FalconBlog--Triumphs and Trials in the BGSU Falcon Nation

Nice Comeback Win for Reds

Nice comeback for the Reds last night. 4 runs in the 8th and 9th, and we're get a win we needed pretty badly. It goes to show...when we get decent pitching we can win. Ortiz survived a shaky first inning to get a quality start, and (just as importantly) get us to the Mercker/Weathers zone, where our bullpen can survive. Eventually, we brought the runs home. Marty was talking yesterday about how a team can be second in runs scored and yet have the second-worst record--he allowed as how pitching "plays a role" and then noted the offense was inconsistent.

I'd like to see a study of that. What is the typical variance of an offense, and is our attack any more inconsistent than anyone else's? What if you made the pythagorean formula use the median runs scored as opposed to the average. Just a thought. Essentially, I think he's wrong...its the pitching.

Finally, Red Leg Nation is on the story about the Reds' fawning over Sean Casey. Narron is giving credit to Casey for wearing Halsey out with a long at-bat, which caused another reliever to come in, and then get lit up.

It would be nice to hit the break with a road split and a road win. Why? No special reason....we're not going anywhere. It would just be nice. To finish .500, we'd have to go 47-29 from here on in (.618), which is better than the first half of the Washington Nationals.

Update: Spent a hot July afternoon doing math. Here's what I learned.

First, found a great article on this exact topic from Hardball Times.

Then, I spend some time figuring out the real variance we are working with. The Reds offensive standard deviation for runs scored is 3.46, while the NL total is 3.09. Which means, Marty was essentially right. The Reds offense is 12% more inconsistent than the league as a whole. I'm not enough of a math jockey to understand whether the one-tailed nature of team baseball stats creates something funny here. As Studeman points out, you can't go below zero, but you can go as high as you want. I know this..average doesn't tell the whole story. (Further rambling note: our pitching tends to be high, too, and its standard deviation is about the league average--consistent, but bad.

Anyhow, I started to find out if we are (more) inconsistent, and it would appear that we are.

Below is the Reds record under various scenarios. when scoring less than the league average (4 or fewer), the club is 5-40, or a .111 percentage. When scoring more than 4, we are 28-13 (.682) which is good in any league. Of course, if you look at 5-9 runs scored, we're 16-12, (.571) while 10+ is 12-1. I guess those 12 losses from 5-9 runs is probably where some better pitching really would have helped.

R W L %
0 0 2 0.000
1 0 9 0.000
2 2 15 0.118
3 1 13 0.071
4 2 1 0.667
5 3 4 0.429
6 5 4 0.556
7 5 3 0.625
9 3 1 0.750
10 2 0 1.000
11 7 1 0.875
12 2 0 1.000
14 1 0 1.000