7/15 - Sox @ Minnesota

[aprec32]

Huge Win for us! Love that we came back, especially when there were people on here saying "We won't score again" after being down 6-4

[danman31]

After watching this game, I really feel like the team might be past the mental block in Minnesota.

After watching them split the first 2 in the new stadium I felt the mental block was gone. It was the stadium, not the location.

[Springfield Soxfan]

Thank god. (BTW, I still think Danks runs should be UNearned.)

I agree totally, the Rios drop really hurt him but we came through, great win. 26 more games against the Twins and the Tigers though.

[caulfield12]

Jenks and AJ made an interesting decision to go with the change-up against either Young or Kubel.

 

Seems his dominant out pitch is again the slider/cutter...which works a heckuva lot better at 95-97 than 91-94.

[Real]

Jenks doesn't throw a 90-92mph slider btw, it looked like a 2-seamer or a cutter

 

Also the pitch to Thome looked like a slider, not the curveball since his curveball doesn't have that angled tilt to it unless he's throwing some new type of curveball

[greg775]

Huge Win for us! Love that we came back, especially when there were people on here saying "We won't score again" after being down 6-4

 

Game threads don't seem to attract confident fans. There's usually a lot of doom and gloom. When the going gets tough, the posters don't like it.

[Real]

it was me doing the whole doom and gloom routine, i can't help it, it pisses me off so much when the pitching or whatever other aspect of the team starts pissing down their leg like Johnny did in the 2nd inning, that was f***ing pathetic

 

but we won anyways, so whatever!

[greg775]

i can't help it,

 

You ain't alone.

People who read game threads regularly know the routine.

[chw42]

Does this play data take into account the fact that for decades teams have been batting their best players 3rd and 4th, and thus causing the 4th and 5th hitters to obviously have more AB's with runners on (considering the best hitters usually have the higher OBP on the team)?

 

Sorry to beat a dead horse, but just got back from an errand I had to run. Go Sox!

 

It doesn't, however, there have been studies done to explain what you just said.

 

If you were to make a Markov Chain of nothing but average hitters 1-9, you will see that every hitter will come up a similar amount of plate appearances to the actual play by play data.

 

In addition, in the normal play by play data, the clean-up hitter comes up with a man on base half the time, when you look at this from the average player model, it is virtually the same. So basically, it's really not all that dependent on what you just brought up.

 

Plus, you should know that 3rd place hitters come up with two outs nearly 37% of the time. The highest figure of all hitters in the lineup. So putting your best hitter third is somewhat of a waste.

 

Nevertheless, lineup optimization only gets you 10-15 runs per year, so it's not a gigantic difference. However, those 10-15 runs can result in an extra win or two.

Edited July 16, 2010 by chw42

[chw42]

This place sure ain't the Metrodome, if this was the Metrodome, we probably lose this game.