mets’ pen is feeling the weight of the work from the last two days.
Still tied after 6 as Soriano has a super efficient inning. They didn’t show one out on MLB as the ball apparently was very high in the air and the wind blew it back fair for Noot to get the out.
After 2, I would not have guessed the score would be 4-4 at the stretch. It doesn’t stay that way as Soto unknots the game on a two strike solo HR.
Memphis jumps out to the lead 5-0 in the top of the first in the second game of their doubleheader. Memphis is tied with Nashville for the division lead, 3.5 up on the third place team. The Redbirds play four more (including this game) at Norfolk then host Nashville for 6 to end the first half. Memphis and Nashville haven’t met yet this year.
It will be Crooks, Gorman (or Torres as PH?) and Church (and hopefully Wetherholt and the rest of the top of the lineup) facing Williams in the 9th. Williams hasn’t pitched in 4 days. Lefties have a .783 OPS against him so far this year.
Williams gets the three rookie lefties in the 9th, game over, 5-4 Mets. Going to NYC, I would have been happy with 2 of 3, but today’s game was there for us to grab the sweep. On to Minnesota. They’re 31-39 on the season and have lost 6 of their last 10.
Disappointing but you take 2-3 on the road and it takes some of the sting away. Next up Minnesota. Let’s take that one as well.
Today was the Cardinals second opportunity this season, but they can’t quite reach the 10 games above sea level plateau. In any case, they showed their tendency to strike back after it looked like the Mets were going to end this contest early during that 1st inning barrage. The Redbirds never packed it in and I’d say that there’s not a lot of shame in getting beat by Soto who, in my view, is the best player the Mets have on their baseball team.
Well tough loss. Just saw the box score and see Gorman was oh for three with two more strikeouts.
I am going to start spelling his first name “Knolan”. 😆
A sweep would have been nice but if we keep winning each series we will be in good shape. Time to take two out of three up in Minnesota.
Good RBI thoughts. Not sure how much added value RBI efficiency brings as the same guys that had a ton of RBIs are dotted all over the efficiency list.
It’s sort of a chicken and egg thing – the reason the top RBI guys have more opportunities is because they are run producers, and thus are put in the lineup to maximize their ability to drive in runs. Using our club as an example, we wouldn’t want to hit Walker lead off. You want him in a position where he will have run producing opportunities.
Having said that, I don’t understand why Ohtani hits lead off, or Schwarber. I think the Phillies moved Schwarber down. And maybe the Dodgers are so loaded they like Ohtani leading off. He would hit third in my lineup.
Mike I think the idea is to get your best hitter up to the plate as often as possible. The higher in the order, the better the chance of getting one more PA in a game. The Yankees liked to bat Judge second maybe for that reason.
the reason the top RBI guys have more opportunities is because they are run producers, and thus are put in the lineup to maximize their ability to drive in runs.
You are completely ignoring the fact they have to have people on base in front of them to drive in those runs.
I don’t agree with the reasoning, but I understand that it’s the latest fashion to slot hitters that are capable of generating plenty of power like Schwarber, Ohtani, and several others at the top of the order on the premise of maximizing their trips to the plate in a game. In my estimation, it’s much better to have the proverbial monster standing in 3 or 4 times per game with baserunners aboard, than to have him swing the bat 5 or even 6 times in a game with no one on base. When I glance at the top 10 all time King Kongs of the RBI, I can’t for the life of me imagine slotting Albert, Henry, Lou, Stan, or the Babe anywhere other than 3rd or cleanup in any batting order. These types of hitters smell blood and have eyes that light up like they just hit the jack pot when they stand in the box with baserunners aboard. Why in the world would you have them take their first PA with zero or no chance of pushing a baserunner across and then take their subsequent PA’s hitting behind the tail end and weakest part of the order? It just doesn’t stand up to reasoning to me.
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In terms of the metric that Brian brought up yesterday, my biggest qualm with it is that it subtracts homeruns from the numerator, so it penalizes a hitter for driving themselves in with a home run.
I would fashion the statistic more similar to the run expectancy table, where the chances of scoring a runner are based on what base the runner is on and how many outs there are. I would make it a counting statistic, like RBIs.
It would have to be based on the inverse of the probabilities. In the table I linked to, you have a .481 chance of scoring if you are the leadoff batter in an inning. Let’s say that was the probability of hitting a homerun (it is not, because it is heavily influenced by your ability to get on base, your teammates ability to advance you, and somebody’s ability to knock you in), you would be awarded (1-.481) for hitting that solo shot to start the inning. Because you are using the inverse, and the probability of scoring a runner decreases dramatically with two outs, you would get more points for two-out RBIs.
The one thing I would take out of the numerator are sacrifice flies, sacrifice bunts, and ground-out RBIs. They count against you in all situations except when there is a runner on third? They should still count against you.
In the case of batting Ohtani first, he has a career .377 OBP, and this year it is .421.
If that is the highest on the team, by all means, bat him first. Because only 26% of his hits are homeruns. You are increasing the chances of the team scoring the other 74% of the time he gets on base, and he gets to bat significantly more times than the number four hitter over the course of the year…
I think if the lineup only had Ohtani and a bunch of Victor Scotts and Michael Sianis, you wouldn’t bat Ohtani first. But this is the Dodgers and they typically feature several great hitters and most everyone else is above average. For them, hitting Ohtani first makes lots of sense. Put the guy who is best at getting on base on base as many times as possible. The second time around he still has good hitters in front of him because it’s the Dodgers.
For the Cardinals, it wouldn’t be as smooth to bat Walker first because he’d have a few guys in front of him who don’t often get on base. I might be ok with swapping Herrera and Walker, but I think the way Ollie has it now is probably best.
Speaking of our lineup – it is soooo much better now with Church playing CF and Nootbaar back. I also love the Jimmy Crooks days (from the offensive side anyway) even though it didn’t net us a win yesterday. If Gorman would snap out of the complete funk he’s in and become even an average or close to average MLB hitter, our lineup would be one of the better ones in baseball now (well, top 10 anyway). Unfortunately, Gorman is in a giant black hole where he’s basically unplayable and Winn has also struggled some for a couple months. Just imagine if this team had kept Arenado and traded Gorman away instead this past offseason for a good AA third baseman who could replace Nado when he retires.
Gorman typically goes on a couple of hot streaks in a year where he hits 6 or 7 dingers in two weeks and looks like the best hitter on the team. He hasn’t even done that this year. Hopefully he has a hot streak or two left for the year. I was a bit fooled. I thought he would be at least average ish with the bat and low quality defender to provide us something akin to Arenado at 3B (1-2 WAR). He’s now negative WAR. Something will need to change soon.
Years ago a book titled “Percentage Baseball” was penned by Earnshaw Cook, an early day stat analyst. In it he advocated for a lineup where your best all around hitter would bat first, next best at two etc.
Baseball people at the time mostly ignored it as they felt having your top hitter bat after your worst guys was not optimal.
I think the ideal lineup would have your low power, high OBP guys at one and two, your power guys at three thru five, and your weaker hitters at the lower slots. Ideally put speed at the top. That seems to still prevail most of the time, although teams have gone to using their big guy second more in DH lineups.
Whitey had the two jackrabbits at the top and Tommy Herr at three in that magical ‘85 season, and Tommy drove in what, 110 runs without much power. Those were unusual teams – almost deadball style teams with speed and the stolen base highly valued. John McGraw would have loved those clubs.
Oh, and the reason you subtract homers on that stat is to avoid double counting, as you are picking up the homer in the RBI number.
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