[THE HANGOVER] Rays Drop Magic Number To 29

THE TELLING: The Rays magic number is now 29 with 34 games remaining.

DEVIL RAYS WEBTOPIA…

• Yesterday’s win was Joe Maddon’s 206th as manager of the Rays, giving him more wins than any manager in club history…Again, we are not sure why the official count includes 2 wins from ’06 when Maddon left the team to be at his girlfriend’s graduation. [St. Pete Times]
• Missed this in the early post…The Immaculate Inning was on hand once again to chronicle David Price’s third triple-A start…This time with camera in tow. [The Immaculate Inning]
• The Houston Chronicle takes a look at Andrew Friedman and his rise from a kid that would ride the opposing team bus to games at the Astrodome as a kid. [Houston Chronicle]
• The Chicago Tribune has a story on how both the two biggest payrolls in baseball may both miss the playoffs. [Chicago Tribune]

Related posts:

1. [THE HANGOVER] Rays Drop Magic Number To 33 Despite Upton’s Mental Mistake
2. [THE HANGOVER] Rays Pound Yanks; Drop Magic Number To 15
3. [THE HANGOVER] Rays Drop Second Straight; Magic Number For Wild Card Now 26

One Response to “[THE HANGOVER] Rays Drop Magic Number To 29”

1. Scot says:

   August 24, 2008 at 2:11 pm

   So who is the best pitcher on the Rays this season? Actually its not easy to choose. If we use Baseball Prospectus (BP) technique of Pitcher Expected Win-Loss record (assuming a neutral offence), the pitchers expected winning percentage are:
   Kazmir: 0.597
   Jackson: 0.595
   Garza: 0.568
   Sheilds: 0.526
   Sonnanstine: 0.503

   First of all – all pitchers are now above average (Sonny being the one who has picked up the most recently.) Note Jackson has pitched well.

   But what if you ask – which pitcher is mostly likely to put the team in a position to win the game by taking the expected number of wins and dividing by games started:
   Kazmir: 0.386
   Jackson: 0.412
   Garza: 0.420
   Shields: 0.411
   Sonnanstine: 0.356

   In short – all pitch about the same, maybe Sonny is the lone weak point, but Garza gives you innings and is likely to win.

   Another note: From yesterday, the bases were loaded – Aki’s bases loaded walk against LHP Thorton was very impressive (13 pitches), but also important was Pena’s hit against Thornton. I would like to say Aki’s walk and the miscue by Orlando at short on Uptons bouncer might have upset Thornton who is the ChiSox better reliever. Pena’s hit was very important because Pena does NOT hit lefthanders. His numbers versus RHP are: 271/389/570, and vs LHP are: 184/290/353. Ozzie was correct to use Thornton vs. Pena.

   I looked a number of players and many have significant differences in their numbers between RHP and LHP. More later… the game is on.

   Reply