Monday, May 15, 2017

Home Stand Ends Well; To Charlotte; Charts

Well, this wasn't all that great a home stand for the Bulls, but it did end well. The four-game losing streak was disturbing; however, things seemed to sort themselves out the last two games, even if yesterday was touch and go.

Sunday was the 4th "bullpen day" since April 27. The Bulls have won three of those games, which says a lot about this year's relief crew. Without Yonny Chirinos' complete game shutout on Saturday, I doubt that it would have worked yesterday, though. Statistical trivia. Don't think I've seen two blown saves in one game before.

Sunday was also the seventh extra-inning game the Bulls have played. They won 3 of those games.

The Bulls are four games ahead of Gwinnett in the South, but note that Charlotte's on a streak.

click on chart for larger image

Runs Scored Chart

Net runs scored is one of those interesting stats that we like to track. If you run it through the Pythagorean Expectation formula, it will tell you what the team's won-lost record "should" be. In the Bulls case, this year the PE formula says that the Bulls "should" be at 23-12, exactly where they are. The Knights, who are at 18-17, "should" be at 19-16. The sabermetrics guys seem to think that discrepancies tend to indicate strengths (weaknesses) in relief pitching.

What this chart shows is just how well this year's team is doing compared to previous years, the best since 2013.


Rosterizing
  • RHP Yoel Espinal came back from Montgomery and did a fine job last night.
  • RHP Ryan Stanek got called up to Tampa Bay and had his big league debut against the Red Sox last night. He faced two batters. One hit. One K.
  • RHP Blake Snell is coming back. In my end of year comments last year I said that after Snell's callup in June he would not be back. I was wrong (imagine that!). He hasn't been having a very good year with the Rays (4-0, 8 games, 4.71 ERA, 25 BB in 42 innings). Expect him to be working on very specific tasks, which may or may not help the Bulls when he shows up.
Matchup 

Charlotte's on a roll lately. And they are hitting very well. And they are at home. This could be an interesting series.


2 comments:

  1. So with Hu in the Bullpen, what's our rotation? Faria, Honeywell, Chirinos, Yarborough, with Snell coming down and Guerrieri someday coming off the 7 day?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That would be my guess. Snell likely to be working on specific goals, which might, or might not, mesh with winning games for the Bulls. Haven't heard a thing about Guerrieri. Have you?

      Delete