It had not been a good day for Alex Gordon. All spring long we’d heard how the former first-round pick was working towards finally fulfilling his potential. Even manager Ned Yost was singing his praises. “He looks much, much better,” he said at the outset of spring training. Yost even went so far as to bat Gordon third yesterday. But through his first four PA he had popped up, grounded out to short, and struck out twice. Then, in the ninth, he had his shot at redemption.
While I watched a lot of baseball yesterday, there was only one game that was broadcast without competition – the evening affair between the Dodgers and Giants. Major League Baseball made a pretty smart move here – it’s hard to better feature the sport than by starting off with a prime-time match-up of bitter rivals, one of whom is coming off a World Championship, especially when each is capable of putting an elite young pitcher on the hill. Tim Lincecum versus Clayton Kershaw is a fun match-up at any time, and when you haven’t had real baseball in five months, its sure to attract attention. It got mine, that’s for sure.
I have to say, though, that what on paper looks to have been a classic pitchers duel did not seem to be while watching live. Lincecum wasn’t bad, certainly, but the game had the vibe of Clayton Kershaw’s coming out party, with Lincecum as just the opening act that got in the way of the guy who we really wanted to see. Even while they both were throwing shutouts, Kershaw’s innings were just ridiculous. Lincecum got hitters out – Kershaw embarrassed them.
Jonah Keri’s going to swing by and chat starting at 11 am eastern, and then Brian Joura will host his RotoGraphs chat starting at 12:30 in the same space. Assorted other authors may swing by as well.
Regard: your weekend programming, laid out for you absolutely nothing like a patient etherized upon a table.
Friday, April 1st
Boston at Texas, 4:05pm ET
• I can’t verify that Michael Jackson’s hit single “P.Y.T.” was written about Boston signings Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez, but that won’t stop me from listening to it (i.e. that song) right this second.
• In mid-March, Matt Klaassen asked the question, Who’s better, Josh Hamilton or Nelson Cruz? This game will give us a conclusive answer!
• Adrian Beltre is back… and he wants vengeance. (If by “vengeance,” that is, we mean “to post another +10 UZR.”)
Introducing FanGraphs’s workweek recap feature.
Moving the Needle: Ramon Hernandez’s three-run walk-off home run, +.908 WPA. For a second it appeared as though Jonny Gomes had ended the game with a walk-off grand slam, but it was just a deep sac fly that put the Reds within two runs. Two pitches later Hernandez finished the job with an absolute pea that cleared the right field wall by plenty. Hernandez went 4 for 5 on the day, but the homer was his only run scored and RBIs.
Notables – Cincinnati
Edinson Volquez: 6 IP, 7 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 2 BB, 5 K, 3 HR. It was better than his last start.
Joey Votto: 1 for 2, 1 HR, 2 BB. In addition to his solo shot, Votto got the Reds on the board in the first with a sac fly. It came with a nice bat flip, but the ball carried only to the wall. His homer came in the seventh, a no-doubter to left off of Kameron Loe, who, as Jack Moore will tell you, probably shouldn’t face any lefties, nevermind one of Votto’s prowess.
Drew Stubbs: 2 for 5, 1 HR. Before Hernandez went opposite field, Stubbs went opposite field. Stubbs hit just one home run in 83 April PA last year. He hit 21 in 500 PA the rest of the way.
Paul Janish: 2 for 4. Freed, finally.
Jay Bruce: 2 for 5. He started 2 for 2, but neither of his singles factored into the scoring. Then in the seventh he struck out after the Reds had closed the gap to 6-3. In the ninth he came up with the bases loaded and struck out on a breaking ball. OBP for the game: .400. WPA for the game: -.111.
Notables – Milwaukee
Yovani Gallardo: 6 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 4 K, 1 HR. This was kind of similar to the line from his Opening Day 2010 start: 7 IP, 7 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 5 K, 1 HR.
Rickie Weeks: 2 for 5, 1 2B, 1 HR. Not only did Weeks homer to lead off the season, but he added an RBI double down the left field line to give the Brewers a 4-1 lead in the second. He also made a nice shovel pass to first on a slow roller, ending the fifth.
Carlos Gomez: 1 for 4, 1 BB, 1 HR. Gomez saw Weeks’s leadoff homer and raised him, crushing one in the upper deck to give the Brewers the quickest 2-0 lead of the season. Last year it took Gomez 40 PA before he drew his first walk of the season. This year he did it in his fifth.
Ryan Braun: 2 for 3, 1 HR, 2 BB. The only time when Braun reached base and didn’t score was following his two-out walk in the second. His homer, hit so far that Stubbs didn’t even bother chasing it to the wall, put the Brewers up 5-2 in the fifth.
Ron Roenicke: 1 for 2. He came out of the dugout to argue Jay Bruce’s third-inning single, which the umpire says Mark Kotsay trapped. That was not the case. Roenicke was right, but that didn’t erase Bruce from first base. Again he emerged in the ninth, when Casey McGehee missed the tag on Brandon Phillips and then threw late to first, which loaded the bases with none out for Cincinnati. There he was wrong; it was his own player, McGehee, who was to blame. He could have ensured the tag on Phillips, or he could have thrown to second (or even to first if he didn’t think he had enough time).
The absolute hardest part of being a fan or analyst is avoiding the use of small samples to make a definitive claim. Allowing unreliable information to shape an opinion or serve as the foundation for an important decision is a mistake. This especially occurs in the opening week of the season when the statistics produced are meaningless and everyone is susceptible to the manipulation of numbers out of sheer joy that baseball has resumed. Just because Ramon Hernandez went 4-5 yesterday does not mean he has regained his stroke and will have an all-star caliber season. The same can be said if he starts the season 12-20, or 21-40.
We have enough information about his true level of abilities at this point in time that 20 trips to the dish is nothing more than a mere blip in the dataset. But when can we be sure that a trend to open the season is actually indicative of a noteworthy change?
It seems like everything is working properly with the 2011 stats, with the exception of a lot of negative FIP values. That’s what happens when you only have six MLB games and the FIP constant is 1.72. If you see anything else that doesn’t look right, please let me know!
Daily data loads from here on out should be complete by 5am every morning.
