Watching the Mets-Dbacks on SNY (the Mets’ channel) … Mike Pelfrey came out for the 9th and gave up a lead off single to Stephen Drew (Mets were up 3-0). Billy Wagner entered in relief … k’ed Hudson, double for Jackson, k’ed Tracy. So 2 down, 2nd and 3rd, Mark Reynolds up. Wagner appeared to hit Reynolds on the foot with a pitch, but the umpire didn’t see it. Next pitch … gone … way back into the left field bleachers.

It’s now 3-3 in the bottom of the 9th, Delgado up, Beltran on first, 1 down. I’ll keep you updated …

update: Headed to the top of the 11th, 3-3.

update: top 13, 1 down, Drew infield single to third (Wright made a nice diving stop, but couldn’t get anything on the throw). Orlando Hudson followed with a base hit to right center. Personally, I thought Drew should have reached third, but he either got a bad read on the ball or didn’t know where Beltran was playing … or something else. I know it’s easy to sit here and say that, but I think a good base runner reaches 3b there (not that Drew isn’t a good base runner; maybe it was just a mistake). Anyway, Conor Jackson just grounded into a dp to third.

Goin’ to the bottom of the 13th ….

update: Carlos Beltran with a walk off homer to right … high fastball from Gonzalez, lined shot out to right center. Nice!

Boy, I can really get used to these 2-1 games. Jack Chesbro vs. Cy Young circa 1904 … every night. Fun stuff.

I’m not saying he’s clutch (really, I don’t think he is/will be, going forward), but Scott Hairston has had a knack for the big hit since becoming a Padre.

You don’t need the numbers to tell you that, but check out his ‘07 play log, sorted by WPA. A bunch of huge hits there – six hits of at least .3 WPA. This year, counting tonight’s blast, he’s already had two +.3 WPA hits (both walk off homers). Since the start of 2007, wanna know how many of those hits (.3 WPA or higher) Mr. Clutch himself (Derek Jeter) has had? Two. David Ortiz? Two.

No, I’m not trying to prove anything by pointing out that Scott Hairston has had more “clutch hits” (defined arbitrarily by me, might I add) than a couple of perceived clutch/great hitters. Just showing that he’s has had an abnormal amount of key hits for the Padres over the past few years. In a backwards-looking sense, they’ve had tremendous value. They’ve also been a lot of fun to watch, too.  

Pedro goes tomorrow for the Mets (vs Ledezma). I watched his start vs. SF. According to the SNY gun, he was consistently in the low 90s with the fastball (he was in the mid-to-high 80s last year, iirc). Coming off an injury, I thought that was pretty impressive. Otherwise, I wasn’t overly impressed with his location or his secondary stuff. But he’s still Pedro Martinez … about as smart a pitcher as there is in the game.

2-1, anybody? 

Real fun match-up today. Consider this like a game thread, if you wish, although I’m sure you’ll spend most of your time at GLB or DS (I will too ; ). I’ll throw some updated PITCHf/x data in here as the game goes on, as well as some random updates. Feel free to comment, of course …

Arizona
17-7
146 RS, 92 RA
Pythagenpat: .711

Padres
10-15
83 RS, 119 RA
Pythagenpat: .341

Obviously, the Dbacks are off to a great start and the Padres are not. This is probably about as big a early season game as you’re going to get, although that ‘big game’ stuff is pretty cliche.

Using Patriot’s park factors again, here are the environments that Peavy and Webb have pitched in:

Peavy: .896 (3 in SD, 1 LA, 1 Hou)
Webb: 1.084 (2 ARI, 1 Cin, 1 Col, 1 SF)

That’s kind of crazy and shows the kind of impact parks can have on ERA. A quick adjustment to their respective ERA’s get us: Peavy — 2.23, Webb — 2.13

So far I’d say that Webb has performed slightly better, value-wise, despite Peavy’s lower ERA. That comes with the caveat that 30 some innings is relatively insignificant, the parks may be playing differently at this point of the season (than over the past 5 years), ERA is not necessarily the best estimation of performance (although for ‘value’ I think it probably is), etc.

As an aside, I was watching baseball tonight last night and they were asked what pitcher they’d take to start a franchise with. Kurkjian took Felix Hernandez, which I think is a fine pick. The other guy (I’m not sure what his name is, but I think he generally does a decent job) picked Brandon Webb, which I think is pretty ridiculous. That’s not because Webb isn’t great now, but because he is 29 years old. I can think of quite a few guys I’d probably take before Webb to start a franchise — Hernandez, Baily, Hughes, Buchholz, Lincecum, Kazmir, etc. (I’m sure there are pitchers I’m forgetting). Then you’ve got a bunch of other guys — Peavy, Santana, Sabathia, Beckett, Oswalt, etc. that I would take more for the way they get their outs (than age). Granted, Webb might be the more safe choice (over those young pitchers), but if someone asks me who I’m taking to start a franchise with, I’m most likely going to go with someone in their low-to-mid 20s.

– MGL offers his offensive projections from here on out, and has the Padres ahead of Arizona and 9th in the NL. I’m still not really worried about the Padres and how they will do from here on out. What I am worried about is falling too far behind. If the Padres and Dbacks play to their preseason projections the rest of the way (let’s say 85 and 86 wins, respectively), here are their new estimated win totals:

Arizona: 90
Padres: 82

That’s a pretty big difference and it exists because of the way the two teams have performed so far.

Padres beat the Rockies 6-0 — Randy Wolf allows 1 hit, 4 walks, and no runs in 7 innings of work

Often times I hear people say that they wished a pitcher was working more efficiently on a given night. This happens when, let’s say, a guy is through 3 innings with 50 pitches, but has allowed 0 runs and k’ed 5 — or something like that. You want that type of performance, but you want it for 9 innings. I usually wonder if it’s correct to want the guy to be more “efficient” — and by efficient, I mean limiting the number of pitches thrown to each batter. I suppose there could be multiple definitions of efficient pitching (like pitches per inning or out), but I’m going with this one because I think it’s what people mean when they say that they want a pitcher to be more efficient. Of course, in a perfect world, a pitcher would throw 27 pitches and record 27 outs (or if he was on the Giants, he would continue to get an out for each of his pitches until his team scored a run).

Anyway, here’s my ‘theory’ (that is certainly, I’m sure, far from original): some pitchers, especially ones like Randy Wolf, benefit from throwing more pitches to each hitter. That is, they are better going deep into counts, just missing on a corner, allowing a guy to foul a pitch off, etc. Sure, you’d rather they get outs in more economic fashion, but as soon as they try to, they get hit hard.

Wolf’s career average pitches/PA is 3.84, according to Baseball Reference (league average = 3.78). Greg Maddux, for instance, the model of pitching efficiency, is at 3.30. Just for a little fun, I looked at Wolf’s ‘07 game log: in his 5 lowest P/PA starts, Wolf’s RA was 7.55. In his 5 highest P/PA outings, it was .89 (yes, there is a decimal point there). This is surely not worthy evidence — 10 starts in 2007 by Randy Wolf – and I’m definitely not trying to make any conclusion based any it … just pointing it out. Anyway, if you look at it in terms of P/out or inning, you get a different story. It could also just be a case of selective sampling — or something –where, because higher pitches per plate appearance generally mean more strikeouts, we’re getting all of his good performances. But, I guess, that is kind of my point. For Wolf to be successful, perhaps, he can’t just go right after guys; he has to nibble and work the corners. If Wolf wants to succeed, he, unlike a Greg Maddux, can’t just go right after guys.

With that, I thought we’d take a quick peak at the PITCHf/x data. In the 3rd and 4th inning, according to MLB’s pitch classification system, Wolf had a stretch where he threw 17 consecutive fastballs. All of the pitches during that stretch ranged between 88.3 and 90.8 mph. This has no significance; I just thought it was interesting. I hear people talk about mixing pitches a lot … you know, to confuse the hitter and upset his timing. I wonder if sometimes it’s correct to throw the same pitch that many times in a row, by game theory or whathaveyou. You are certainly confusing the hitter, as he’s probably saying, “well, he’s throw that pitch 5 times in a row to me, something off-speed is coming here.” At the same time, if you keep throwing it, they’ll eventually figure out that’s all you have … during that stretch, by the way, Wolf struck out Tulo, Helton, and Holliday (although Holliday’s k, a 10 pitch ab, eventually came on a changeup).

Here’s Wolf’s ‘pitch mix’ for the night (frequency of pitch with velocity in parenthesis).

Fastball: 82 (89.4)
Curve: 16 (66.6)
Change: 9 (79.8)
Slider: 4 (79.5)

He really went primarily with the fastball on this night (74% of the time. According to Kalk, in ‘07 he averaged 59% FB, 19% curves, 11% sliders, and 10% changeups).

***

Regarding the rest of the game, I thought the turning point came on Wolf’s sac bunt attempt, where he reached base in the 5th to load the bases. I was thinking to myself at that point, whether the decision to leave Wolf in here to bunt, rather than opt for a pinch hitter, was a good one. I figured if Wolf reached base enough it might be a decent one (but that going with a better hitter would probably be a wiser choice). As soon as I thought that, Wolf laid down a perfect bunt that was fielded by an off balance Jimenez. Wolf hustled down the line and beat the high throw. After that Brian Giles ripped a double off the wall in right, which was actually the biggest play in the game (according to wpa; +.178). Kouzmanoff and Edmonds both added doubles and the Padres were on their way to a nice 6-0 victory.

Courtesy of Fangraphs, of course

Well, that was a tough loss. A wrap up my thoughts on it in bullet point style:

• Obviously, this Lincecum kid is one hell of a pitcher. A quick glance at the PITCHf/x data shows that he threw 30 fastballs over 96 mph (topping out at 97.9). I thought they had him rattled in the 6th, though, with the bases loaded and no outs. Kouz’s base running mistake, failing to advance on the misplay in left, was really a killer.
• Mentioned this on DS, but Giles’ sac fly in the 9th actually decreased the Pads win expectancy by ~5%. Of course, that’s assuming it was an “average” situation, which it surely was not. However, Wilson’s probably slightly below average for that situation and Giles is still at least an average bat. Anyway, like I said over there, none of this means Giles was actually playing for a sacrifice — he hit it pretty deep. fwiw, had he advanced Peavy to second, it would have increased the Pads’ win expectancy.
• Heath Bell pitched the high-leverage 9th, and picked up .143 WPA. One thing that may present itself is an opportunity to leave Hoffman in as closer while actually giving Bell more important innings, overall. I’m not sure if it will happen, but it’ll be interesting to track as the year goes on.
• I was impressed with the Padres’ fielding … Gonzalez had that great double play (with help from Kouz). Kouzmanoff also had the nice diving catch and maybe another solid play I can’t recall. Edmonds looked okay in center, although I’m not sure if he was really tested.
• Not sure how Bocock’s in the majors. With his bat, I figured he’d be a real slick defender. One game means little and my scouting ability is nonexistent, but I was not impressed. He did have a few nice plays, including the charging effort –although he appeared to me to take a while to get to the ball.
• Molina just touched home.

The Padres are now tied in first … actually, as the title says, they are a percentage point ahead of Arizona.

From the great Fangraphs …

WPA MVP: Greg Maddux +.336
Runner up: Cameron +.328

Tomorrow, Chris Young and the Padres face Livan Hernandez in the final game of the series. Hernandez looks like a guy who is coming up on the end of his career. Here’s a look at the declining righty:

He’s getting to that point where pitchers are no longer successful. Somehow, though, he continues to put up relatively productive years. In any case, the big advantage goes to the Padres tonight night.

Run differential: Check
Home field advanage: Check
Starting pitcher advantage: Check

The Padres have positioned themselves nicely for a stretch drive and a run at another division title.