AND INTERLEAGUE PLAY AFTER ONE MONTH IS...

...well, it's something akin to a coinflip, but...de-centered, elliptical, quite possibly obloid.

It's exactly like a two-headed coin flip, to be as precise (and as surreal) as possible, all at once.

It's a roller coaster that suddenly, without warning, turns into a mobius strip.



It's...aw, to hell with all those analogies and the accompanying literary confuffulations. It's damn close. The AL has pulled ahead, 14-13, having won eleven of the last sixteen games.

You can see the results at your left. (We were thinking about putting in the actual scores of the games as they were played, but we were stricken by a wood sliver from hell during the return of the World's Greatest Film Poster Collection You've Never Heard Of--take that, Paul Leibowitz!!--and, mercifully for some of you, had our typing time severely restricted for a few days there. We have no idea how all those young wizards are so proficient using their thumbs, but it's nice to know that this is still what separates from the other animal orders.)

Brace yourselves, however. While we had but 27 interleague games tricking our way in April, we will have 94 of them in May (which probably means that, pace T.S. Eliot, April is not the cruelest month after all).

You'll see that schedule here in a day or so. We remain astonished to discover that we are the only folks providing any kind of semi-systematic coverage of the great interleague drizzle of 2013 (insert imagery here of post-expiration-date salad dressing blown through the air by giant wind machines, leaving mysterious stains on landscape and fabric, engendering media frenzy over a mutant off-product from so-called "clean coal" processing that's quickly dubbed "balsamic black carbon" by those racing to turn panic into the latest fashion trend) but it's quite possible that we are--snif!--the only ones who care.

Of course, it's possible that by the end of the year, we won't care, either...

WILL IT BE ALL'S WELLS THAT ENDS WELLS?

A double dose of irony, even if it proves fleeting, is too delicious not to savor, even if it may lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight.

And so we trot out our dear friend and occasional (very occasional...) boon companion--more on that later--Mr. Vernon Wells, who has...temporarily at least...gone from being the scourge of Anaheim to the toast of New York. (Different kind of toast, kiddies, the one with the bubbles as opposed to the one festooned with tell-tale traces of carbon.)

The double irony? Vernon, who brought his enormous salary to Anaheim and promptly turned into a pumpkin, was sent East prior to the start of the 2013 season when the Yankees suddenly discovered that virtually their entire roster was turning into the same substance that Lot's Wife became when she ignored the admonitions of Ye Olde Lord (and Bob Dylan, for that matter).

Into the scorched valley of death Wells loped, with the Yankees--normally the team with the groaning ledger sheet--making sure that Arte Moreno's boys would be picking up two-thirds of Vernon's egregious overpay.

So now, as April 2013 rides off into the sunset, Wells has had a fine month for the Bronx Bombers, with six homers and a .900+ OPS. The Yankees--at least for now--have a bargain on their hands.

Of course, it may not last...so many things are ephemeral these days. The last time Vernon had a .900+ OPS over the course of a month was in September 2010, when he was still with the Blue Jays.

We'd like to think that our brief encounter with Wells, last September in Oakland, when he happened to be loitering near the team bus after a game in which he'd hit what proved to be his second-to-last HR as a member of the Angels, was a galvanizing moment. Vernon was happy, of course; when we suggested that things might be looking up, he offered a couple of brief dance steps, spun around on his heels, and pointed his finger accusingly.

"Don't you be jinxing me, hear?" he said. He was smiling, but the glint in his eyes was intense enough that we quickly agreed not to do so.

Until, possibly, right now.

HOW IS THAT 2 2B/G VS. 2 3B/G THING WORKING OUT?

Quickly, because we are swamped with the impending arrival of a huge collection of what eBay has so kindly taken to calling "entertainment memorabilia," we revisit our recent point of ideological urgency: the ratio between the number of games where players hit two or more doubles, and the number of games in which they hit two or more triples.

Last night (4/25) Domonic Brown had a couple of doubles for the Phils in a game they lost to the Pirates, 6-4. That made the 76th instance of 2+ 2B in a game this year, which is working out to just about three a day. That pace would result in around 540-550 such games over the season. (There were 557 such games in 2012).

Elvis has left the building...and is headed toward third.

As for triples, we had a second 2-3B game on April 1st (Elvis Andrus), but we haven't had one since.

So that ratio, while not 80:1 (something that apparently unfolds over what the philosophes like to call "the ripeness of time"), it's about 38:1 at the moment.

Remember that we had 7 such 2-3B games in 2012. That's about one a month, as opposed to three a day.

We need to do something about that ratio. As we told you, back in 1920 it was 4:1. We looked at the Play Index (thanks, as always, to Forman et fil for that marvelous tool...) and found that there are fourteen instances so far this year where players had at least one double and one triple in a game. If half of those games were somehow able add a second 3B, the ratio would drop to about 5:1.

The 190-foot line and the inning of the imposed shift would also affect this ratio, though it's hard to say how many more two-triple games it would create.

Remember: watching guys run the bases is a lot more exciting than watching them trot around the bases.

TOP 30 HITTERS, LAST 3 MONTHS

Of course it's only OPS, and it's just from July 21st of last year until yesterday, but here are the top thirty hitters in baseball over that time span:

Some surprising names on this list, don't you think?? Did anyone know that Aramis Ramirez had been playing that well? Chris Davis and Miguel Cabrera have hit the most HRs in the time span (rouughly half a season). Coco Crisp with 13 HRs over half a season??

Looks like Justin Upton has hit as many homers in the first 3+ weeks of April as he did over the last portion of 2012. And Carlos Santana may at last be rounding into form in what is now his age-27 season (though he can really hit into those DPs, can't he?).

Note the presence of both Bryce Harper and Mike Trout on this list. Highest BA: Torii Hunter (.366). Lowest BA: Mark Reynolds (.244).

Data courtesy of David Pinto's terrific Day-by-Day Database.

DROWNING FISH

She can't bear to look...but she
can't turn away, either.

We alluded to the situation in Miami a little while back...something about owner/sadist Jeffrey Loria possibly needing to stay hidden from view during the course of the 2013 season. We've now got a ninth of the season in the books (can you imagine?), and while that's still too early to call, we must dutifully report that we may well be in for a world-historical level of dreckitude.

It might be best to avert your eyes from both the field and the fish tank at ever-controversial Marlin Park, where all relevant life forms are facing holocaust-like conditions.

Tell the truth and get "asked to leave": this
fan did not get to stay and see the Fish
flop in their 2013 home opener...

Tonight at Marlins Park, the troublingly toothsome televangelist Joel Osteen (no relation to our old friend Claude) will bring his "Ministry of Hope" to what will without doubt be the only sellout crowd at the stadium in 2013. Osteen, who dipped his toe onto the pitching rubber in DC last year before cozying up to another baffling pseudo-religious figure (Mitt Romney), will be hard-pressed to bring a credible message of "hope and encouragement" to any Marlins fans who may be in attendance.

For the Fish, as we've always liked to call them, just lost a hard-fought 3-2 game to the Cincinnati Reds. They are now 4-14 on the season. Teams have had worse starts, to be sure. But what makes this situation so ominous is that the Fishies have lost thirteen of these games while scoring two runs or less.

Here's a stat that might give you pause. When teams allow three or fewer runs in a game, they tend to win a sizable number of those contents. In MLB so far in 2013, for example, teams that allow three runs or less in a game have a .763 winning percentage (167-52).

The Fish are now 2-7 in those games.

Bogie and Liz in the appropriately entitled
"Dead Reckoning"...location shooting,
alas, was in Tampa, not Miami.

Over the first ninth of the season, they've averaged 2.05 runs per game. The record low for runs scored/game in baseball history is 2.42, which was set by the 1908 St. Louis Cardinals.

Last year's fire sale looks as though it has set up a long season of death by drowning.

 

Why is this man smiling?? $2.75m for
playing on what might be the worst team
since the '03 Tigers: hey, life's a beach!

Now, to be fair, Miami has been playing without its best hitter (Giancarlo Stanton) for about half of the season. But even "Mike" (his former name, and with this team he might want to take on yet another new identity--we'll stick to our dark film noir roots and suggest that he go for a good ol' classic like "Dusty," which just happens to be the one Bogie pinned on Lizabeth Scott when he thought she was a conniving vixen) can only do so much when he has Placido Polanco, a 37-year old banjo-hitting third baseman, hitting behind him.

Sticking with the Lichtenstein theme--
manager Mike Redmond, alum of the
'03 WS champs, will ask to trade places
with N'awlins manager Ron Hassey...

The frightening part is that the Fish just don't have anything resembling offensive help in their farm system. Wisecracking veteran Nick Green, profiled in these pages awhile back, has escaped from New Orleans again and is now starting at SS while the kid with the ungainly name--Adeiny Hecheverria--recovers from a fractured fetlock or something (OK, OK, he's got a bruised arm...24 years young and he goes on the DL for a bruised arm??). We love Nick, but he's not going to turn around a jalopy of a franchise that's had its brakes cut. The guys they have on the DL--Logan Morrison and (Mighty) Casey Kotchman--aren't going to make much difference in the scheme of things when they come back (if there's anything to come back to, that is).

The Fish have hit just five homers thus far. They've not gotten many men on base (.266 OBP), and when they do, they manage to hit into DPs (second highest in the NL, behind the Giants).

We call this one the "Race to Retchedness"...

The possibilities for world-historical badness are right here, right now. The Fish have a little bit of pitching, enough to keep them in games against some teams, but it's hard to see how they will get to three runs a game, even with a healthy, homer-hitting Stanton.

As always, we provide a little historical (or is that hysterical?) context in the chart at right.

Stay tuned (where have you heard that before??) for more adventures below the replacement level...this could be fun, in a supremely morbid kind of way.

[UPDATE: Fish hit a home run! Fish score six runs! Fish...lose anyway. Something about an eight-run seventh for the Reds. The other 26 teams that have started the year 4-15 have combined for a year-end WPCT of .380...only three of these teams have finished the season at .500 or better.]

DEPRIVATION, BASEBALL STYLE

The poor Photoshop work notwithstanding, 'tis a
classic...a kind of "Your Bimbo Here" moment.

Today brings two pieces of news that just might force us into faux-Joe P. mode, slapping phonemes around in that odd back-and-forth, ox-bow style of his, fixated as he is on the abjection of joy and the commodification of loss, a genial variant of manic depression with a surfeit of dependent clauses.

Joe (and a small army of others) will be of two minds about our first piece of news: Derek Jeter won't be playing until at least the All-Star Break. (We--being "we," of course--have a sneaking suspicion that this might well turn into a completely lost season for the King of the Gift Basket.)

Either way, this will be mind-splitting for many, who are used to having Jeter in their gun sites, and whose lives (if not some actual portion of their livelihood) are dependent on having such a overweening symbol of scorn (obviously not a problem around THESE parts, of course...) available on a daily basis. In a world so saturated by negativity that its spirit is of necessity twisted inside out to become some sphinx-like symptom of affirmation, the sudden absence of a hate-object can lead to bizarre behavior (the sudden obsession with the number 2, for example, or--ripped straight from the pages of the Law&Order playbook--the construction of a weird, totemic shrine to the former lightning rod of derision).

Silence, while golden, is hardly ever an option at a time like this, but we can hope that our little rumination, with a little of that Joe P. maundering meander built into its chassis, will function as a kind of literary angioplasty for those who find themselves fibrillating at the idea of being without The Man They Love To Hate. (Or, as Joe would say: "Don't Just Hate--Jeterate!")

Rest assured that we will be monitoring the sales of Teddy Bears, which we expect will be spiking over the next several weeks as the ramifications of this news item become fully evident.

•

Item two is, as is our wont, a good bit more obscure--but it actually has more resonance than the absence of one overhyped, over-talked about ballplayer. Today, April 19th, 2013, is the first day of this baseball season where there will not be a single game of baseball played during the day. All of the games on today's schedule will be night games.

That fact always produces a slight pang of regret, a twinge of remorse, a stab of pain, and possibly a crock-pot of overwrought nostalgia-mongering. It seems that the further away from an old, outmoded, but still somehow attractive social practice we get, the greater the yearning for it becomes. So even though we all know that the economics of the game has long since dictated the decline of day baseball and the near-extinction of the doubleheader, even though our heads accept this idea, somehow our hearts are not quite able to comply, and we long for what is no longer there. Sounds like a time to cue up William Bell, don't it? And why the hell not??



Here's what our "compromise" would be for the BGOB (Business Gods of Baseball). Have all the night games you gotta have, but with one provision that tips its cap to the GOD (Good Old Days). On every day of the season, schedule at least one day game somewhere. Keep that connection to the past alive by making it an ongoing--and unwavering--feature of the baseball schedule on a daily basis.

Hell, you can do this by starting a game at three or four in the afternoon...we don't have to be slavish about it. If starting a little later in the afternoon on a Friday or a Monday (the days of the week that are almost always 100% night games) will mollify the players, then do it. (The players will probably like it: it gives them another evening in their lives, most of which wind up being spent at the ballpark.)

Lord, no...you don't have to...heck, even
John preferred May Pang...

(Day baseball is quirkier than its nocturnal counterpart. We'd challenge our research-minded colleagues at Retrosheet to determine if there are more fly balls that drop in for hits during the day...we're figuring that it's at least a 3:1 ratio. Does anyone out there have the data??)

It's a very little thing, to be sure...not something to get manic-depressive about (either for real, or via some variant of a passive-aggressive literary style). Most people aren't going to notice, fewer may care: but for those who connect with the qualitative differences between the two types of baseball, this tiny piece of symbolism has a higher meaning that's worth fighting for.

All we are saying is...at least one day game every day. (And, no, you don't have to get into bed with Yoko Ono to be part of this "protest movement". Today, we have T-shirts. You know, someone could clean up with a "Don't Just Hate... Jeterate!" T-shirt...but don't hesitate, all you entrepreneurs out there, otherwise that balky ankle might just make it too late. Operators are waiting for your calls, right NOW!!)

QMAX WATCH 2013: EARLY TOTALS FOR "1S" GAMES

Department of "bad taste is timeless" opening sentences: Yes, that's right, when the fertilizer plant blows up in Texas, it's time for QMAX.

(Seriously, we express our sincere condolences to those whose family members were hurt or killed in the Waco blast.)

Now, back to QMAX (short for the Quality Matrix). We'll take a quick look at the best hit prevention performances thus far in 2013, which fall into the top row of the QMAX matrix diagram (as shown at right). The "1S" row is the elite row for low-hit games, where the number of hits allowed must be at least four fewer than the number of innings pitched.

There are 57 such games thus far in 2013; that's up eight over the same time last year. (This is not meant to be predictive of anything; it's too early to tell if there's any trend. 1S games have, however, increased by 36% since 2007.)

To verify just how elite this elite row is, consider that the aggregate ERA for the pitchers' performances in this set of games is 0.44. The won-loss record for the pitchers in these games is 40-2. (Overall, teams are 45-12 in these games: we calculate the QMAX WPCT, which we impishly abbreviate as QWP, from the average of those two records, which right now places it at around .870, not very far off the historical average.)

We do have already one of those rara avis QMAX performances, a "1,7" game, where the walks allowed is greater than the number of innings pitched. That belongs to Matt Moore of the Rays, who pulled it off on April 10th.

Our tabular display here shows the distribution of "1S" games by teams as of 4/17. Note that the Mets' Matt Harvey has three consecutive "1S" performances in his new role as starting pitcher; he'll go for a fourth in the next couple of days.

Also note that there are a few teams who've yet to have a "1S" game (four, to be exact.) One of these are the currently high-flying Oakland A's, which might make some skeptics (and you know who you are...) wonder if any of this breakout actually means anything. Here we must invoke the small sample size caveat, and remind you that we are looking at about one-thirteenth of a season's worth of data (that's about 7%).

The A's have five "2S" performances thus far ("2S" is the region just below the one we are focusing on that produces wins at about a 72% clip), which is in the top five for that category. And they've gone 6-2 in games where their starters have allowed more hits than innings pitched, which is a little more than three games better than the average team performance. This is another indication that their current 12-4 record is a bit inflated.

Likewise, the Mariners are getting wonderful top-level performances from King Felix and the apparently unsinkable Hisashi Iwakuma, but that's not translating into overall success. Some parks prevent hits just as much as they prevent runs, or they prevent particular types of hits; Safeco has always been one of these...this year, however, the fences were brought in, so we'll have to see how this affects the "1S" home/road splits, which have historically been among the most tilted toward the home park in all of baseball (upwards of 3:1). So far this year, it's 1.5:1 (3 at home, 2 away).

We were expecting the flailing Fish (Marlins, in case you're coming to these pages for the first time) to be the team that had been "1-Sed" by opposing starters the most thus far, but it's actually the Phillies who have that dubious honor. (You can see that data in the far right column, the one marked "Opp.")

We'll look at all this again later on...stay tuned.

WHITHER BRIAN LAHAIR??

Actually, this isn't a "whither" reference at all: we know where Brian LaHair is--he's in Japan, playing for the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks. (How you pronounce "Fukuoka," however, may influence your response to what follows.)

Nancy Reagan would have approved, but
she'd have been wrong...

The question is why did 29 other major league teams not take a flyer on a guy who hit 16 HRs and posted a 111 OPS+ last season for the Cubs. None of our usual Theo-thrashing applies here: it's clear that Anthony Rizzo was their first baseman of the future.

Now, don't get us wrong. LaHair is not the second coming of anything, even LaCock (that's Pete LaCock, for those of you who think we're suddenly going pornadelic on you). Brian is 30, he's big and slow, he can't hit lefties (as a matter of fact, he might not be able to hit them if they threw to him underhanded).

But he can hit righties, and even as he limped home in 2012 after a fast start made him the two-minute darling of those who have that eggy shape identifying them as likely basement dwellers, he demonstrated some proficiency as a pinch-hitter. As a platoon DH somewhere (Houston, what's your problem?) he still has some semblance of value in the majors.

A team like the Brewers, for example, could have taken a flyer on him. Their first baseman, Corey Hart, is on the 60-day DL and they are currently playing Yuniesky Betancourt (yes, you are reading that correctly) at first. Betancourt was picked up on the rebound when he was released in spring training.

The current production for the Brewers first baseman: .191 BA, .531 OPS. (That includes Betancourt's grand slam yesterday against the Giants. We don't recommend holding your breath for that to happen again anytime soon.)

Maybe if he'd had hair that
lived up to his name...

[EDIT: No, Yuniesky, you devil, you just hit another homer against the Giants... At this rate, you'll be leading the league by the end of the month.]

In that context, Brian LaHair looks pretty darned good, even if lefties do turn him into a turd in the punchbowl. [EDIT: And even if Yuniesky is bound and determined to do the same to us...]

He hit well against NL Central rivals in 2012, including the Brewers. Surely somebody noted that he was better in higher leverage situations, better against contenders--you know, subtle signals that he might be a useful bench player?

Ahh, no. So: Fukuoka, Brian. But cheer up: you may be the only player in MLB history released in the same season you made the All-Star team.

(Yes, yes, we know: anomalies r us.)

The randomness of decision-making when it comes to the 24th and 25th players on a baseball roster is kind of fascinating; someone with enough time on their hands should study it, even if the results proved to be, well, random.

INTERLEAGUE SCHEDULE: WHO KNEW?

As we noted earlier, interleague play is on a "slow drip" in 2013; it's as if we aren't really supposed to know much about it anymore. Of course, those of you who frequent Forman et fil will always be able to see what the running tally is (it's displayed in a semi-prominent place on their main page), but a search of the Internet failed to turn up any place where the interleague schedule was broken out.

So, naturally, we are here to fill that information gap. The chart at right is simultaneously your schedule and results table for interleague play. Just in case you're wondering, AL wins are marked in orange, NL wins are marked in light blue. (Rainouts are shown in gray.)

What surprised us when we compiled it, however, was a fact that never surfaced in any of the coverage referencing the deployment of interleague play in 2013. Namely, that there would be days like today (April 16) where there are multiple interleague games.

For the next three days, we'll have more than one game--three today and tomorrow, and two on Thursday the 18th. Who knew?

We don't know how often this will happen in 2013 because we haven't compiled the full interleague schedule yet--but we'll be back with that info for May, and (unless one of our highly motivated readers wants to leap in with the answer...) we'll all find out then. Our understanding is that there are a couple of weekends in May and June where interleague play will take over in the kudzu-like way it used to; that will make our chart more lopsided, of course.

But as you already know, we live for lopsided...also anything "upside your head," sideswiped, semi-permeable, and simultaneously sacred and profane. Interleague play sure seems to fit (somehow) into each and every one of those odd mental categories, so there you go. And here we go...