BtB Power Rankings

Written by Daniel Moroz on Apr 11, 2011 17:01.

The first set of power rankings for the 2011 season is up at Beyond the Box Score. The O's come in 15th, with the note that "The Orioles have largely relied on a .243 BABIP against to help out their run prevention unit - which has still been solid. The offense, not so much. Both should regress towards league average going forward." Check it out to see who the O's are above and below.

The Outside Corner

Written by Daniel Moroz on Apr 11, 2011 12:37.

Bloguin already has a good collection of baseball blogs, but today we've launched a general baseball portal... The Outside Corner. I'll be contributing there along with several other great writers, going over all kinds of baseball topics - pretty exciting stuff.. The first post is on MVP candidates other than the A-Gons and Pujolses. Check it out.

Game 9: Orioles 0, Rangers 3

Written by Daniel Moroz on Apr 10, 2011 19:11.

The Good:

Jeremy Guthrie did a very nice job, making his first start since coming out of the hospital. He only topped out at 92 mph - and he didn't miss any bats - but he used his off-speed stuff quite a bit and pitched a good game. Final line; 6 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 1 K, 1 HR.
Derrek Lee had a couple singles and drew a walk, and Vlad twice moved him first to third with a hit to right-field (a single and a double).
Didn't work out, but I just wanted to give Buck some credit for a Jedi mind trick he pulled. Two-on, two-out in the bottom of the eighth. Jake Fox scheduled to hit against right-hander Darren O'Day (who had just walked two batters), with righty Neftali Feliz and lefty Arthur Rhodes in the pen. Buck send up Fox to hit. Ron Washington responds by bringing in Feliz. Then Buck send up Luke Scott to pinch-hit. If Luke is announced right away, Rhodes is probably coming in to face him. Fox facing O'Day would probably have not been good either, and Showalter was able to get Washington to put him into position to get his best possible match-up.

The Bad:

The issue, as it's been pretty much all season, is the lack of offense. The run prevention has been better than expected so far - even if not quite as good as their runs allowed would imply - but they're not puttig enough runs on the board themselves.

The Final:

Kind of anti-climactic end to the series after that great first game by Britton, as the O's just stopped scoring. O's fall to 6-3 on the season.

Game 9: Orioles vs. Rangers

Written by Daniel Moroz on Apr 10, 2011 15:49.

The O's got knocked around in game two yesterday, which did a number on their pythag (down to 5-3). Need more offense.

Rangers:

	Batting	Fielding	fWAR
Ian Kinsler	.214/.371/.607	0	0.4
Michael Young	.265/.265/.353	0	-0.1
Josh Hamilton	.323/.400/.419	0	0.2
Adrian Beltre	.182/.206/.394	0	-0.1
Nelson Cruz	.360/.452/1.000	0	0.7
Mitch Moreland	.313/.421/.563	0	0.2
Yorvit Torrealba	.273/.273/.500	0	0.1
Andres Blanco	.333/.333/.667	0	0.0
Julio Borbon	.286/.375/.571	0	0.2

As good as second-baseman Brian Roberts has been in the lead-off spot for the O's, Ian Kinsler has been better for Texas. Same thing with Nick Markakis and Nelson Cruz.

Derek Holland:

ERA	FIP	xFIP	K/9	BB/9	GB%	fWAR
4.50	1.87	3.08	7.5	1.5	47.4%	0.3

The Dutch Oven is a solid young left-handed pitcher already, who should help the Rangers make up for the loss of Cliff Lee (if only a little) now that he's a full-time starter.

Holland throws pretty hard, and his slider and change-up are both effective offerings which should allow him to handle both right-handed and left-handed batters fairly well (though righties have taken him deep at a much higher rate in his career).

Orioles:

	Batting	Fielding	fWAR
Brian Roberts	.219/.242/.500	0	0.1
Nick Markakis	.259/.364/.407	0	0.1
Derrek Lee	.172/.273/.276	0	-0.1
Vladimir Guerrero	.242/.242/.333	0	-0.2
Mark Reynolds	.259/.310/.481	0	0.2
Adam Jones	.233/.226/.433	0	0.0
Jake Fox	.000/.000/.000	0	-0.1
Matt Wieters	.217/.280/.261	0	0.0
Robert Andino	.000/.000/.000	0	-0.1

Jake Fox in left-field? Should be interesting. It's those other positions that drag down Fox's value, given that he's not a good fielder. If he just stuck to catching, I think he'd end up above replacement level.

Jeremy Guthrie:

ERA	FIP	xFIP	K/9	BB/9	GB%	fWAR
0.00	1.91	3.42	6.8	1.1	40.0%	0.4

Good to see Guthrie healthy enough to take the mound (or, at least I hope that's why he's out there).

The horizontal movements from the PitchFX seemed off (miscalibration?), so I shifted the pitches to the left a little to more where they're "supposed" to be. It also said he threw a bunch of cutters, which I folded into fastballs for now. You can see how Guthrie had his off-speed stuff working in the first start.

Stats: UZR, WAR, ERA, FIP, xFIP, K/9 & BB/9, GB%, PitchFX

Game 7: Orioles 5, Rangers 0

Written by Daniel Moroz on Apr 09, 2011 20:58.

The Good:

Zach Britton once again looked very good. He brought the sinker out more today (I think), throwing it more 88-90 than the 92-95 that his other fastball sits at (it looks like he might actually have three fastballs - a "four-seamer" that rides more, a "two-seamer" that tails more, and the "sinker" that drops more). It really fell off a table though. The slider and change both looked good - he threw a particularly nice back-door breaking-ball for a strike - though he used them only sparingly. While his control wasn't excellent, but three double plays helped him out and he generally cruised through the game. 14 groundballs to 3 flyballs is great to see as well. Final line; 7.2 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 2 K.
Nick Markakis hit his first home run of the season, turning on a pitch ad sending it over the scoreboard. He can hit for more power if he does that a little more often.
Mark Renolds also hit his first home run of the seaon, and later added a single.
Luke Scott reached base all four times to the dish, singiling, walking twice, and getting hit by a pitch.

The Bad:

More than two walks from the offense would have been nice. And Mark Reynolds bobbled a ball that would have been Britton's fourth double play of the day, getting only one out. Nit picks though.

The Final:

The O's scored early, and Zach Britton made the lead feel safe all game. The win pulls the Birds into a tie for the best record in the majors (with Texas) at 6-1. Even though I don't think bringing Britton up this early was the right move - we could theoretically have an extra year watching this later, if we gave up three weeks now - but I'm certainly enjoying it.

Game 7: Orioles vs. Rangers

Written by Daniel Moroz on Apr 09, 2011 16:45.

Battle of first-place teams, as the O's host the 6-0 Texas Rangers. The Birds are dealing with the injury bug; first Matusz then Scott then Guthrie then Hardy (day to day with back/rib issue) then Roberts (who was in the hospital with a stomach issue). They've weathered it fine so far, but hopefully they don't have to deal with it all year.

No game preview for game two of the double header, but getting Jake Fox in for Wieters against a lefty (Matt Harrison) is good move

Tigers:

	Batting	Fielding	fWAR
Ian Kinsler	.250/.423/.750	0	0.4
Elvis Andrus	.250/.286/.600	0	0.2
Josh Hamilton	.273/.385/.409	0	0.1
Adrian Beltre	.125/.160/.250	0	-0.2
Michael Young	.280/.280/.400	0	0.0
Nelson Cruz	.350/.435/1.000	0	0.5
Mike Napoli	.500/.636/1.250	0	0.4
Yorvit Torrealba	.263/.263/.474	-1	0.0
Julio Borbon	.273/.385/.636	0	0.2

This is a good line-up, and one that'll be tough for a lefty to manage.

Colby Lewis (2011):

ERA	FIP	xFIP	K/9	BB/9	GB%	fWAR
4.50	4.95	4.43	6.0	3.0	52.6%	0.1

Lewis came back from Japan last year a new man, posting a sometimes under-noticed 4.4 fWAR.

Lewis doesn't throw quite as hard as he did in his prospect days (though he averaged over 90 mph with the heater last year), but he has four quality pitches. The slide-piece especially can get some whiffs as his main strike-out pitch.

Orioles:

	Batting	Fielding	fWAR
Brian Roberts	.280/.308/.640	0	0.3
Nick Markakis	.300/.400/.350	0	0.1
Derrek Lee	.182/.280/.318	0	0.0
Vladimir Guerrero	.240/.240/.360	0	-0.1
Luke Scott	.100/.182/.200	0	-0.2
Adam Jones	.182/.174/.318	0	-0.1
Mark Reynolds	.238/.273/.381	0	0.0
Matt Wieters	.250/.318/.300	0	0.1
Cesar Izturis	.333/.500/.333	0	0.0

Nice to see Roberts is OK to play. And it sounds like Hardy will be in for game two.

Zach Britton (2011):

ERA	FIP	xFIP	K/9	BB/9	GB%	fWAR
1.50	2.62	3.65	9.0	4.5	30.87%	0.2

I expect Britton to get that groundball rate up closer to his minor league numbers (~65%), but both the K's and (hopefully) the walks should come down.

The pitch classifications might be a little off here. His sinker should have some more drop on it, I would think. The off-speed pitches were very impressive though, for a guy I thought was going to have to rely on his two-seamer quite a bit.

Stats: UZR, WAR, ERA, FIP, xFIP, K/9 & BB/9, GB%, PitchFX

	Batting	Fielding	fWAR
Brian Roberts	0.28/0.308/0.64	0	0.3
Nick Markakis	0.3/0.4/0.35	0	0.1
Derrek Lee	0.182/0.28/0.318	0	0.0
Vladimir Guerrero	0.24/0.24/0.36	0	-0.1
Luke Scott	0.1/0.182/0.2	0	-0.2
Adam Jones	0.182/0.174/0.318	0	-0.1
Mark Reynolds	0.238/0.273/0.381	0	0.0
Matt Wieters	0.25/0.318/0.3	0	0.1
Cesar Izturis	0.333/0.5/0.333	0	0.0

Game 6: Orioles 9, Tigers 5

Written by Daniel Moroz on Apr 07, 2011 23:13.

The Good:

Vladdy finally put good wood on a first pitch that he swung at, sending it out to dead center-field. Of course, then he swung at the first pitch in his next at bat and popped out to end the inning, even though there were two runners on base (who got there via the walk). Flied out on the first pitch in the AB after that. Saw 10 pitches on the night (in 5 PA). The fifth one - in the 8th inning - he grounded through the right side for a game tying RBI single though. Gotta take the good with the bad, which is fine if there's plenty of the former.
In his first at bat, Adam Jones bunted his way on base, stole second, and scored on a single. Then later he crushed a ball for a game-tying two-run home run. Later still a deep flyball scored the team's go-ahead run. He's versatile, is what I'm saying. As long as you don't want him to take a pitch. Also ran down a couple balls in center.
Mark Reynolds was 2-3 with a couple of line-drive hits (including a double), and 3 RBI on the night.
The O's actually drew some walks in this one - 7* total (two by Markakis, one each by Lee, Reynolds, Wieters, and Izturis) - but that's still an area that needs improvement. *Plus an intentional one to Luke Scott.
Jim Johnson looked good out of the pen, hitting 97 and striking out three batters in his 1.2 innings of work.

The Bad:

Chris Tillman had a rough first inning, throwing just 88 mph with his fastball and leaving a lot of pitches up in the zone. That more or less continued all night, but he started to utilize his off-speed stuff more, which helped. And the cutter. Check it out:

Those 16 or so dots that are a distinct cluster apart from his fastball and change (which are mixed in together) are - I'd say - cutters. They're moving in on lefties and are a good 4-5 mph slower than his four-seamer. Could even call them sliders, though they don't drop as much as would be usual. I like that he's trying to mix it up, because his style - 88-90 straight fastball up in the zone with an occasional off-speed pitch - just won't work with the stuff he has now (as opposed to had 2-3 years ago) unless his control takes a great leap forward. We'll see if it continues and, if so, if it helps. Because it didn't tonight; 4.2 IP, 6 H, 3 R (2 ER), 2 BB, 4 K, 1 HR.

Edit: Actually, I think Tillman's thrown this pitch before. It just wasn't counted as a cutter for some reason, but as a change-up (or sometimes a fastball).

Take a look:

That weird line of purple going across (with a little red there too), are pitches the move in on left-handed batters and have more drop than his usual fastball. So I guess I've just mostly missed them until now, since I assumed the cutter would have velocity more similar to the fastball. Interesting stuff. Heard somewhere that sometimes pitchers who are trying to learn the cutter lose speed on their normal fastball. Might that be the case with Tillman? Is he hurt? It's troubling.

In the bottom of the fifth, Brian Roberts doubled into the right-field corner with Cesar Izturis on first. Izzy rounded third and was given the stop sign from the third-base coach - much to most people's surprise. The O's failed to score (there was one out at the time). Using the 2010 run expectancy tables, the break-even point there was about 79% (maybe a little higher considering the O's had the middle of the order coming up). That means Izzy needed to be safe at least that often, more or less, for sending him to be a good move. And it doesn't sound like fans like those odds (the answers I got back were conflicting - closer to 60-40 than 80-20), given that he wasn't running full speed on the hit for some reason.

The Final:

The offense showed up! Amazing how you can still win games if the pitching struggles, if you actually score some runs yourself. The 9-5 win puts the O's - now 5-1 - back into sole possession of first pace in the AL East. And it gives them their second series win in as many tries.

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