This post is (a) talking about the issues, but also (b) keeping it funky.

Philadelphia at San Francisco | NLCS, Game Five | 7:57pm ET
Starting Pitchers
Phillies: Roy Halladay
250.2 IP, 7.86 K/9, 1.08 BB/9, .298 BABIP, 51.2% GB, 11.3% HR/FB, 2.92 xFIP, 6.6 WAR

Giants: Tim Lincecum
212.1 IP, 9.79 K/9, 3.22 BB/9, .324 BABIP, 48.9% GB, 9.9% HR/FB, 3.21 xFIP, 5.1 WAR

Notes
In the event that you weren’t there to witness it in its primetime glory, allow me to tell you briefly about the show My Two Dads. Actually, allow me to allow Wikipedia to tell you:

The show begins when Marcy Bradford (Emma Samms), the mother of Nicole Bradford (Staci Keanan), dies. The two men who had competed for the woman’s affections before Nicole was born — Michael Taylor (Paul Reiser) and Joey Harris (Greg Evigan) — are awarded joint custody of Nicole. The mix-ups of two single straight men raising a teen-aged daughter provided the story each week. Judge Margaret W. Wilbur (Florence Stanley), a family court judge, would frequently visit the new family and served as Nicole’s mentor.

That’s not a bad description of the show but for one omission: any mention of the respective dads’ equal and opposite personalities. Reiser’s Michael is conservative, deliberate, and works in finance; Evigan’s Joey — well, that pierced ear should tell you everything you need to know. Dude is crazy!

In any case, the moral of exactly every episode of My Two Dads goes like this: Michael and Joey are different people, and this is made manifest in their approaches to parenting, but both are equally good dads because of how much they love their little Nicole.

Tonight’s pitching match-up, if I may blow your minds for a minute, is like an episode of My Two Dads written for baseball. Halladay is Reiser: understated, efficient. Lincecum is Joey: unorthodox, long-haired, marijuana. But both arrive at the same fundamental end — i.e. dominating their opponent.

The differences/similarities are perhaps most notable in each pitcher’s walk and strikeout numbers. If we judge the two pitchers’ command by the traditional K:BB, Halladay wins easily: 6.3:1 versus Lincecum’s 3.1:1. Those are both good ratios, but Halladay has the advantage on account of his low walk rates.

However, the always-right Tom Tango wrote in March that, rather than using K:BB ratio to adjudge command, we actually ought to use the difference between a pitcher’s strikeouts and walks per batter faced. By that measure, here are the top-10 pitchers this season (with at least 10 starts):

What you’ll notice there — besides the fact that Stephen Strasburg needs to get well soon and Cliff Lee is acually a robot-person — is that Lincecum, though he has a considerably less impressive K:BB ratio than Halladay, actually compares favorably so far as strikeout and walk difference is concerned. Like Joey, he takes an unorthodox approach to his job (parenting, pitching), but ends up in roughly the same places as his more conservative counterpart.

Of course, the analogy isn’t air-tight. Owing to his whiff-based approach, it follows that Lincecum is forced to throw more pitches. In fact, he threw 16.2 per inning this season — as opposed to Halladay’s 14.2. That adds up: Halladay pitched almost 40 more innings in the same exact number of starts (33) as Lincecum. Over the course of the season, that’s valuable.

We can assume that tonight, however — in our first elimination game of the Championship Series — that pitch counts will take a back seat to victory. In this single match-up we’ll be able see each pitcher become entirely himself.

This preview contains a hard-hitting poll. Just, FYI.

Philadelphia at San Francisco | Game Four, NLCS | 7:57pm ET
Starting Pitchers
Phillies: Joe Blanton
175.2 IP, 6.87 K/9, 2.20 BB/9, .331 BABIP, 41.9% GB, 12.2% HR/FB, 4.06 xFIP, 1.9 WAR

Giants: Madison Bumgarner
111.0 IP, 6.97 K/9, 2.11 BB/9, .322 BABIP, 45.1% GB, 8.1% HR/FB, 4.03 xFIP, 2.0 WAR

Notes
While I typically attempt, at all costs, to avoid learning, it occurs to me that, looking at Blanton’s and Bumgarner’s season lines in relief, one is absolutely forced to comprehend the baleful effects of the Fly Ball on a pitcher’s fortunes. For, while Blanton struck out and walked batters at a rate almost identical to Bumgarner — and conceded fly balls on 38.7% of balls in play, versus Bumgarner’s rate of 38.0% — he ended the season with an ERA exactly 1.82 points higher than Bumgarner (4.82 versus 3.00).

Indeed, the only real difference between these pitchers — besides their handedness and respective waistlines — is what happened to the balls once they got in the air. For Bumgarner, about eight percent of them became home runs; Blanton conceded that many, plus half again.

To what do we owe this difference? Well, we can’t ignore the pitchers’ respective ballparks. Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank certainly has a reputation for allowing dongers, while the Giants’ home park is, anecdotally speaking, known as either average or slightly below in this regard. Still, per Dan Turkenkopf’s four-year weighted HR/FB park factors, Citizens Bank Park actually supresses homers, producing a park factor of 94. San Francisco’s AT&T Park, on the other hand, has a 95*.

*Note: numbers are for 2006-09.

Another thing to consider is the type of balls that are being hit in the air. For, while grounders are relatively easy to classify, the difference between a fly ball and line drive is slightly more mysterious. (As I’ve almost definitely mentioned in these pages, we members of Team FanGraphs who were lucky enough to attend spring training had endless hours of fun attempting to identify batted-ball types).

In fact, we do see that Bumgarner induced more grounders per batted-ball than Blanton. It follows, of course, that Blanton allowed more balls in the air. How many? Well, in his 175.2 IP, Blanton conceded 221 fly balls and 111 line drives, for a total of 332 balls in air (BIA), or approximately 17 for every nine innings. Bumgarner, on the other hand, allowed 135 flies and 60 line drives, for a total of 195 BIA, or 15.8 every nine innings.

Does that make things any different? Sort of, but not by much. Blanton, with his 27 homers-allowed, still allowed a home run on 8.1% of his BIA; for Bumgarner that number was only 5.6%.

Ultimately, we’re forced to concede that Blanton’s relative susceptibility to the home run is inexplicable. It could be the home park; it could be the types of batted-balls he’s allowing; it could be random variation. It’s very likely, all three things, plus some other factors beyond these that we (read: I, Carson Cistulli) are failing to consider.

The notable thing, so far as this game is concerned, is how similar these pitchers have performed and how different have been their results. Do we regard Bumgarner as “better” because he’s managed to suppress about five home runs that Blanton would’ve allowed in the same numbers of innings? Do we regard Blanton as “worse” because those same fly balls have left the park on his watch? Were you a manager, who would you rather have pitch for you tonight? From what we know, the answer should be “either,” but I don’t know if that’s the case.

How’s about we find out, huh? Below, reader, you’ll find a poll whose question essentially amounts to a Zen koan. Bring it.

These game notes are offered with supreme humility.

San Francisco at Philadelphia | 8:19pm ET
Starting Pitchers
Giants: Jonathan Sanchez
193.1 IP, 9.54 K/9, 4.47 BB/9, .262 BABIP, 41.5% GB, 9.8% HR/FB, 4.11 xFIP, 2.6 WAR

Phillies: Roy Oswalt
211.2 IP, 8.21 K/9, 2.34 BB/9, .261 BABIP, 45.7% GB, 9.1% HR/FB, 3.45 xFIP, 4.7 WAR

The Phils Against Sanchez
According to Matt Becker’s game preview, Giant coach Bruce Bochy has shuffled his starting rotation, purposely pushing up Jonathan Sanchez to tonight’s Game Two in Philadelphia.

Becker writes: “One of the reasons Bochy decided for the change is because Sanchez was stellar in his two regular-season starts against the Phillies this year.”

So, some notes on that statement:

1. Obviously, the reference to “two regular-season starts” sets off the Small Sample Size Alarm in the baseballing nerd’s heart. It’s very probable that Sanchez’s season (and career) numbers — and the Phillies’ team platoon split — can tell us more about tonight’s match-up than two isolated starts this season.

2. As for Philadelphia’s lefty-righty platoon split, here’s what we get: per Baseball Reference, they recorded a 111 OPS+ versus lefties (relative to other teams versus lefties) as opposed to just a 102 OPS+ versus righties. Broadly speaking, the Phillies are probably better versus lefties than righties.

3. Even though Sanchez conceded only 2 ER in those 2 GS versus Philadelphia this season (the first at San Francisco on April 26, the second at Philadelphia on August 19), he didn’t actually pitch all that well. In 13 IP, his K:BB was 13:7, and of the 31 BIP, only 10 of them were grounders. If we figure Sanchez’s xFIP over those two starts, we get something like 4.60 or thereabouts.

The Giants, Oswalt, and Homers
Among National League teams, the Giants had the most homers in September (and October): 39 in 1048 PAs. They also had the NL’s highest HR/FB rate at 12.6%. Buster Posey had eight of the homers; Juan Uribe, seven; Pat Burrell, six; Freddy Sanchez, four; and Aubrey Huff, four. All are likely to start tonight.

Curiously, after coming to Philadelphia, Roy Oswalt saw his groundball rate increase to a level unseen since his 2008 season. After getting grounders on only 43.0% of balls in play with Houston this season — and 43.3% last year — Oswalt saw that number jump to 50.2% in his 12 starts with the Phillies.

There are obvious, and predictable, caveats here: 12 starts isn’t very many, and ground balls are prone to bias. BUT, it’s also possible that what we see here is Oswalt attempting to adjust to his new, more homer-friendly home park.

If I Had My Druthers
• Andres Torres and Chase Utley would spiral into a Handsome Vortex.
• Kool Keith would write an album of the same name.
• Handsome Vortex, that is.

Episode Forty-Nine
In which the panel is invective-ridden and error-laden.

Headlines
New York/Philly Rule, Minnesota/Cincinnati Drool
Roy Halladay vs. Tim Lincecum vs. Cliff Lee
Crippling Self-Doubt: Discuss
… and other pathos-inducing contretemps!

Featuring
Dave Cameron, Full-Time Employee
Matt Klaassen, Resident Philosocator
Joe Pawl, Our Man in NYC

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

Audio on the flip-flop. (Approximately 35 min play time.)

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Against all odds, my attempt Friday to predict not only the exact score, but also to provide a precise play-by-play rendering of Game Two in the Philadelphia-Cincinnati NLDS series — well, it wasn’t a rousing success. As it happened, Roy Oswalt didn’t strike out 15 batters, and Chase Utley didn’t hit the inside-the-park home run I was so sure he would. Nor was I able to account for the Reds’defensive woes.

With regard to my failure, all I can say is that, like a politician who’s recently been tied to a New York City-based call-girl ring, I am humbled.

On the subject of humility, however, there appears to be one resident of Philadelphia who’s not feeling too much of it presently — namely, Mr. Charlie Manuel. With Cole Hamels set to start Game Three this evening (at 8:07 ET), and Roys Halladay and Oswalt ready to pitch hypothetical Games Four and Five, Manuel’s feeling pretty confident, as evidenced by his comments in AP writer Jay Cohen’s game preview:

[W]hile Reds manager Dusty Baker is talking about faith, his time in the military and a self-help book he read earlier this year, Manuel feels comfortable enough to say he doesn’t like Cincinnati’s chances of advancing.

“It can happen,” the grinning manager said Saturday. “It ain’t goin’ to happen, but it can happen.”

I can’t say for sure what the proper response is to these comments. Does it demonstrate undue hubris? Is Manuel merely being realistic? Ought Jay Cohen be given a Pulitzer immediately for accurately rendering Charlie Manuel’s spoken English in print?

I don’t know.

In any case, here were this author’s reactions, one-by-one:

1. Wow, did he really say that?

2. [Re-reading] Yes, he appears to’ve said that.

3. [Thinking in My Brain] He maybe shouldn’t’ve said that. The payoff for being correct is much lower than the penalty for being incorrect. Unjustified or unfulilled or un-whatever hubris is generally taboo in the sporting world.

4. On the other hand, he’s probably right. Even if these two teams are evenly matched and only home-field advantage informs the resulting outcomes, that still gives Philadelphia about an 87% chance of winning the series [1 – (.542*.542*.458)].

5. I should note this in that frigging game preview I have to write.

Before I continue, let’s agree on one thing, please — that the subject of “guaranteed victories” is a tired one. Joe Namath’s was pretty excellent, I suppose, because it’s the oldest famous one. But subsequent guarantees — and, seriously, I refuse to spend even one second of my life cataloging them — ring hollow. By definition, one needs to speak in probabilities when it comes to victory.

In any case, this is what makes Manuel’s statements notable — both (a) his acknowledgement of the probabilities and (b) recognition that the Phils’ chances of winning their series are really high. Where usually a player or manager might say, “Yeah, we just gotta go out there and continue to play our game” and/or “That’s a good team in that other dugout,” Manuel’s basically like, “We’re at least as good as the other team, and we have a 2-0 games lead. You fill in the blanks, dogg.”

Is this making a mountain out of the proverbial mole hill? Perhaps, except for two things: (a) I, personally, haven’t ever seen a manager make comments of this nature precisely, and (b) because this is the playoffs, all such comments are necessarily magnified.

As the reader will already know, my colleagues here at FanGraphs have gone to great lengths to provide learned previews for each of the postseason games thus far. Certainly, the writing and the analysis, it’s quite good — nor would I dare change it.

Having said that, though, I will level criticism on one ground — namely, for their (i.e. my colleagues’) inability to predict the future, or even to offer a prediction of same.

For example, consider Dave Cameron’s preview of tonight’s Cincinnati-Philadelphia game. Looking at the contest from the Reds’ point of view, Cameron offers some notes on Roy Oswalt‘s excellence, Bronson Arroyo’s relative inferiority, and how Dusty Baker might be best suited to leverage his bullpen against the Phillies.

That’s fine — all of it — but one thing is conspicuous by its absence from Cameron’s preview: the exact score of the game and the specific events leading to said score.

With all due respect to Cameron, I’m forced to ask: Is this still 2009, or something? If FanGraphs is going to lead the way in baseballing analysis, Dave, we’re gonna have to go the extra mile.

It’s with those shortcomings in mind that I offer to the reader this “Preemptive Review” of Game Two of the Cincy-Philly Divisional Series — in which the author (I, Carson One-Million-Dollars Cistulli) provide a review of a game that has as yet to occur.

You can find an image of the game’s exact box score below and a can see both the box score and play-by-play by clicking here. In the meantime, however, here are some things that will definitely, no-questions-asked occur tonight:

1. Roy Oswalt will strike out 15 batters, en route to a 5-2 victory.
It’s a true fact!

2. Chase Utley will hit two homers, one of the inside-the-park variety.
It’s been pre-ordained!

3. Aaron Harang will pitch 0.1 IP in relief.
Doubt it at your own risk!

4. Laynce Nix will twice be “frozen” on a strike three.
It’s getting cold in here!

5. With two outs in the sixth inning, Drew Stubbs will limit Placido Polanco to a single on a line drive “smoked” to right-center field
Why even question it?!?

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Eno Sarris and I will be covering the Philadelphia Phillies for the duration of the postseason.

In lieu of a proper series preview, we have elected instead — really for no reason whatsoever, other than it’s a fantastic idea — we’ve elected to explore the Phils’ chances versus Cincinnati via the splendors of Lincoln-Douglas (LD) style debate.

As is custom in LD-type debate, we begin this one with a case, as follows:

Resolved: The Phillies will defeat the Reds in the NLDS.

As is also custom in LD debate, one of us (Sarris, in this case) will take the Affirmative side; the other (I, Carson America Cistulli) will take the Negative.

It should be noted that there are a number of things here that are most certainly not proper to typical LD debate. For one thing, we basically just stop after the second cross-examination. For another, we have no idea what we’re doing.

Finally, the reader should understand that, in what follows, Sarris and I are probably just as interested in cataloging the relative strengths and weaknesses of each club as we are of actually “predicting” a winner. Obviously, in such a short series, one can only really speak in probabilities of victory.

Affirmative Constructive
In which the Affirmative makes his case.

The gentleman from Wisconsin may think he’s the Mr. Lincoln in this debate, but the Affirmative in this case is the side that will more likely stand the test of time. There are seemingly no terms to define — we all know that “wins” means “scores (much) more than the opponent in (probably the first three, but at least) the majority of games in the series,” I assume — so we can get on with the debate.

Here on this electronic paper are the most obvious reasons the “Phillies” will “win” this “series.”

1. Their “Big 3” in the starting rotation is better.
The best three starters on the Phillies averaged an 3.28 FIP this year. The Reds’ best (or first) three starters averaged an 4.19 FIP. That’s a stark difference. Oh, and a starter on the Phillies will probably win the Cy Young this year if you are into that hardware thing.

2. Their lineup is deeper.
Take out Joey Votto, the Reds’ best hitter, and the rest of the lineup averages an .340 wOBA. Take out Jayson Werth, the Phillies’ best hitter this year, and the rest of the lineup averages a .347 wOBA. And in some ways that’s understating the Phillies’ depth: their “worst” regular this year was Jimmy Rollins with his .317 wOBA, but he was hurt for much of this year, and his career wOBA is .336. You might be able to pitch around Votto, but how do you pitch around the “scariest” Phillie batter? And how do you identify the scariest Phillie batter?

Cross Examination: Negative Questions
In which the Negative asks the Affirmative questions.

Q. Could the gentleman from California please inform the reader what other factors — besides starting pitching, that is — what other factors contribute at a significant level to run production and run prevention (and, therefore, wins and losses).

Q. The gentleman from California has given the team wOBAs of the Phillies and Reds sans each respective team’s best hitter. Is there a new rule of which I’m unaware that expressly forbids each team from playing its best hitter? Are there any other reasons why neither Jayson Werth nor Joey Votto would play in these games?

Q. Does the gentleman from California’s face hurt? Because it’s sure hurting me.

Cross Examination: Affirmative Answers
In which the Affirmative responds.

A. Yes, there are other things. Like, let’s say a bullpen. The Phillies’ bullpen had a 3.87 FIP this year, the Reds a 3.90. Look at their closers – Brad Lidge (3.87 FIP, 4.06 xFIP) versus Francisco Cordero (3.92 FIP, 4.53 xFIP). “Lights-out” Lidge ain’t great, but at least he’s no Co-Co. The Phillies, in a remarkable twist of fate for that franchise, own the mound in this series.

A. There are ways to deal with singular, impressive hitters. I know that the sabres can rattle in some circles when you mention the intentional walk, but walking Joey Votto and facing Scott Rolen doesn’t quite have the same “scaritude factor” as walking Chase Utley to get to Ryan Howard. The point is, the Phillies lineup is scary from top to bottom. The Reds have some good hitters, but they also have Orlando Cabrera and his .303 OBP (.292 wOBA) in the second spot in the lineup. Thanks Dusty!

A. The gentleman from Wisconsin is no gentle man. If he would like to get petty, I’d get down in the muck with him, but I’ve shown I can be the better man and continue with the discourse at hand.

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Episode Forty-Eight
In which the panel is less a panel and more of cage match.

Headlines
Playoff Previews, Players

Featuring
Dave Cameron, Full-Time Employee
Matt Klaassen, Resident Philosocator

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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Despite the best efforts of the San Diego Baseball Padres, yesterday marked the end of the 2010 regular season. I’m not sure what that means for you, but, for Carson Cistulli, it presents a bright, shining opportunity to wax intellectual — which, that’s what I plan to do in what follows.

One thing about which I was — and, really, still am — curious is the word regular itself.

The most peculiar use of regular is the way it’s used by the employees and (ahem) regulars of Dunkin Donuts. I don’t know how wide this particular phenomenon reaches, but I can tell you with certainty that, in both Concord, NH and Newton, MA, to order a “regular” coffee at Dunkins is to order a coffee with cream and sugar. (Although, perhaps this makes sense: given the relative lack of racial diversity in both towns, there is, for sure, nothing “regular” about being black in either. One can only assume that the coffee is mimicking the most abundant local demographic.)

Per Etymonline, regular actually originates with the Proto-Indo-European root reg-, meaning “move in a straight line.” In Latin, the verb regere (“to rule, direct”) informs words like rex (“king” or “ruler”), regens (“ruler, governor”), and regula (“rule”). The last usage is the same as that in, for example, The Rule of St. Benedict (or St. Francis, St. Augustine, etc).

That the word regular has religious origins isn’t so surprising, on account of (a) basically every word has some kind of religious origin and also (b) the MLB calendar itself is similarly cyclical.

The Liturgical Year (the Catholic one, anyway) is, broadly speaking, broken into four parts: Advent, Lent, Easter, and Ordinary Time. You could make any number of distinctions (i.e. separating Advent into Advent and Christmas, combining Lent and Easter), but these are the four periods that span at least one month.

The Baseball Year also — again, speaking broadly — also comes in four parts: Hot Stove, Spring Training, Regular Season, Postseason.

I’m not sure it’s an exact analogue. I mean, Ordinary Time and the Regular Season — they’re very obviously similar. But what’s more like Advent, the Hot Stove League or Spring Training? Hard to say.

The Oxford English Dictionary gives the following as one of the many definitions of regular:

Chiefly U.S. (colloq.). Of a person: ordinary, normal, unremarkable; (hence, as a general term of mild approbation) unpretentious, unassuming; decent, agreeable, esp. in regular guy.

That, in itself, isn’t particularly interesting or relevant. What is interesting and relevant is that the OED attributes the earliest instance of this usage to former Cub, Cardinal, and (in 1900) Orphan Roger Bresnahan, in an article from the December 21, 1912 edition of the Boston Globe.

I’ve reprinted the article below, in full. The relevant passage comes at the very end, but the whole thing is generally awesome.

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Episode Forty-Seven
In which the guest is getting reds-y to watch postseason baseball.

Headlines
“Red October” = Actual, Usable Pun Again!
Aroldis Chapman: The Man, the Myth, the Missile
Bold and/or Foolhardy Playoff Predictions
… and other make-or-break propositions!

Featuring
Justin Merry (a.k.a. Justin Inaz) of Red Reporter and Beyond the Boxscore.

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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