NLD 14

[Jeepdriver]

Silver continued to be hot and cooled me off slightly taking two last night, one game a blow-out and another by shutout, but I saw some bright spots and Silver was at home, so I'm still pleased with the results. That is, if I can clutch my muscles when Silver comes to my place. :)

[joethejet]

<sigh>

Lose 2 of 3 again. Once again we lose the critical one run game that you need to win to win a series. I know everyone loses these games sometimes, be we lose them EVERY TIME. This time it's in 11 innings, Smoltz actually pitches good, but we leave 11 on base :roll: and hit into a doubleplay. We're actually a pretty good clutch hitting team, but you wouldn't know it from the results this year. :( Be nice to hit a few HRs which is what Utley did to win the game after we left the bases loaded (with 0 out!!!!) in the 10th, guys on 1-3 in the 9th and a one out triple in the 8th. Unreal.

Guess I should count my lucky stars we didn't get swept. Zito actually out pitched Clemens in game 1. Zito has really come on. I can't complain about him any more! ;)

The other game was boring except for Hammond giving up 3 more runs in 2.2 IP. :roll: Including 2 HRs. I know he's going to give up HRs, but one every 4 1/3 IP?? :shock: He's not THAT bad! One every 17 batters faced.

On we go, night after night.

Jet

[cirills]

I am happy to be scraping along. :)

[Jeepdriver]

Another sweep by QK leaves me 4 behind him now, but I'm still 7 games up in the WC. That right there tells you how dominant QK's team has been.

[qksilver69]

Obviously I have been refraining from any commentary so as to not jinx my experimental steals team. Interesting thing is that I am not getting hitting performances at or better than card, and a few that are incredibly worse than card. Check out frikkin' Crawford - worst performance vs. card I've ever had in SOMO, .207/.259/.330 when in real life he was .301/.331/.469. Nice 200 pt OPS differential there...

Now pitching on the other hand.... :D

[joethejet]

Our misery continues, gettting swept last night. :(

Smoltz' latest line:
[code:1:784148ace4]
Beer Knights IP H R ER BB SO HR PC ERA
J.Smoltz LOSS(8-15) 4 10 7 7 1 3 2 86 5.17[/code:1:784148ace4]

And Hermanson gives up 3 ER in 1 IP. :?

Seriously, is this team really a team that should be 20 games under? Someone tell me where we went wrong.

Is this pitching *this* bad in PNC? We got out scored 28-9 last night. :cry: On the bright side we started to show some power, 5 HRs, but only 9 runs to show for it. :(

Is this a bad team or bad luck? :?

I mean, when I compare this team to the first place Dragons, I don't see where we should be 14 games behind. Our SPs are at least as good. Carrasco is better than K Rod, although gonz is perhaps better than Hermanson. The other, match up, guys are similar on both squads.

In terms of line ups, We're better at C, 1b, 2b, 3b. He's better in RF, DH, CF, SS. LF is pretty close I think.

Not trying to say our team is better, but 14 games back? :shock: That just doesn't seem right. :?

What am I missing here?

Jet[/code]

[qksilver69]

Joe, one place to look is your pitching mix. I don't like that you have $22M+ of $28M in salaries tied up in RHP when you are in a LHP park, and all of them are E or xR, no reverse RHP, which should be at least half of your RHP budget in that park. You are killing any home advantage by having a really unbalanced staff in that regard, and your home/road ERA shows it.

Your hitting is much more balanced, no real issues there, though I question Shelton a bit, I think a switch or LH hitter for $1M less could put up the same #s.

[Ninersphan]

One other BIG difference, I think, I have one more arm in my pen. I have Helling there as well. I firmly believe HAL handles a pen better with 6 arms instead of 5, less chance for fatique, and better at playing the matchups.

Also, Maybe lady luck just finally decided to smile on me in this league. 'Bout damn time to, if you ask me. Course nothing seemd to stop qk from dominating in this league no matter what so it's proably all for naught in the long run.

[joethejet]

Silver,

Yeah, that's true. We took that park because they all have bphrs v R and don't v LHB. Course, that doesn't explain why both Smoltz and Myers have 5+ ERAs on the road! :shock: Maddux and Zito are the only ones much better on the Road. And, does that explain Carrasco's 4+ ERA at home and Hammond and Flores who are near 8 at home! :shock: And, heck, Smoltz and Carrasco are as good v LHB as some of those backwards guys anyway. There's no way Smoltz should have a 1.5 ratio in this park. :( It's not *that* good for LHB. Is it? What park would you have picked for this team? At the beginning of the season did you expect this team to stink like it has?

We went back and forth on Shelton, but the bottom line was there wasn't a lot of LHB left at the end of the draft and we already had 5 with Singleton ready for hard RHP in place of Taguchi. You start to worry about backward RHP and hard LHP. And, we had to play in GAP, the BOB and Dodger stadium in our division.

And, if it's such a good park for LHB, Guiel, J Rod, Castillo, Tex, Singleton, and Valentin should be hitting much better from the left side shouldn't they? Not a one of them is hitting over .300 v RHP!

Oh, here's another stat for you, Cabrera has exactly 1 HR v LHP so far! :shock:

Niners,

Oops, I missed Helling. That makes your pen is better than ours, but I'd say our starters *should* be better than yours. He's put up the kind of numbers you would expect from Carrasco in almost the exact same number of IP. So, it's not that Carrasco's been over used. I wasn't trying to pick on your team, just point out that we aren't 14 games (after 102 played) worse! To me we should be right there with the rest of the teams in this division.

Maybe I'm just being stubborn, but this team just seems snakebit to me. For example our offensive numbers are very similar to Shrink's, but we've scored 57 fewer runs. They are also pretty close to ATs, but we're 67 runs behind there. :?

Thanks for the feedback guys, you have some good points and and think they contribute to our struggles, but I don't think they explain them totally. Even bad teams don't lose 15 of 17 series like we have. :(

Oh well, at this point, it's probably just worth seeing it through to see if these guys EVER get better. Theoretically, guys like Smoltz should.

Jet

[joethejet]

Semper took pity on us tonight and let us sweep. Not that we didn't TRY to give games away. :roll:

Game one, we take a 8-4 lead to the top of the 9th. Check out this comedy of errors:

Carrasco on the mound
[code:1:fd7c7bb34e]
*** TOP OF INNING 9 ***
0 R.Winn 4 2 Base Error - 3B b-2
SUBSTITUTE PH- Cory Sullivan
0 2 C.Sullivan 1 Passed Ball 2-3
0 3 C.Sullivan 4 Walk b-1
0 1 3 D.Dejesus 4 Walk 1-2 b-1
0 123 O.Vizquel 4 Walk 3-H 2-3 1-2 b-1
SUBSTITUTE P - Randy Flores
0 123 K.Lofton 3 Sac Fly 3-H b-0
SUBSTITUTE PH- Chris Gomez
SUBSTITUTE P - Dustin Hermanson
SUBSTITUTE PH- Antonio Perez
1 12 A.Perez 6 Strike Out b-0
2 12 J.Drew 4 Double 2-H 1-H b-2
2 2 L.Berkman 6 Fly Out b-0[/code:1:fd7c7bb34e]

Lucky for us he was just as inept in letting us steal second and go to third in the bottom of the inning where the much maligned Teixeira gets a game winning single. Both teams make 3 errors in the game. Ugh. :oops:

In game 2, he gives us an unearned run to help us overcome injuries to Myers and Castillo.

In game 3, our gasoline brigade actually tosses 3 shutout innings without Carrasco and we score 2 in the bottom of the 9th to win a 1 run game! :o :shock:

Thanks Semper! You're a real pal. Watch out Dragons here we come. ;)

Jet