Seven o'clock. Decent chance of rain. Hideo Nomo and Mark Redman.
...Bucs pretty much unloaded on Nomo, he of the freaky delivery. Looks like hitters who haven't seen him go up and there and think WTF? Then they notice the pitches are pretty easy to whale. And they start whaling.
Rob Mackowiak's 2005 splits continue to fascinate me. He had a lousy April, but has an 833 or higher OPS against every team in the league except the Giants, the Padres, and the Marlins. The last two have great rotations. He has a 673 OPS as an outfielder. Does he not like playing the outfield, or is it some kind of distraction? If so, why? Does he spend too much time between innings getting advice about where to stand, and too little time watching the opposing pitcher? He has a 1302 OPS as a third baseman. These numbers are based on small numbers of at-bats, but they are dramatic, extreme, so probably meaningful.
Tonight Mackowiak hit third. He had two hits, the first with runners in scoring position. In the bottom of the fifth, the Rays intentionally walked him to pitch to Jason Bay. Bay tripled and broke the game open.
Both Redmans were great. Tike had a nice catch against the wall in centerfield, robbing some poor sap of a home run an extra base hit. He also tripled and scored three times. Mark Redman was never in much trouble. Carl Crawford singled to start the game, but Dave Ross threw him out. Crawford has sixteen steals and that was the third time he was caught. He's fast. The Bucs turned three double plays. They have Redman's back. Mark Redman must love playing in front of Mackowiak, Wilson, and Castillo.
All in all, a beautiful 7-2 victory for the Bucs. 27,000 fans left wondering how soon they could get back.
Me and my ice-cold Rolling Rock say all hail that.
...hey, lookit. Yankees went to St. Louis and the Cards put them down. Bucs 29-30, Yankees 29-31. Much will be made of the Bucs' schedule to date, which has been one of the easier ones, but guess what, the Yankees are right there with them in that department. Both have played teams with a cumulative .488 winning percentage.
This could be misleading. It's demonstrably and obviously false, that teams are consistently a certain amount of good. So that measure doesn't say how strong a team was when they played the Pirates or the Yankees; it says how strong they've been all year. Teams that have been playing the torrid Pirates may not appreciate getting credit for facing only a .483 team.
And the numbers could be read different ways. In the Pirates' case, for example, the low cumulative winning percentage of opponents has something to do with the Pirates breaking their will to compete. Surely. You play the Pirates and look bad, you know, that hurts, it breaks your will to compete. You didn't expect that; it rocks your world. You look in the mirror and see gray hair and spreading incompetence. No one will believe you, you think, when you tell them that the Pirates played good.
On the other hand, you play the Yankees and look good, maybe that has to give a team a charge. You are inspired to kick some more ass over the next week or two. Those numbers could be read a number of ways. That's all I'm saying.
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