Welcome to Behind the Plate With DJ, a weekly look at what is going on in the world of baseball. This series will weigh in on the interesting, the controversial, and the downright cool. The play of the week could be an incredible play or an unusual one. If something made you scratch your head, you will probably find it here. So sit back, relax, and let’s take a look at the week that was.
Goose Eggs
The Los Angeles Dodgers came into AT&T Park chasing history against the San Francisco Giants. They have started the season with 27 shutout innings against the Padres and became only the second team to start the season with three straight shutouts. The St. Louis Cardinals started the 1963 season with 32 shutout innings.
The Giants, meanwhile, were celebrating Opening Day and looking forward to getting a jump on the Dodgers in the NL West. It is an even year, and it is widely known that the Giants have won the World Series on the even years since 2010.
Alex Wood set the Giants down 1-2-3 in the first inning. Brandon Belt got the first hit for the Giants with one out double in the second inning, but Wood was able to get a popup and a strikeout to end the inning. He worked around a leadoff single in the third to get the Dodgers to within two innings of tying the record. Buster Posey led off the fourth with an infield single, but Wood once again got out of the inning without giving up a run.
Wood had a shaky start to the fifth inning, walking Brandon Crawford and allowing a bunt single to pinch hitter Kelby Tomlinson. Angel Pagan hit a soft grounder to third that moved the runners up to second and third with one out. Tomlinson scored on a ground out to second by Denard Span, thus ending the streak at 31 innings, one shy of the record. The Giants ended up scoring three runs in the inning. Once the scoring started, the floodgates opened as the Giants won 12-6.
The Padres, on the other hand, broke the record of 26 straight innings without scoring a run to start the season set by the 1943 St. Louis Cardinals. They finally broke through in the fourth inning, and boy did they. The Padres scored six runs in that inning on their way to a 13-6 win.
Advanced Stat of the week
Every week, Behind the Plate will look at an advanced stat that is being used in baseball. These stats give a better idea on what value a player gives a team. This week, we will look at why the old statistics do not cut it anymore.
There are all kinds of new stats that have cropped up in baseball in the last few years. OPS, BABIP, wRC+, UZR, FIP, and WAR among many others. Whatever happened to good old box score stats like batting average, home runs, and RBI? Why do we need these new ones?
Well, the answer is we don’t. But the Major League clubs are using them more and more, and many fans are following suit. The reason is that these new stats are better at determining which players produce more runs, and as a result help the team win more games. Or, as in the case of pitchers and defenders, which players keep the other team from scoring runs.
It turns out that batting average does not do a good job at determining how many runs a hitter will produce. For one thing, it does not take into account walks and hits by pitches. These are opportunities for that player to score, and it does not show up at all in batting average. Another thing that is not taken into account is how many bases the hitter gets on each hit. A home run counts the same as a single, and we all know that a home run scores at least one run, whereas a single may not score a run at all.
Other statistics, such as home runs and RBI, also do not tell the whole story. More home runs will be hit at Miller Park in Milwaukee than at AT&T Park in San Francisco. Therefore, a player on the Brewers may hit more home runs than a player on the Giants, but that may not mean the Brewer hitter is better. As for RBI, that is more a measure of how well the hitters before a particular batter get on base. If there is nobody on base, it will be hard to drive anybody in.
These new stats attempt to find the value of players regardless of which ballpark they play in or who is hitting in front of them. The goal is to break down the statistics and determine which players will help a team score more runs (or prevent the other team from scoring) which will lead to winning more games. We will look at a different statistic each week and show how and why it would be used.
Play of the Week
This week’s Play of the Week involves one of the better pitchers in the game, Madison Bumgarner, hitting a home run off of another one of the better pitchers in the game, Clayton Kershaw.
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Series to Watch
Colorado Rockies (3-4) at Chicago Cubs (6-1)
The Rockies have the Story of the season so far. Trevor Story is the talk of the baseball world. He hit seven home runs in his first six games, a Major League record. After the first week of the season, he is leading the league in home runs, RBI, slugging percentage, and total bases.
The Rockies started the season winning two out of three in Arizona against the Diamondbacks. They came home to face the Padres, who were in the midst of a Major League record scoreless streak to start a season. The Rockies proceeded to give up 29 runs to the Padres in the first two games of the series before taking the third game.
The Cubs started the season hot, winning their first three games and six of seven overall. They are sitting in first place in the NL Central, widely considered the toughest division in all of baseball. The Cubs came into the season as the favorite to win the World Series. They will be without Kyle Schwarber, who suffered a knee injury when he collided with Dexter Fowler and is out for the season.
This series will probably be known as Story’s first trip to Wrigley Field. People will be tuning in to see what Story does against the preseason favorites. He will be facing Kyle Hendricks, Jake Arrieta, and Jon Lester. He did hit his first two home runs off of Zack Greinke, so we will see how he fares against the Cubs’ staff.