I don't get to watch games between these teams unless I'm at work. Last night, I wasn't. Today I'm not either, as I do a rare Wednesday closing shift. Dumb. Neither team is worth watching, but I'm about to go six months without either of them, and it would have been nice to watch a game knowing that one of the teams has to win.
Vidal Nuno, the dude I saw pitch at Chase a couple of weeks ago who hasn't gotten a single Win despite not giving up a ton of runs, faces Phil Hughes, who's managed to pull down durned near a quarter of this team's pitching victories.
I suppose I'll be either be watching to cheer against Detroit winning the division, or to cheer against the Yankees making the postseason at all (I think the Orioles can knock them out by beating them this morning...ooh!). Bring this one home for me, gents.
Eh, the Yankees are effectively eliminated. They are behind two teams for the second wild card spot, five games behind the second wild card spot, with only five games remaining. They need the A's and the Royals to not win another game this season. And the Indians to win no more than four and the Mariners to win no more than three.
I agree that the Yankees are effectively eliminated. But it will still be that One Shining Moment when they are completely eliminated.
Look forward next season to reading On This Date In Jeter History
I think my One Shining Moment is if Jeter's last home game is rained out and not rescheduled.
Oh man, that'd be great.
They'd show him standing out at shortstop in the rain, sadly glancing skyward while playing James Carr's "These Ain't Raindrops."
Nice.
He left an impression.
Bingo. I know they're "out" but I'd still like to see it.
The MASN feed for the Orioles-Yankees game showed the Win % of each division. The guys were talking about being a bit surprised that the AL East was on top and said "Much was made before the season about how this was a pretty mediocre division this year, with a lot of potential .500 clubs, but they're leading the way again."
The Win % of the AL East is .508. POINT ZERO ZERO EIGHT over the midpoint. This is a mediocre division. The next three are at .507, .504 and .501 (that's the AL Central - how many times has the AL Central finished above .500? Probably not many).
Need to see it historically. With five teams in every division now, I would guess they are always close to .500.
Yeah, the numbers would look a bit more impressive if they bothered to take out divisional games. 45% of the season's games automatically force each division to the exact midpoint. I wonder if they get that. It's simple math, but I try not to overestimate people. On a Twins board I used to follow years ago, the popular sentiment was that the AL Central was actually the best division in baseball but they "seemed to beat up on each other more than any other division." I couldn't get them to understand that every division beats up on itself the exact same amount.
Tangentially related at best but still hilarious is that thing bS pointed out on FB a month or so ago - A&W's 1/3 pound burger failed in part because those polled overwhelmingly believed that the 1/4 pound burger they could get for the same price at McDonald's was bigger.
Bummer of a way for Plouffe! to end his season.
What happened? I just saw there was a delay, haven't been following the game except the score updates...
Broken forearm sliding into second base.
Actually, broken forearm while applying a tag on a guy stealing third base.
Oh. Then it was reported wrong, because I was relying on an NBC Sports article.
Oh. I was expecting something less cut-and-dried, there.
Jeter's on-base is .302 for the year? Sheesh, I had not realized he was struggling to that degree.
Matches his struggling in the field, so he's a well-rounded player. Nice having that OBP batting second in the lineup everyday.
Five years back when Jeter started a small decline, I joked openly that he was going to play every day and take enough at-bats to actively harm the team's postseason chances once he started his farewell tour. It's not like I take pleasure in this because it's the myth and not the man that I dislike, but it does make me smile a bit that a win-obsessed franchise would allow sentiment to grow this strong.
It was sub .300 as recently as September 18. A home run that day lifted his OPS above .600.
0.2 WAR, I see. It gets a lot worse, but a young Jeter in that position would have them in the postseason already.
So apparently tomorrow is Jeter's last home game but it looks like a nasty storm is forecast and because it's Yanks v. O's probably no need to make it up. That means all those people who paid a huge premium to see Jeter's last game will only get the face value back from the Yankees. Darn.
Also Hughes 1/3 inning from getting a $500k bonus. Do you put him out there on Sunday for an inning or do you just give him the 500 large?
Dang this was suppose to in response to Zack above.
Just give it to him, if you can.
Ditto. My assumption was they wouldn't be able to just give him the money and I don't think risking him in a relief appearance is worth it. Unless it's to let him vulture a win to get his pitcher-win:walk ratio greater than 1.
11.63 k/bb - That's unbelievable.
16 wins
16 walks
Over 200 innings...
per a tweet from Tyler Mason, Hughes is the first pitcher to walk 16 or fewer in 200+ innings since 1882.
I used to think I'd never see something to top Carlos Silva's '05 season. I think this does handily.
That's awesome. I can't wait to bring this information to my Yankee fan co worker tomorrow.
one of those walks was an IBB. I know it still counts as a walk, but only 15 times did he pitch to a ball 4.
Silva has the all-time best BB/9 for a qualified pitcher: 0.43. Second place is 0.62 and Hughes is at seventh* 0.71. Hughes did pitch 21.1 more innings but he nearly doubled Silva's walk total. Need a BB+ to see how much better than league average he is compared to Silva.
* Seventh since 1901. Including the entire history of baseball (not fair to anyone post 1900), Silva drops to seventh and Hughes to 40th.