A's 9, Tigers 8 (10). Detroit's Walt Terrell faced Oakland's Mike Moore. So it's the same two teams as yesterday's homerfest, but with worse starting pitchers going.
(All right, to be fair, Moore had a very good 1991, and Terrell wasn't completely terrible.)
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
Tuesday, August 30, 2016
Game of the Day (8/30/91)
A's 6, Tigers 3 (10). Detroit's Frank Tanana had once been great, but was now 37 years old and had less than 400 innings left. Oakland's Ron Darling had never really been great, but he had been very good. At age 30, he predictably had more time left than Tanana - but not that much more, as he would be out of the league after about 650 post-'91 innings.
Monday, August 29, 2016
Game of the Day (8/29/91)
Cubs 5, Giants 4. Both teams started 25-year-old pitchers who were on the way to career high innings totals (to this point, at least).
Which is about as much similarity as I can claim between San Francisco's Trevor Wilson and Chicago's Greg Maddux.
Which is about as much similarity as I can claim between San Francisco's Trevor Wilson and Chicago's Greg Maddux.
Melog Rankings: Pre-US Open 2016
The year's final Slam, the US Open, starts today. And the lead-up to the Open has been unsettled at best; each of the usual favorites comes in with some kind of red flag.
Novak Djokovic, still comfortably #1 in the world and the defending US Open champion, lost in the first round of the Rio Olympics (albeit to about the toughest draw imaginable for a first-round match), then withdrew from the Cincinnati Masters with a wrist injury. If the wrist is still less than 100%, he could run into problems as early as the fourth round, when he likely faces either John Isner or Richard Gasquet.
Rafael Nadal is in the second quarter of the draw, and scoffs at Djokovic's injury worries; his own wrist issues are also on the left side, but since he's left-handed, that's rather more important for him. He reached the Olympic semis before losing back-to-back matches to miss out on a medal (although he did win gold in doubles); more troubling, he lost decisively in the Cincinnati round of 16 in a match that was almost certainly affected by injury. His segment of the bracket isn't overpowering, but Roberto Bautista Agut is a possible fourth-rounder, and he made Djokovic work quite hard at the same stage of the tournament last year. Likely foes beyond that point are Milos Raonic and Gael Monfils, both of whom have played formidably well this year.
Andy Murray is in better physical shape than the other two, and was on a run of some of the best tennis of his life, winning Queen's Club, Wimbledon, and Olympic gold in succession. He then cruised into the Cincinnati final - and lost in straight sets to Marin Cilic, who had never before made the semifinal of a Masters. Cilic is certainly capable of brilliant play at times, but Murray entered that match with an 11-3 record against him and the longest winning streak of his career, and... fatigue or no, that's probably a match he should have won.
But all three of them are better off than Roger Federer, whose knee-driven absence from the tour continues, and really starts to take its toll on his ranking this week.
Novak Djokovic, still comfortably #1 in the world and the defending US Open champion, lost in the first round of the Rio Olympics (albeit to about the toughest draw imaginable for a first-round match), then withdrew from the Cincinnati Masters with a wrist injury. If the wrist is still less than 100%, he could run into problems as early as the fourth round, when he likely faces either John Isner or Richard Gasquet.
Rafael Nadal is in the second quarter of the draw, and scoffs at Djokovic's injury worries; his own wrist issues are also on the left side, but since he's left-handed, that's rather more important for him. He reached the Olympic semis before losing back-to-back matches to miss out on a medal (although he did win gold in doubles); more troubling, he lost decisively in the Cincinnati round of 16 in a match that was almost certainly affected by injury. His segment of the bracket isn't overpowering, but Roberto Bautista Agut is a possible fourth-rounder, and he made Djokovic work quite hard at the same stage of the tournament last year. Likely foes beyond that point are Milos Raonic and Gael Monfils, both of whom have played formidably well this year.
Andy Murray is in better physical shape than the other two, and was on a run of some of the best tennis of his life, winning Queen's Club, Wimbledon, and Olympic gold in succession. He then cruised into the Cincinnati final - and lost in straight sets to Marin Cilic, who had never before made the semifinal of a Masters. Cilic is certainly capable of brilliant play at times, but Murray entered that match with an 11-3 record against him and the longest winning streak of his career, and... fatigue or no, that's probably a match he should have won.
But all three of them are better off than Roger Federer, whose knee-driven absence from the tour continues, and really starts to take its toll on his ranking this week.
Sunday, August 28, 2016
Game of the Day (8/28/91)
Eleven years before the 1991 season, the Astros and Phillies met in the NLCS. Even though it led to Philadelphia's first World Series title, that series is not widely remembered today; recollections of baseball around that time tend to focus on a few great teams (including the Royals, who faced the Phillies in the subsequent World Series), and the Astros are not one of them.
Remembered or not, the 1980 NLCS is one of the greatest playoff series of all time. It lasted the full five games (the LCS round was best-of-five until 1985), and four of the five contests went into extra innings. Three of them included at least two lead changes from the eighth inning on, often in swings of multiple runs at a time.
Just over a decade later, those two teams had fallen on harder times; their fortunes were looking up for the future, but both had losing records as of late August 1991. But on this particular date, they treated their fans to a performance that served as a belated encore to that fateful October week: Phillies 11, Astros 10 (10). The starting pitchers were Ryan Bowen for Houston and Terry Mulholland for the Phils; we've seen both of them before in 1991, and Mulholland, at least, would be seen again regularly by the fans of quite a few different teams over the course of the next decade and a half.
Remembered or not, the 1980 NLCS is one of the greatest playoff series of all time. It lasted the full five games (the LCS round was best-of-five until 1985), and four of the five contests went into extra innings. Three of them included at least two lead changes from the eighth inning on, often in swings of multiple runs at a time.
Just over a decade later, those two teams had fallen on harder times; their fortunes were looking up for the future, but both had losing records as of late August 1991. But on this particular date, they treated their fans to a performance that served as a belated encore to that fateful October week: Phillies 11, Astros 10 (10). The starting pitchers were Ryan Bowen for Houston and Terry Mulholland for the Phils; we've seen both of them before in 1991, and Mulholland, at least, would be seen again regularly by the fans of quite a few different teams over the course of the next decade and a half.
Saturday, August 27, 2016
Game of the Day (8/27/91)
Cardinals 5, Giants 4. San Francisco started John Burkett, a young right-hander whose career looks very light on strikeouts by present-day standards (5.7 K/9 in 1991, 6.0 over the course of his 15-year career). St. Louis opposed him with Bob Tewksbury, who was significantly less K-prone even than Burkett, or basically any other successful pitcher from Tewksbury's time or ours: 3/5 K/9 in '91, 4.0 for his career.
Friday, August 26, 2016
Game of the Day (8/26/91)
Mariners 5, Brewers 4 (14). By the standards of pitchers who spent 13 years in the major leagues, Seattle's Bill Krueger is rather anonymous. He pitched just under 1200 innings in his career, splitting his 301 appearances fairly evenly between starting and relief. He qualified for the ERA title only twice. 1991 was probably his best season, featuring 175 innings pitched, a 3.60 ERA that was 14% better than the park-adjusted league average, and a career-high 11 wins. If that's your best season, you're not just flying under the radar; you're flying stealth.
And yet, Krueger was far more notorious than his opponent. Milwaukee's Mike Ignasiak was making the first start of a career in which he would pitch less than 150 innings, most of them out of the Brewer bullpen and many of them rather ineffective.
Little-known decade-long pitchers suddenly look much better when they're compared to the dozens of pitchers with much shorter careers. And the hundreds of pitchers who never make the majors, and the thousands who never play professionally...
And yet, Krueger was far more notorious than his opponent. Milwaukee's Mike Ignasiak was making the first start of a career in which he would pitch less than 150 innings, most of them out of the Brewer bullpen and many of them rather ineffective.
Little-known decade-long pitchers suddenly look much better when they're compared to the dozens of pitchers with much shorter careers. And the hundreds of pitchers who never make the majors, and the thousands who never play professionally...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)