Game of the Day (4/4/84)

Red Sox 2, Angels 1. Mike Witt, a youngster who was making the first appearance of his first really good year, started for California; Bob Ojeda, who was a little older and not quite as good, took the mound for Boston.

Game of the Day (4/4/14)

Brewers 6, Red Sox 2. Yes, this is the game from 2014, not 1984 (when it would have been a routine AL East matchup). No, I'm still not entirely accustomed to full-season interleague play.

Game of the Day (4/3/84)

A's 6, Brewers 5. The pitching matchup would have been a really good one only a few years earlier - Milwaukee's Don Sutton was a future Hall of Famer and the 1980 NL ERA champ, while Oakland's Steve McCatty led the AL in ERA in 1981 (sort of). By 1984, however, Sutton was on the decline, and McCatty was all but washed up.

Game of the Day (4/3/14)

Yesterday's slate included a 3-2, 12-inning walkoff win by the A's that scored an exemplary 5.01 in WPL. This is exactly the kind of game that makes it extremely difficult for 9-inning contests to score as the best of the day when there's an extra-inning game played.

Difficult, but not impossible. All it takes is a game like Twins 10, White Sox 9.

Game of the Day (4/2/84)

For the last two years, I have not only collected WPL data for the ongoing baseball season; I have also collected the data for a prior year. In 2012, I also entered 2011. And last year, I concurrently analyzed 1977, just to change things up (and to see how the numbers differed across eras, which will be discussed more later). And this year, I'm going to do 1984.

Why 1984? Because it's also an older year, but not right next to 1977, so it will add extra flavor to my expanding WPL dataset. Because it'll be interesting to see how an unusually exceptional team scores in WPL (the '84 Tigers started 35-5, which is... pretty decent). Because it's the title of a good dystopian book, and will probably give me a few opportunities to make unimpressive jokes in that vein.

And, most of all, because the Cubs were good in 1984, and I'm probably going to need something happy to look back on this year.

Opening Day 1984 included three games, the best of which was Angels 2, Red Sox 1.

Game of the Day (4/2/14)

Pirates 4, Cubs 3 (16). For future reference, when there is a game with a (16) next to it, it's usually going to be the Game of the Day.

Game of the Day (4/1/14)

Rangers 3, Phillies 2.

Opening Day between these two teams brought a football score, 14-10. So with the best starters out of the way, they naturally settled in for a pitcher's duel.