Through 156 games this season, the Red Sox have begun the seventh inning with a lead 80 times. When those 80 seventh innings were over, Boston held the lead 72 times (90%), were tied 6 times, and were behind 2 times.*
* This is not perfect. If they were ahead 6-0 and allowed 5 runs, that would count as holding the lead just as much as retiring the side in order with a 2-1 lead would.
Update: I have made these (I hope) easier to read -- and I have added in the results for the Yankees for some type of context.
Ahead
Red Sox YankeesTied
Beginning of 7th inning: 80 games 80 games
End of 7th inning: Ahead 72 (90%) 76 (95%)
Tied 6 2
Behind 2 2
Beginning of 8th inning: 81 games 84 games
End of 8th inning: Ahead 77 (95%) 78 (93%)
Tied 2 3
Behind 2 3
Beginning of 9th inning: 84 games 82 games
End of 9th inning: Ahead/Win 78 (93%) 78 (95%)
Tied 2 3
Behind/Loss 4 1
Red Sox YankeesAhead or Tied
Beginning of 7th inning: 18 15
End of 7th inning: Tied 8 5
Ahead 4 6
Behind 6 4
Beginning of 8th inning: 17 9
End of 8th inning: Tied 10 6
Ahead 5 1
Behind 2 2
Beginning of 9th inning: 14 12
End of 9th inning: Tied 11 7
Ahead 3 4
Behind 0 1
Extra Innings
Red Sox Yankees
Beginning of 7th inning: 98 95
End of 7th inning: Ahead/Tied 90 (92%) 89 (94%)
Behind 8 6
Beginning of 8th inning: 98 93
End of 7th inning: Ahead/Tied 94 (96%) 88 (95%)
Behind 4 5
Beginning of 9th inning: 98 94
End of 9th inning: Ahead/Tied 89 (91%) 92 (98%)
Behind 9 2
Boston won its 13th-inning game. ... New York lost one game in the 13th and one game in the 14th.
Red Sox Yankees
Beginning of 10th inning: 16 12
End of 10th inning: Tied 8 5
Won 1 6
Lost 7 1
Beginning of 11th inning: 8 5
End of 10th inning: Tied 4 2
Won 2 0
Lost 2 3
Beginning of 12th inning: 4 2
End of 10th inning: Tied 1 2
Won 1 0
Lost 2 0
Boston 8-32, .200When allowing 0, 1, or 2 runs:
New York 4-25, .138
Boston 42-1, .977
New York 40-4, .909
So...does this suggest (especially your last statistic) that the problem has been as much with the offense as with the pitching? Or is the problem more with the starting pitching than the relief pitching? Or does it mean simply that there was not one specific weakness, just bad luck with all those injuries?
ReplyDeleteThanks for compiling these statistics. Fascinating. I guess statistics don't lie, but selected stats also may not give the whole picture.
I don't know. I did this (and then expanded it) instead of doing some actual work.
ReplyDeleteAL rankings:
Team ERA
NYY 4.02 (6th)
BOS 4.17 (9th)
Starters ERA
NYY 4.31 (9th)
BOS 4.11 (5th)
Bullpen ERA
NYY 3.41 (3rd)
BOS 4.31 (12th)
Our pen and their starters have the same ERA!
Blown Saves
NYY 16
BOS 22
Save Conversion %
NYY 70%
BOS 67%
(AL average is 69%)
We had problems everywhere. But I assume NYY has had shitty losses and lucky wins and all the same shit teams go through. (Rivera has blown 5 saves.)
They have been a bit better in everything. After 156 games, they are 5.5 games better than we are.
I will assume that a healthy roster (and however they would have played) would have made up that difference -- and then some extra.
But, alas ...
Rivera's last 6 outings:
ReplyDelete9.53 ERA
5.2 IP
9 H
2 BB
6 R
1.032 OPS against
Our pen and their starters have the same ERA!
ReplyDeleteYes, but their pen has a much better ERA than our pen. Sigh.
Here's what may be a dumb question: do we generally expect the bullpen to have the same ERA as starters or do we expect their ERA to be lower? Higher? Probably no real answer that question, but those stats made me wonder.
This was a really remarkable post, among the most interesting I've seen here. Nice work. What I see is that NY seems to get an uncanny amount of hitting late in the game. The poor pitching for the sox does not seem to really ring true looking at these numbers, but am I wrong in reading this a pretty clearly showing that NY, regardless of the pitching, puts up quite a few late runs?
ReplyDeleteNY seems to get an uncanny amount of hitting late in the game ... am I wrong in reading ... NY, regardless of the pitching, puts up quite a few late runs?
ReplyDeleteThey have scored more than Boston in the 6th and 7th, but Boston has scored more 8th-inning runs. The 9th is about the same.
Innings 1-3
NYY - 98 65 124
BOS - 75 98 99
Innings 4-6
NYY - 93 97 106
BOS - 97 104 89
Innings 7-9
NYY - 104 77 67
BOS - 78 83 62
Innings 10-12
NYY - 8 0 0
BOS - 4 2 1
Innings 13-14
NYY - 0 0
BOS - 2 X
BOS has outscored its opponents in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 8th innings.
Two fewer runs in the 1st, tied in the 6th, 5 fewer in the 7th, and 6 fewer in the 9th.
NYY has outscored its opponents in the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th innings.
One fewer run in the 2nd. Some innings there is a huge difference. In the 3rd inning, they outscore their opponents 124-84. In the 7th inning, it's 104-65.
Boston has a huge advantage in the 2nd (98-62) and (like NY) the 3rd (99-69).