August 5, 2007

Pythagorean Watch -- And Other Stuff

         W   L  PCT GB   RS   RA  +/-  ExpWL
Red Sox 67 43 .609 -- 565 438 127 68-42
Yankees 60 50 .545 7 652 505 147 68-42
Looking at their respective runs scored and runs allowed, you would expect the Red Sox and Yankees to have identical records: 68-42.

New York has been helped out by some high-scoring games. In July, they had games of 14, 12, 17, 21 and 16 runs. They have scored 56 runs in their last five games.

After the MFY finish up with the Royals this afternoon, they start playing actual major league teams. Their August schedule includes seven games against Detroit, and three against each of Cleveland, Anaheim, Boston, Toronto and Baltimore.

***

Science Daily asks: "How Many Baseball Games Does It Take To Ensure The Best Team Has The Best Record?" According to a study by a pair of physicists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, the answer is 256.

Back in March, SD linked to a story that projected the Yankees to win 110 games. The Yankees need to go 50-2 to get there. (They had Boston at 87.)

Most hits for a team when all of the hits are home runs? ... 6, by Cleveland in a 7-3 win over Texas on June 24, 1989. (Thanks to BR's Stat of the Day blog.)

I also searched BR for the most pitches in any game since 1957. The answer? 207, by Stan Williams of the Dodgers in a 11-inning 2-1 win over Milwaukee on May 17, 1961. He allowed only four hits but walked 12 (!) and struck out 11 (only 108 of his 207 pitches were strikes). His pitch count by innings:
17 31 14  20 14 20  24 20 22  9 16 = 207
The highest pitch count since 1964?

172, by Tim Wakefield for the Pirates on April 27, 1993.

5 comments:

Benjamin said...

I could've sworn Wake had a game with more than 200 pitches once.

Earl said...

The guy who predicted the Yankees would win 110 games this season has posted his past predictions:

http://m.njit.edu/~bukiet/baseball/baseball.html

His predictions for the Yankees the last several years:

2006: 102 (actual: 97)
2005: 113 (actual: 95)
2004: 117(!) (actual: 101)
2003: 110 (actual: 101)

He probably shouldn't quit his day job.

(Actually, he's a math professor. So maybe he should quit his day job.)

allan said...

There may be a few kinks in his methodology.

2003: 110 (actual: 101)

He had the right numbers on this one, but in the wrong order.

allan said...

Before the 2003 season, he wrote:

"Once again, the Red Sox appear great on paper yet they somehow always seem to underperform. I haven't found a way yet to model the Red Sox' propensity to self-destruct late in the season."

Gee, I wonder what team this tool is a fan of.

laura k said...

Most hits for a team when all of the hits are home runs? ... 6

Hm. I would have thought it would be higher.