O-o-T-S -- Interleague Weekend

[Frayed Knot]

Friday night Phils lost, Nats lost, and Braves lost. Only the Marlins won although the Rays turned a 14-3 laugher into a much scarier 14-9 w/several on base before losing.


Today in Boston, Phils jumped out to a 2-0 lead before some guy named Dan Nava (LF) hit a grand-slam in his first MLB AB for the home team.
Now 8-2 Red Sox w/Boston still batting in the 3rd against Blanton. Phils got their pen raked over last night so Blanton might be taking his lumps for a while here.
Nava came up with the bases loaded a second time but struck out.

[G-Fafif]

Go select AL clubs!

[Frayed Knot]

AL "won" Friday night tilts 8 games to 6

[G-Fafif]

I really like seeing the NL prevail in these matchups, but only as a concept. 1-13 would be an ideal practical mark.

OE: 2-12, I mean. Go Astros, already yet.

[Frayed Knot]

I saw one inning of the Yanx/Astros today and that was enough.
Down 2-1, Jeter walks to lead off I think it was the 3rd inning. Trying to steal he's going to be out by several feet except Keppinger whiffs on the perfect throw lets it go bouncing into CF while Jeets trots to 3rd. Swisher lofted soft single over 2B to tie the game was foretold by every baseball fan on the planet.
Teixeira then walks on 4 pitches before Cano bounces a perfect DP ball to SS except the pitcher lunges and deflects it into no man's land and the bags are full with no one out, a run already in, and not one ball hit hard enough to break a sheet of paper.
The only thing surprising about Posada's Grand Slam that followed is that it went at least 365 feet to RCF instead of the 314-1/2 ft RF corner special I was anticipating.

5 runs, still no one out, and only one ball in the inning hit with something stronger than a wet newspaper.

[Zvon]

Phils gettin rooked, 9-2 in the 6th.

Boston LF Dan Nava slugs a grand salami on the 1st pitch he sees in the majors.
4th player in MLBistory to ever do that.

Came up again his second time with bags full.
The kid could have pulled off a strass.
He K's.
Does double in the gap next time up for a 2 for 3 start and this game ain't over yet.

[Frayed Knot]

Braves scored a run in the 9th to beat Minny
Other than that, Nats, Marlins & Phils all lost.

[Frayed Knot]

Sunday: NL goes 7-6 with the Chicago-v-Chicago tilt still to come.
Biggest problem is that the entire NL East won so it's status quo heading into Monday.

[Frayed Knot]

Innuresting game going on in Chicago - dual no-hitters thru 6 innings.
Gavin Floyd for the ChiSox and Ted Lilly for the Cubbies

Neither is perfect as there have been several walks, HBPs and an error.

[stevejrogers]

2-hitter now so far for Floyd. 1-0 Cubbies, Lilly still got a no-no through 8

[Willets Point]

Looks like the Cubs have a couple of hits and a run now, but still goose eggs for the Southsiders.

[Frayed Knot]

P-hitter Pierre (lefty on lefty) leads off top 9 with a clean single ... and Lou immediately pulls Lilly
Marmol on to try and preserve the win.

[Frayed Knot]

Marmol adds a walk and a balk plus one K
Now an IW loads the bases for Paul Konerko.

[Frayed Knot]

A force play at home and a pop to shallow CF lets the Cubbies squeak by as ChiSoc leave em loaded.

[MFS62]

What's the NL vs AL record so far this year?

Later

[Frayed Knot]

42-42 to date despite the AL's edge in RS/RA (402-374) over what has been two series for most teams.

The front page of BB-Ref.com shows the running total of this.

[Ceetar]

42-42 to date despite the AL's edge in RS/RA (402-374) over what has been two series for most teams.

The front page of BB-Ref.com shows the running total of this.[/quote:2rqzr714]

Pretty decent. I always feel the AL has an edge, so I'll take that as a win. Still a long way to go though. It's weird though, because generally during Interleague I root for more AL teams than NL anyway. (Was rooting for Astros and Mets, but also Rays, Sox, Indians and Twins)

oh well.

next division opponents:

Phi-NYY coming up. I don't know how to feel about this one. I despise the Yankees and the stupid winning percentage they have and want them to finally crash and burn, but I dont' want to let the Phillies "back" into the race either. Can I have a 2-1 win with a 43-33 runs scored?


TB-ATL. Rays can cool off those stupid Braves right?

Wash-Det (don't really care. was rooting for Indians to mess up Strasburg. Here I just don't care.)

Tex-Fla(obvious Texas, but I don't really care here either)

[Frayed Knot]

Pretty decent. I always feel the AL has an edge, so I'll take that as a win. Still a long way to go though.[/quote:28boz1vx]

IL play is now in its 14th season. Some always tried to claim that the AL is at a disadvantage because taking the DH out of half their games screws up their set lineups while a certain amount of prevailing wisdom claims that the AL has the edge on account of NL teams not having a ready-made DH to use.

But for the first eight seasons of IL play the split was almost exactly 50/50 overall (slight edge to NL) with no one year varying more than slightly for either side.
Then, over the last five years, the AL has not only won each year but have done so at rates approaching and sometimes over 60/40 - meaning it was roughly like a 95 win team playing against a 60-some win cellar dweller. I don't think there's any particular reason for this other than a cyclical upturn for the AL over that time, the main annoyance being that AL fans (and particularly MFY fans) display their usual short-term memory and act as if the AL is in their ninth decade of unrivaled dominance.

[Ceetar]

Never mind that the ultimate results suggest balance anyway. 2-2 in the World Series over the last four.

[Frayed Knot]

Except that the WS is such a small sample size that it's tough to point to it as meaningful of anything as far as league-v-league goes.
I mean if we could wave a magic wand and put Pittsurgh in the WS against say Tampa this fall there always a chance the Pirates would win.

IL play, which involves close to 250 games and matches up the good, bad, and mediocre in each league against each other, gives you a better picture of which league is stronger at that time.

[Ceetar]

Except that the WS is such a small sample size that it's tough to point to it as meaningful of anything as far as league-v-league goes.
I mean if we could wave a magic wand and put Pittsurgh in the WS against say Tampa this fall there always a chance the Pirates would win.

IL play, which involves close to 250 games and matches up the good, bad, and mediocre in each league against each other, gives you a better picture of which league is stronger at that time.[/quote:1ucr86s6]

That's true, except the World Series _is_ the ultimate goal. While it may be flawed, the whole idea of competition is to beat the opposition to prove you are "better". There are no brownie points for having a better record or better stats, etc. If you play 8 innings of no-hit baseball but give up 14 runs in the ninth, you still lose despite being the better team most of the game.

[MFS62]

Except that the WS is such a small sample size that it's tough to point to it as meaningful of anything as far as league-v-league goes.
I mean if we could wave a magic wand and put Pittsurgh in the WS against say Tampa this fall there always a chance the Pirates would win.

IL play, which involves close to 250 games and matches up the good, bad, and mediocre in each league against each other, gives you a better picture of which league is stronger at that time.[/quote:jl4l04vz]
And there is this particularly obnoxious fan of an AL team I know who has been reminding me of the poor record of the NL vs the AL during IL play and the All Star games for the past few years.

Later

[Frayed Knot]

Except that the WS is such a small sample size that it's tough to point to it as meaningful of anything as far as league-v-league goes.
I mean if we could wave a magic wand and put Pittsurgh in the WS against say Tampa this fall there always a chance the Pirates would win.

IL play, which involves close to 250 games and matches up the good, bad, and mediocre in each league against each other, gives you a better picture of which league is stronger at that time.

[Guest Edgy DC]

If home field advantage in the World Series has to be linked to something (besides overall record), I guess interleague play would be better than the All Star Game, or maybe just who had the better inter-league record of the two teams.

[Zvon]

next division opponents:

Phi-NYY coming up. I don't know how to feel about this one. I despise the Yankees and the stupid winning percentage they have and want them to finally crash and burn, but I dont' want to let the Phillies "back" into the race either. Can I have a 2-1 win with a 43-33 runs scored?

[Ceetar]

next division opponents:

Phi-NYY coming up. I don't know how to feel about this one. I despise the Yankees and the stupid winning percentage they have and want them to finally crash and burn, but I dont' want to let the Phillies "back" into the race either. Can I have a 2-1 win with a 43-33 runs scored?

[Zvon]

I disagree. The Phillies haven't really been under performing much. They've actually over-performed in recent years, with lots of players and pitchers (particularly in the bullpen) having career years. Polanco really isn't that much of an upgrade over what Feliz brough, Halladay is awesome, yes, and replaces the half season or so of Lee, but he's getting up there in age and if 2008 taught us anything it's that one Ace acquisition doesn't make that much of a difference, especially when the rest of the rotation is mediocre at best.