A few weeks ago, late in July, Bryce Harper beat up on the Pirates. In a game his Nationals won 9-7, Harper finished 3-for-5 with a double and a dinger. For good measure, he reached on a hit by pitch, and his homer was a walk-off bomb. Every hit in the major leagues is difficult, but maybe in his head, Harper felt like he had more of an opportunity; Harper hasn’t been alive to see the Pirates finish with a .500 record. Two days after the Pirates were eliminated from the 1992 playoffs, Harper was born in Las Vegas, Nevada. His entire life, the Pirates have been a joke.

On Tuesday, the Pirates traded for Marlon Byrd to make themselves better, which is a sentence that makes sense in 2013. And it wasn’t an attempt to improve a lackluster on-field product — the Pirates have their eyes on the playoffs, and they’re currently in an excellent position. They’re right behind the Cardinals in the National League Central, and they’re eight up on the Diamondbacks in the wild-card standings. If and when the Pirates qualify for the postseason, it’ll be an historic moment. But there’s another historic moment they’ll probably have to pass through first: the occasion of their 81st win.

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Allen Craig, so far, has been one of baseball’s all-time best hitters with runners in scoring position. Yes, as in ever. This year, he’s leading the league in batting average in that split. Last year, he led the league in batting average in that split. He is the leader, all-time, in such situational batting average, and his lead isn’t small. If you sort by OPS, Craig’s near the top of the historical leaderboard — between Albert Pujols and Joey Votto. Either the man has a knack for delivering important hits, or he just makes people feel that way.

The other night, Craig batted in the bottom of the seventh in a game between the St.Louis Cardinals and the Cincinnati Reds. The Reds were leading 5-4, but the Cardinals had the bases loaded with two outs. J.J. Hoover threw Craig a first-pitch fastball, up and away, and Craig swung and took it up and away for a deciding grand slam. For the Cardinals, it’s been a magical season when it comes to runners in scoring position, and no one’s had more magic than Craig. And for him, this is just more of the same. Which leads one to wonder: What’s going on with Allen Craig, anyway?

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Every baseball season is crazy, and the crazy can never be completely summed up in one sentence. There’s just too much of it, in too many places, and no one wants to read that long of a sentence. But here’s a sentence that captures some of the 2013 crazy to date: on August 27, the Pittsburgh Pirates have traded for Marlon Byrd. Suggested, by that sentence, is that the Pirates are in the playoff hunt, hence their desire to make an upgrade. Suggested, also, by that sentence, is that Marlon Byrd is an upgrade, in this season. It’s been weird. It’s always weird, but it’s been weird.

If you’d like all of the details, Anthony DiComo has many of them. The Pirates are adding Byrd, John Buck, and some cash from the Mets. The Mets are adding Dilson Herrera and a player to be named player from the Pirates. The Pirates recently put Starling Marte on the disabled list, and they recently lost their backup catcher for the season. They’re still in great shape to at least play in the one-game wild-card playoff, and by making this swap in August instead of September, Byrd and Buck will be postseason-roster eligible. It’s easy to understand the Pirates’ motivation, and it’s easy to understand the Mets’ desire to get something young for a month of two veterans.

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Max Scherzer is an incredible 19-1, and he’s also considered the frontrunner in this year’s race for the American League Cy Young Award. There is no debating the reality of his record — his record is his record, as numbers are numbers. There is, however, debating whether or not he should be in the lead in the award race — the AL has other good starters, too, so Scherzer isn’t in a league of his own. Predictably, then, there is debate regarding the significance of Scherzer’s win/loss record, because not many people have done this before, and that has to count for something, right?

There are few debates in which I can imagine being less interested. That’s not true, there are lots, but I wrote that sentence to make a point. No, you can’t realistically get to 19-1 if you haven’t pitched really well. Scherzer has pitched really well. There is a strong relationship between performance and record, as much as we’d all like to kill the win. Scherzer, though, has also received the most run support in baseball, because his team’s offense has a Miguel Cabrera in it, and there’s a relationship between run support and record, too. If we’re going to adjust for run support, we’re already trying to strip away some context; might as well go all the way and just look at the numbers that really matter. Not included among those numbers are wins and losses.

I like looking at the numbers 19 and 1 as much as the next guy. To be honest, for some reason 19-1 looks better to me than 19-0. But I’m more interested in what’s going on underneath, what’s going on with Scherzer specifically. Scherzer and Rick Porcello have always had a fair number of things in common. This year, they’ve added to the list, and they’ve both been better for it.

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In a sense, Sunday’s Phillies game shouldn’t have been too important. It’s long been apparent the Phillies aren’t going anywhere, or at least, they’re not going where they’d like. The Nationals, too, probably aren’t going anywhere, and while their playoff hopes aren’t quite so dashed, they’re hardly in the picture. And on the mound, the Phillies had a 36-year-old free agent to be, a guy coming off shoulder surgery, a guy who posted an 8.65 ERA before going on the disabled list after seven starts. The Phillies, thus, weren’t even throwing a prospect.

But they were throwing an unknown, by the name of Roy Halladay. Halladay was making his first start since going under the knife, and given who he is and who he’s been, the game captured the interest not just of Phillies fans, but of baseball fans, fans who grew accustomed to thinking of Halladay as unbreakable and automatic. Healthy Halladay was the very picture of the shutdown workhorse. Unhealthy Halladay was a grim reminder that rooting for pitchers sucks. Many were eager to find out what Halladay might have left in the tank, and Sunday he and the Phillies knocked off Patrick Corbin. Following is something of a Halladay start in review.

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Hey there everybody, and welcome to the second part of this edition of the series I wish I didn’t schedule for Fridays, when working Americans are supposed to be able to mentally check out in the early afternoon. I remember, at my old biotech, when Friday rolled around, the workday was basically over by lunch time. Now, not only do I work a full Friday — by the time this post goes up, much of the audience has already mentally and/or physically begun the weekend. One thing I could do is just not work on these things very hard, but I think I’m at the point at which I’m addicted to writing underneath images. I don’t know what I’m going to do in November. Tremble a lot, probably. Here’s a link to the series archive, to change the subject.

Wild swings are what we have, at breaking balls intended to hopefully generate wild swings. This edition comes with five wild swings and a bonus non-swing that still makes it into the post for reasons you might or might not be able to guess. Basically everything is something you might or might not be able to guess. That covers just about all the options. Today’s research excluded a bunch of check-swing strikes, from players like Matt Wieters, Ryan Zimmerman, Mike Moustakas, and Chris Davis. Players very much like them. Players so much like them, in fact, they are them. We’ll get going now to the five wild swings and the bonus. The sooner we all start, the sooner we’re all done.

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Hey there everybody, and welcome to the first part of another edition of The Worst Of The Best. You’ll see in the headline it’s written as “The Worst of the Best” — with fewer capital letters — in accordance with our editorial policies, but I like capital letters because they make me feel important, so the first sentence of this post is my own form of stubborn protest. Now, this is obviously a departure from the news of the day. Yesterday, Ryan Braun released a statement of apology, and everywhere today you can find somebody’s hot takes. The consensus: the apology was a good step, but not enough. Not enough to make up for cheating and lying and accusatory behavior. A written, prepared apology was not enough to make up for that. That is the thesis of just about every article on the matter I’ve seen. So, yeah, I’m glad this is a departure from the news of the day, because the news of the day is stupid.

In this departure, we look at the wildest pitches thrown between August 16 and August 22. Here’s an archive of the whole series, if you feel like throwing your day away or destroying your processor. It’s PITCHf/x and simple math and identifying locations furthest from the center of the strike zone. Some pitches just missing our top five: Andy Pettitte to David Ortiz on August 16, Taylor Jordan to Freddie Freeman on August 16, and Rubby De La Rosa to Robinson Cano on August 18. The pitches that didn’t miss our top five are the top five, presented below. I should warn you: this is a particularly confusing week. I had some trouble with this, and Nationals and Braves fans can probably guess why. The rest of you will just have to wait, a few seconds.

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Lately, Yasiel Puig has been in one of his slumps. For really the first time in his professional career, he’s been the target of a lot of criticism, some of it warranted and some of it over the top. Most significantly, he’s had some struggles at the plate, with his aggressive approach backfiring. Thursday afternoon, the Marlins pitched to him accordingly. The first four times Puig stepped up to the plate, he saw a first-pitch slider. The fifth time he did get a sinker, but by that point it was 6-0 in the ninth so for all I know the plan was ignored.

The first time Puig got a first-pitch slider, he popped it up. The third time he got a first-pitch slider, he fouled it off. The fourth time he got a first-pitch slider, he swung right through it. But the second time he got a first-pitch slider, he beat the living crap out of it. All four times, Puig swung at the slider. One of those times, he gave the ball a ride, or a punishment, depending on how you feel about balls and what they enjoy. There was something remarkable about that ball in play. Something potentially remarkable, at least.

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Right now, Jacoby Ellsbury is presumably focused on helping the Red Sox, but a few months from now, Ellsbury should become a free agent. He probably isn’t thinking too much about that right now, but you could forgive other people for giving it a lot of attention, fans of non-contending teams, and even high-ranking employees of them. Ellsbury looks like an impact player who’s going to hit the open market, like the kind of player who can turn a decent team to a good team, and those who feel like he had just one fluke season would be wise to consider what he’s done in 2013.

Any talk about Ellsbury as a free-agent acquisition has to begin with his statistics. It’s those statistics that explain what he is as a player, and it’s those statistics that give the best indication of what he might become as he ages. Ellsbury, this year, is the owner of a 112 wRC+, and for his career, he’s the owner of a 109 wRC+. He routinely posts positive base-running values, and he also routinely posts positive defensive values. Through Wednesday’s action, Ellsbury’s running a .358 2013 OBP. A lot of people are going to be looking at that OBP. But what would you say if I told you that’s not actually his 2013 OBP at all?

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