Below, please find three games arranged in chronological order, voted Best Kind of Order once again in 2011.

(Note: Today’s ZiPS projections include FIP-, which is a much less complicated thing than you might initially suspect. Basically, 100 is league average, lower is better.)

Oakland at Toronto | 12:37pm ET
Starting Pitchers
Athletics: Trevor Cahill
194.2 IP, 5.50 K/9, 3.10 BB/9, 4.43 FIP, 108 FIP- (ZiPS)

Blue Jays: Ricky Romero
212.2 IP, 7.62 K/9, 3.68 BB/9, 3.84 FIP, 94 FIP- (ZiPS)

Notes
• In his first start of the season, Trevor Cahill had eight strikeouts in just 4.2 innings.
• He also used his curve — generally regarded as excellent — about twice as much as he did during his average start last season.
• “Those two things are totally related,” you’re maybe thinking.
• “They’re actually probably not,” Chris Cwik just told us.
• He also told us his surname’s pronounced “Swick,” though, so maybe he can’t be trusted.

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Safe to say that they hold Konerko at third here.

White Sox 10, Royals 7

Moving the Needle: Carlos Quentin doubles in the go-ahead runs, +.660 WPA. Top of the ninth. Down one. Runners at the corners, and two outs. Joakim Soria dealt a fastball belt high and in to Quentin, but he jumped out ahead of it and drove it into the gap. The decision to pinch run Brent Lillibridge for Paul Konerko paid off handsomely, as the little guy chugged around third and beat the throw home. The lead wouldn’t last long, though, as Kila Ka’aihue hit an RBI double of his own in the bottom half. It wasn’t until the 12th that Brent Morel hit a bases loaded single to break the tie. In any case, Quentin also had another double and a homer on the day.

Notables

Juan Pierre: 3 for 6, 1 2B, 1 R, 2 RBI, 1 SB. Notable, because 1) that’s a solid line, 2) he was the dee-freaking-h, and 3) despite the solid line, he still finished the game with -.055 WPA.

Also in this issue: Angels 5, Rays 1 | Pirates 3, Cardinals 1 | Rangers 7, Mariners 3 | Diamondbacks 6, Cubs 4 | Rockies 7, Dodgers 5 | Giants 8, Padres 4 | Indians 8, Red Sox 4 | Tigers 7, Orioles 3 | Phillies 10, Mets 7 | Blue Jays 5, A’s 3 | Reds 12, Astros 4 | Marlins 7, Nationals 4 | Brewers 5, Braves 4

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When Matt Garza was acquired by the Chicago Cubs this off-season, he was expected to provide stability to a rotation with some question marks. Garza’s first start with the Cubs was anything but stable, as he likely posted one of the strangest pitching lines we will see this season. Over 7 innings, Garza managed to post 12 strikeouts while allowing 12 hits and no walks. His performance in the game actually led to Garza posting a FIP of -0.48. (Since we are dealing with really small samples here, it’s important to note that this isn’t terribly uncommon early in the season. Still, it’s kind of cool to have a negative FIP, right?) The line is so unique, however, because it’s tough to understand how one pitcher can be so hittable/un-hittable in the same game. Let’s take a closer look at how this could have happened?
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Episode Sixty-Eight
In which Capitalism is kinda the good guy.

Headlines
The Maple Street Press Story — Told!
The Boston Red Sox — Mentioned Briefly!
Sample Article — Linked To!

Featuring
Jim Walsh, President and Founder, Maple Street Press

Finally, you can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio on the flip-flop. (Approximately 30 min play time.)

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Since the last time we spoke about Alexi Ogando a few things have changed. The biggest concern about Ogando in the rotation is and was durability. The outfielder-turned-fireballer pitched a career-high 72.1 innings last season between the minors and major leagues. With that in mind, it seems unlikely he could handle a workload over 150+ innings in 2011.

In the original Ogando article, I briefly mentioned the Rangers might start Ogando in the rotation with the intention of moving him back to the bullpen once Brandon Webb or Tommy Hunter was able to take his turn. Soon after we went live on FanGraphs, the Rangers announced that the move was indeed a temporary one. Even though the long-term durability issues were erased, there were concerns about how much endurance the righty would have on a start-to-start basis.

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Like most non-Yankees fans, I typically change the channel when the 9th inning rolls around and Mariano Rivera is trotting to the mound. Why bother watching when the outcome is near-foretold? Especially now that “Ni Hao Kai Lan” is on streaming Netflix? I have better uses of my time, dear Yankees closer.

In 2011, I have found this ignore-the-Yankees-ninth tradition has extended now into the 8th inning. As a Rays fan, I know well how Soriano can and will close down many a late inning affair. So, when Rafael Soriano took the bump last night, I considered my evening of baseball complete and retired to my chambers. I imagine a number of Yankees fans woke like me — quite surprised at the night’s result: A 5-4 New York loss.

Soriano ended with a line of 0.2 IP and 4 ER against him, leading to the eventual Yankees loss. The occasionally-injured reliever did not have his typical command last night, missing the catcher’s target on nearly every pitch. But what does this mean for the New York Yankees bullpen in the long term? Probably not much.

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A number of months ago I rolled out “the most popular player feature”. It’s basically which players were viewed the most on FanGraphs in the past 24 hour period. Over our spring training trip, it was mentioned to me several times that Rafael Soriano is always in the top five and that the list must be broken.

It’s certainly possible that the list is broken, but after combing through the code, I couldn’t find anything particularly egregious. I’m inclined to believe one of the following: the system is being gamed (maybe it can be if you do something like this), there’s a group of people who everyday can’t help but fawn over Rafael Soriano’s stats (there are a lot of Yankees fans), or he really is just that popular (I’m skeptical).

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“His stuff is amazing,” said Roenicke. “He waited too long to bring his curveball into play. That’s why he struggled the first couple of innings. But I haven’t seen too many guys with that kind of stuff.”

Brewers Manager Ron Roenicke, on Yovani Gallardo

Yovani Gallardo started on Opening Day for the Brewers, recording a decent but unimpressive start against the Cincinnati Reds. In that start, Gallardo threw six innings, allowing ten baserunners (seven hits, three walks) and striking out four. Some would say that he was lucky to escape only allowing two runs. Gallardo allowed eight of those ten baserunners in his first four innings. Roenicke noted that Gallardo didn’t bring his curveball in until later. Indeed, Gallardo threw his first of ten curveballs in the fifth inning. Seven of the ten went for strikes, including one swinging strike. The curveball was Gallardo’s only above-average pitch according to pitch-type linear weights, as well.

Gallardo took the advice of his manager last night, getting the curveball out early and often to retire Braves hitters through his complete-game shutout. Atlanta only recorded two hits and two walks in the nine innings, and even though Gallardo only struck out two batters, he induced a whopping 16 ground balls, in no small part thanks to the effectiveness of his curveball.

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While Shutdowns and Meltdowns are a month away from being one year old, they still feel like relatively new statistics to me. They’ve only recently been added to player pages, and although there have been used in a handful of articles on FanGraphs written over the past year, they still aren’t widely used yet. This seems like a crying shame to me, as Shutdowns and Meltdowns are…well, awesome. For the longest time, saberists would denigrate the Save, commenting about how its rules were convoluted, it didn’t properly value relief pitchers, and it put an undo stress on the ninth inning. And all that is true, but we couldn’t get people to stop and listen as we didn’t have any alternatives to point at. Now, though, those days are past.

There are four main reasons why I like Shutdown and Meltdowns, and why I think everyone should use them more often. Let me explain:

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Here at FanGraphs, we’re big fans of emphasizing process over results. We’re not the only ones. The Tampa Bay Rays have made a cottage industry of it. The Kansas City Royals have built the best farm system in baseball, though their Process remains a riddle wrapped inside an enigma, plastered on a Jump to Conclusions mat.

When someone benefits from a faulty process, or even makes the right move for the wrong reasons, it’s our duty as responsible analysts to hate it. But lately I’ve been having trouble doing that. First, there was Terry Francona‘s oddly timed but smart decision to drop Carl Crawford in the Red Sox batting order against left-handed pitchers. Now, it’s Mike Scioscia’s move to make Jordan Walden the Angels’ new closer, just four games into the season.

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