The Nationals go quietly in the top of the ninth, bringing out Gio Gonzalez with a 1-0 and a no-hitter going in the ninth. Four reached against him with three walks and a hit by pitch. The top of the order bats in the ninth, with Dee Gordon, Giancarlo Stanton, and Christian Yelich scheduled to hit.
Update: Gordon drives a 1-1 pitch into centerfield for the first hit of the game for the Marlins. Now the Nationals have to defend the one-run lead.
Gio Gonzalez just finished seven no-hit innings in Miami. He struck out five Marlins batters and walked three, throwing 87 pitches so far. Brian Goodwin doubled and Bryce Harper singled him in for the only run of the game. The Nationals only have three hits as Jose Urena is pitching a great game, too.
The Chicago Cubs are presenting Steve Bartman with a World Series ring:
The Cubs say they “hope this provides closure on an unfortunate chapter” and Bartman “continues to be fully embraced by this organization.”
Bartman released a statement saying he is “deeply moved and sincerely grateful.” He praised team owners the Ricketts family and management, and called the ring a reminder of “how we should treat each other in today’s society.”
The Cubs should have Dusty Baker present the ring, since Bartman deflected criticism from Baker for not having a reliever ready when Mark Prior tired.
The Blue Jays traded Francisco Liriano to the Astros for Nori Aoki and a outfield prospect Teoscar Hernandez. Liriano will relieve:
Liriano has appeared in 303 major league games, but he has started 274 of those games. This would be a rare role for him. But at a time when the asking prices are reportedly high on lefty relievers like Brad Hand, this could be a stealthy addition for the Astros.
Liriano has still done one thing exceptionally and consistently well this year and throughout his career: he’s neutralized left-handed batters. He’s limited lefties to a .262 wOBA and a .230/.254/.361 slash line in 2017. For his career, he’s limited lefties to a .272 wOBA and a .219/.294/.305 slash line.
So the Astros get a LOOGY who can also do long relief? This is going to be interesting.
Every year around this time I am reminded of the first time Bill Murray hosted Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live (emphasis added):
I’m telling you. Jane, it’s incredible! Do the hard news, and you’ll learn a lot about people. Wow! Ouch!
[ image: President Jimmy Carter ] Now, here’s a story. I don’t even know why it’s here. Congress sustains a veto on a water project. Who cares?! There are peole being KILLED in Lebanon! [ he slams the report on the desk ]
The A.M.A. — D.E.S. — Cancer of the cervix — [ pauses ] I think there’s certain things that shouldn’t be talked about on TV, and this is one of them!
The selection process for the Pope. [ he pauses ] We did this a MONTH ago! Look, Jane — have you got anything interesting over there, honey?
Washington traded with the Twins for a closer, Brandon Kintzler.
Kintzler has the third-most saves in baseball (28), but the sixth-lowest strikeout rate among qualified relievers. An atypical closer.
— Chelsea Janes (@chelsea_janes) July 31, 2017
You know, most teams find someone who throws hard, can strike out a lot of batters, maybe has great control, and isn’t afraid of the big stage. They make them a closer. Some do well, and some don’t. Some flame out after a couple of years. Most teams, however, are able to sustain a closer for a season. Washington just can’t seem to make up their minds about the position. They’ve gone with a control artist who keeps the ball in the park. That means the defense is going to be tested late in the game. We’ll see if the opposition starts trying to punch the ball through the right side of the infield.
Shall we start a pool as to which closer the Nationals will acquire next July 31st?
The two biggest deals at the trade deadline saw two good but oft injured pitchers make their way to big market contenders. The Yankees pulled the trigger first, acquiring Sonny Gray from Oakland for three prospects. Closer to the deadline, the Dodgers also dealt three minor league players to acquire Yu Darvish from the Rangers.
Gray owns a 3.43 ERA in 97 innings this season, with good three-true outcome numbers. His home run allowed total is low, however, from pitching in Oakland, although that is more of a 2017 anomaly. For his career, he allowed a .357 slugging percentage at home, .345 on the road. His total slash line against stands at .235/.296/.352. That the line of an excellent pitcher.
Darvish has not pitched a full season since 2013, but the Dodgers staff is made up of oft injured pitchers. The trick for them is to to keep any five healthy at once. The Dodgers must love Darvish’s 148 strikeouts and 45 walks in 137 innings, and his home runs allowed should get a bit better moving out of Texas.
Oakland received three very good prospects, even though two of them are injured right now. There is tremendous upside to the A’s in this move.
The prospects the Rangers received are less impressive, but two of them are very young. The Yankees control Gray through the 2020 season, while Darvish will be a free agent at the end of the year. In other words, the Dodgers are really trying to win now, while the Yankees, eight years removed from their last World Championship, are building a longer-term winner. Their trade helps them now and over the next few seasons.
On the corner of 2nd and Main Street is the new 226 residence building composed of 23 studios, 145 1-bedrooms, and 58 2-bedrooms. Vancouver based, Create Properties brings a unique vibe to their properties where you can live, work and play. This development will feature: a green roof for residents with garden plots and storage for gardening supplies, electric vehicle charging stations, four artist studios, bicycle stalls, 13000 square feet of retail space, and culture space.
This fabulous development is situated within walking distance to the Olympic Village, close to breweries and dining spots.
The post 2nd + Main by Create Properties in Mount Pleasant appeared first on Vancouver New Condos.
The Tigers take on the Yankees as Michael Fulmer faces Luis Severino. Fulmer makes his second career start against New York, having shut them out for six innings last season. After not allowing a home run in May or June, Fulmer gave up five so far in July. Severino is now considered the Yankees ace, which may have had a positive effect on Mashiro Tanaka. In 21 innings since the All-Star break, Severino allowed three runs, one earned, walking five and striking out 21.
The Rays lost three of four against the Yankees over the weekend, now take on the best team in the AL as Alex Cobb pitches against the Astros and Charlie Morton. Cobb owns a 1.99 ERA in 22 2/3 innings since the All-Star break, despite allowing four home runs. All five runs he allowed scored on those four home runs. Morton struck out 27 batters in 24 innings since returning from the disabled list, helping him to a 3.23 ERA in that time.
Enjoy!
Andrew McCutchen blasted three home runs Sunday afternoon as the Pirates pounded the Padres 7-1. McCutchen got off to a very slow start this season, batting .223/.301/.404 the first two months of the season. Note that the problem was one of hits, not selectivity or power. He was drawing walks just fine and collecting plenty of extra-base hits. He was no longer fearsome, however.
That changed the last two months. McCutchen is back to MVP type hitting, with a .367/.470/.678 slash line in that time.
McCutchen recently talked about his process of finding his swing again:
“There were some small adjustments here or there, and that was why the process of getting back took so long. It wasn’t one of those things where you’re going to look back and see oh, I see what he’s doing differently now. You won’t have the perfect camera angle to be able to notice it anyway. I can see myself five years ago when I felt my best, and go back and watch that.
…
“It’s all about setting up in the box. I sit the bat on my chest, and then I pick it up, and I’m ready. There’s something in there, in the midst of all of that, there’s a certain feel I’m trying to feel. I want to feel that every single time, every single pitch. Just mimicking that feel over and over again.”
Basically, he looked at his old swing, and practiced until it was perfect. The results were very good for the Pirates, as no one is talking about trading McCutchen away at this point.
Kyle Farmer made quite the major league debut Sunday night. An old rookie at seasonal age 26, he pinch hit in the bottom of the 11th inning for the Dodgers. They trailed the Giants 2-1 with one out, when Farmer doubled to drive in two runs and win the game.
Farmer was a fairly unimpressive minor league hitter until recently. Finally reaching AAA, he was hitting .316/.363/.503. If he never plays another major league game, he’ll have a great story to tell about his first game, hit, and win.
The 2017 season continues to run well ahead of the 2016 season at the same point in time, producing 9.33 runs per game versus 8.89 runs per game through 17 weeks last year. The number remain consistent; two more home runs every ten games played, three more walks, five more strikeouts, and two fewer other hits. So overall hits are about the same, but there is more power to drive in the extra free passes.
The week by week graph shows that offense is not as high as it was early in the season, but still remains better than the previous two years.
Here are the top picks my programs produced for use in Beat the Streak. This post mostly explains the ideas behind the calculations. In addition, this post shows tests on the Neural Network (NN). This post discusses an NN that includes the ballpark. I recently updated the models, and the results of those tests are here.
For 2017, I am just going to publish the Log5 hit averages and the NN probabilities with parks factored in. I am keeping track of the results here. I added a graph that gives a visual representation of the probability and success each day. The sheet also includes a table that summarizes the length of positive and negative streaks.
First, the Log5 Method picks:
0.319 — Jose Altuve batting against Alex Cobb
0.306 — Ryon Healy batting against Matt Cain
0.302 — Jose Ramirez batting against Doug Fister
0.297 — Daniel Murphy batting against Jose Urena
0.291 — Eric Hosmer batting against Ubaldo Jimenez
0.289 — Jaycob Brugman batting against Matt Cain
0.286 — Jed Lowrie batting against Matt Cain
0.286 — Michael Brantley batting against Doug Fister
0.285 — Whit Merrifield batting against Ubaldo Jimenez
0.284 — Yonder Alonso batting against Matt Cain
0.284 — Brandon Phillips batting against Nick Pivetta
On a day with a light schedule, Matt Cain’s poor pitching brings a number of Oakland Athletics players to the top of the list. Let’s see if they survive the NN. Someone like rookie Jaycob Brugman doesn’t have the plate appearances to give him a great three-year hit average, and the NN won’t give him much credit for that.
Here is how the NN with Park ranks the players:
0.319, 0.771 — Jose Altuve batting against Alex Cobb.
0.297, 0.750 — Daniel Murphy batting against Jose Urena.
0.302, 0.737 — Jose Ramirez batting against Doug Fister.
0.265, 0.722 — Jean Segura batting against Cole Hamels.
0.291, 0.718 — Eric Hosmer batting against Ubaldo Jimenez.
0.284, 0.717 — Brandon Phillips batting against Nick Pivetta.
0.286, 0.716 — Michael Brantley batting against Doug Fister.
0.285, 0.715 — Whit Merrifield batting against Ubaldo Jimenez.
0.306, 0.714 — Ryon Healy batting against Matt Cain.
0.281, 0.712 — Ender Inciarte batting against Nick Pivetta.
Jose Altuve is the unanimous pick. Only Healy survives in the top ten against Matt Cain. I might be inclined to go with Jose Ramirez today, who is facing a poor pitcher in a better park for hitters. We’re also at the point in the season when we’re running out of time for picking one player a day. Doubling down is becoming more important.
As always, your best pick will fail to get a hit about 25% of the time.
Here is the daily list of active streaks of plate appearances without a hit, with pitchers eliminated:
Good luck!
Channels have always been a critical part of most organizations’ Go To Customer strategies. They are critical to extending our coverage of the market, accessing markets with specialized expertise, and in helping provide our customers more complete solutions.
Managing channels for optimum performance in the face of rapidly changing buying processes and cloud based solutions creates challenges neither suppliers nor channel players have faced in the past.
For example, many of the IT centric products and services are seeing radically changing buying–shifting out of IT into end users. This drives a change in the channel, helping them shift their approaches to the buyers or finding partners that have access to those buyers.
Shifting from business models where products/services were sold outright, to today’s models where products and services are frequently packaged as “As A Service” offering requires new business models, new skills, new capabilities both in the supplier and channels.
Rapid digitization of our customers businesses provide yet another challenge and opportunity to both suppliers and channel participants.
Managing these transitions, helping partners manage these transitions is a very complex process. It requires new thinking, new relationships, new partner enablement programs, and in some cases new partners.
Simon Minett, Head of Global Sales Operations for Unify, has been leading their transition from a primarily direct field sales orientation to a channel deployed orientation.
The discussion Simon and I had, is one of the most fascinating and wide ranging conversations on this topic that I have had. We cover everything from managing the transition to channel first, developing capability in the channel, shifting priorities and business model, rising complexity and managing that complexity, to critical elements in channel performance management and enablement.
It’s a longer discussion than normal, but this topic is so critical, it was important that we cover this topic in some greater depth.
I hope you enjoy this podcast as much as I enjoyed the conversation with Simon Minett!
Once again, Jonathan Lucroy gets moved at the trade deadline.
The Rangers shipped the struggling catcher to the Rockies Sunday for a player to be named later.
Last year, the Brewers received three players for Lucroy after he turned down a trade to the Indians. He turned down the trade because he wanted to be the catcher long term. Looks like the Indians dodged a bullet there.
Steve Pearce hit his second walk-off grand slam of the week, as the Blue Jays score seven runs in the bottom of the ninth to beat the Angels 11-10. That insurance run the Angles scored in the top of the ninth just wasn’t enough. Through last Sunday, Pearce was 10 for 42 career with the bases loaded, with a double, a home run, and five walks. This week he is 2 for 3 with two home runs and a strikeout. On the 27th, his slam in extra innings broke the tie. Today, the Blue Jays needed every run.
Adrian Beltre is scheduled to bat third in the bottom of the fourth inning in the Orioles game at the Rangers. The Orioles lead 4-0 as they bat in the top of the fourth inning. Beltre needs one hit for 3000 in this career.
The Royals acquired Melky Cabrera Sunday:
On the eve of the non-waiver trade deadline, Kansas City sent minor-league pitchers A.J. Puckett and Andre Davis to the Chicago White Sox in exchange for Cabrera, a free agent at the end of the 2017 season.
The poor play of Alex Gordon and others:
Still, it appears likely the Royals will not view Cabrera as a one-for-one replacement for left fielder Alex Gordon, right fielder Jorge Bonifacio or designated hitter Brandon Moss, but rather an everyday player who could siphon playing time from all three.
Cabrera played well for the Royals in 2011, they flipped him to the Giants, who used him to reach the playoffs before a suspends for PED use. Since then he batted .289/.334/.425, useful but not outstanding.
Davis looks like the better prospect of the two.
Lee May died at age 74. My thoughts go out to his family and friends.
May was a hacking slugger, posting a career .267/.313/.459 slash line. That’s an isolated power of .192. He collected 2031 hits, 725 of them for extra bases. He was fairly even in doubles and homers, 340 doubles, 354 homers.
His best years came in Cincinnati. In 1971 he posted a 5.4 bWAR, and in 1968 and 1969 he was in the mid threes. He drove in 90 runs or more 8 times, leading the AL in 1976, his second year with Baltimore. That’s really the use of hacking sluggers (Joe Carter, for example). Put them up behind people who get on base, and they will drive them in.
Adrian Beltre will lead off the bottom of the second inning. The Orioles and Rangers are scoreless after one inning. Beltre is batting fourth in the Texas lineup on Sunday as he needs one hit to reach 3000 for his career.
Troy Tulowitzki has more than an ankle sprain:
Blue Jays shortstop Troy Tulowitzki has ligament damage in his injured right ankle and will be further evaluated by a specialist.
The Blue Jays announced the results of Tulowitzki’s MRI on Sunday, one day after the veteran shortstop was placed on the 10-day DL with what the team described as a right ankle sprain.
Tulowitzki played 2017 as a 32-year-old, and his numbers have been in decline for three seasons. If this injury is severe, his days as a shortstop might be over, and one might believe it is career threatening as well. He does have three more years on his contract.
The Rays series at the Yankees concludes with a battle of young starters as Jake Faria tries to prevent a sweep against Jordan Montgomery. Faria comes into the game with a 5-1 record in nine starts. His strength so far is a reverse platoon split. The right-hander holds left-handed batters to a .182/.324/.182 slash line. It looks like he is pitching around power, so the walks don’t hurt him much. Montgomery walked 33 batters in 108 innings, and his weakness is allowing home runs, 15 so far. Ten of those came with men on base.
Kevin Freeland is scheduled to pitch for the Rockies in game one of a double header, Erick Fedde making his Naitonals and major league debut in opposition. Fedde is taking the slot of Stephen Strasburg. Freeland is the rare Rockies pitcher with better results at home than on the road. He allowed 5 home runs in 61 2/3 home innings, eight home runs in 54 2/3 road innings. Fedde has a decent strikeout rate in the minors, but he is very good at limiting walks.
Adrian Beltre needs one hit for 3000 as the Rangers face Wade Miley of the Orioles. Beltre is 6 for 21 against Miley in his career with four strikeouts.
Enjoy!
The Twins appear to have flipped Jaime Garcia to the Yankees:
yanks and twins are in agreement on a jaime garcia tarde
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) July 30, 2017
So the Twins went from buyers a week ago to sellers today. It looks like the Twins will get Zack Littell, who fits in very nicely with the Twins low walk pitcher preference.
Garcia is seasonal age 30. His great control started disappearing last season, but he is someone who can give the Yankees innings. And he was cheaper than Sonny Gray, although New York may still be interested in the Oakland starter. Stay tuned.
Tim Raines, Ivan Rodriguez, and Jeff Bagwell enter the Hall of Fame Sunday afternoon.
I always think of Raines and Rickey Henderson as a pair. Both were great lead-off men, generating high OBPs and stealing extremely well. Here they are during the decade of the 1980s, encompassing their prime years. Henderson was better, but Raines was still amazing. Raines was a good enough hitter that he would be moved lower in the order at times to drive in runs. Once again, voters indicate that drug abuse is okay, as long as it’s not PEDs.
Raines was a victim or collusion. A mid-1980s CBA did not allow free agents to sign with their former teams after a certain date. When free agents, after the 1986 season, did not re-sign, other teams ignored them and they were left out of the first month of the season. Raines missed the first month of 1987 due to that rule, but came back with a vengeance to show teams what they had missed.
Rodriguez came to the majors ten years later, showing off an arm that rivaled the best of the day, Benito Santiago. Rodriguez was only 19 at the time, and it would take a few years for his offense to develop. His prime lasted 11 seasons, from 1994 (seasonal age 22) to 2004 (seasonal age 32). During those years he posted a .315/.357/.513 slash line. I do remember some people complaining about his pitch calling, asking for fastballs so he could better throw out runners when another pitch might have been more appropriate for getting a batter out. It strikes me that his offense and arm more than balanced pitch selection. Note that his offensive maturity coincided with the lively ball/small park/PED era, and there is certainly some controversy surrounding Rodriguez’s induction when it comes to PEDs.
The same is true of Jeff Bagwell. My favorite Bagwell fact is that he and Frank Thomas were born on the exact same day, and hold the record for most home runs by players born on the exact same day. Both were first basemen, both were MVPs, both are now in the Hall of Fame.
Maybe the most salient fact about Bagwell’s ability as a hitter is that he hit as well at the Astrosdome as he did on the road. It did play as a fair park during that time period, however.
As with Rodriguez, there is a hint of steroid use with Bagwell. I’m glad voters are finally needing more than hints.
Congratulations to all three players on their induction!
Here are the top picks my programs produced for use in Beat the Streak. This post mostly explains the ideas behind the calculations. In addition, this post shows tests on the Neural Network (NN). This post discusses an NN that includes the ballpark. I recently updated the models, and the results of those tests are here.
For 2017, I am just going to publish the Log5 hit averages and the NN probabilities with parks factored in. I am keeping track of the results here. I added a graph that gives a visual representation of the probability and success each day. The sheet also includes a table that summarizes the length of positive and negative streaks.
First, the Log5 Method picks:
0.341 — Daniel Murphy batting against Jonathan Gray
0.337 — Ryon Healy batting against Bartolo Colon
0.331 — Josh Harrison batting against Clayton Richard
0.329 — Starling Marte batting against Clayton Richard
0.328 — Gerardo Parra batting against Edwin Jackson
0.325 — Adam Frazier batting against Clayton Richard
0.324 — Melky Cabrera batting against Josh Tomlin
0.321 — Avisail Garcia batting against Josh Tomlin
0.321 — Gregory Polanco batting against Clayton Richard
0.320 — Andrew McCutchen batting against Clayton Richard
Log5 indicates the Pirates should do well against Clayton Richard. He comes into the game with a .329 BA allowed, and doesn’t get helped by PETCO Park. Be very careful picking Murphy today, as the Nationals play a split double header, and Dusty Baker tends to rest his veterans. Gray pitched worse on the road this season, so if Murphy does start that game he would be a good choice.
Here is how the NN with Park ranks the players:
0.341, 0.772 — Daniel Murphy batting against Jonathan Gray.
0.312, 0.759 — Daniel Murphy batting against Kyle Freeland.
0.328, 0.758 — Gerardo Parra batting against Edwin Jackson.
0.296, 0.757 — Jose Altuve batting against Justin Verlander.
0.308, 0.747 — Gerardo Parra batting against Erick Fedde.
0.308, 0.743 — Charlie Blackmon batting against Edwin Jackson.
0.311, 0.742 — Jean Segura batting against Seth Lugo.
0.302, 0.738 — DJ LeMahieu batting against Edwin Jackson.
0.329, 0.736 — Starling Marte batting against Clayton Richard.
0.324, 0.734 — Melky Cabrera batting against Josh Tomlin.
0.297, 0.734 — Eduardo Nunez batting against Jason Hammel.
See the above comment on why you should probably not double down on Daniel Murphy, and the same goes for Gerardo Parra. I might very well go with Altuve and Segura today.
As always, your best pick will fail to get a hit about 25% of the time.
Here is the daily list of active streaks of plate appearances without a hit, with pitchers eliminated:
Good luck!
Adrian Beltre singled leading off the bottom of the fourth inning for Texas. That was his 2999th hit. He pulled a grounder through the shortstop hole.
The Orioles lead the Rangers 4-0.
The Royals knocked the Red Sox out of first place Friday night, and the series continues with Trevor Cahill making his first start for Kansas City against Boston’s Eduardo Rodriguez. Cahill pitched well for San Diego in terms of the three-true outcomes. He struck out 72 in 61 innings, with just 24 walks and six home runs allowed. A lot of that had to do with his home park however. He posted a 0.72 ERA at PETCO park, 5.75 on the road. Rodriguez is a similar pitcher, with a few more walks and a few more home runs allowed. He only pitched 22 of his 71 2/3 innings at Fenway this season, but owns a 2.38 ERA there.
Zack Greinke tries to keep Arizona headed toward a wild card as he takes on Mike Leake and the Cardinals. Greinke recovered well from his poor ERA of 2016. He already beat his 2016 strikeout total by six, accomplishing that in 29 1/3 fewer innings. Leake owns a 7-8 record despite a 3.20 ERA. The Cardinals scored two runs or less in six of his starts, but they also scored six runs or more in nine of his starts. Feast or famine.
Finally, Adrian Beltre needs two hits for 3000 as the Rangers host the Orioles. Beltre is 4 for 14 career against Kevin Gausman, the Orioles starter, with a double, a walk, and two strikeouts. That last is important, as putting the ball in play is a necessary feature for getting hits.
Enjoy!
Danny Salazar pitched his second good outing since returning from the disabled list Friday night. The Cleveland starter gave the Tribe 13 innings of work since his return, with four hits allowed, two runs, two walks and 16 strikeouts. That gives the Indians two aces down the stretch with Corey Kluber pitching well. The last two times through the rotation shows the Indians starters 5-0 with a 2.60 ERA, 10.3 K per nine, 2.3 walks per nine, and eight home runs allowed in 62 1/3 innings. That will win them a lot of games.
Salazar, due to the missed time, should be well rested down the stretch as well. That might give the Indians the ability to rest a starter every so often, depending on how long the Royals can keep up their winning ways.
Here are the top picks my programs produced for use in Beat the Streak. This post mostly explains the ideas behind the calculations. In addition, this post shows tests on the Neural Network (NN). This post discusses an NN that includes the ballpark. I recently updated the models, and the results of those tests are here.
For 2017, I am just going to publish the Log5 hit averages and the NN probabilities with parks factored in. I am keeping track of the results here. I added a graph that gives a visual representation of the probability and success each day. The sheet also includes a table that summarizes the length of positive and negative streaks.
First, the Log5 Method picks:
0.365 — Jose Altuve batting against Matt Boyd
0.327 — Daniel Murphy batting against German Marquez
0.321 — Justin Turner batting against Ty Blach
0.316 — Gerardo Parra batting against Tanner Roark
0.311 — A.J. Pollock batting against Mike Leake
0.311 — Marwin Gonzalez batting against Matt Boyd
0.310 — David Peralta batting against Mike Leake
0.310 — Adrian Beltre batting against Kevin Gausman
0.309 — Carlos Correa batting against Matt Boyd
0.309 — Chris Taylor batting against Ty Blach
Altuve is the hottest hitter on the planet, with a .524 BA during his 19-game hit streak after missing the cycle Friday night by a home run. Matt Boyd is a LHP who gives up hits equally poorly to right and left-handed batters, although right-handed batters hit him for power. In a very small sample size, Altuve is 2 for 5 against Boyd with a home run and no strikeouts.
It’s nice to see Adrian Beltre make the list as he sits two hits away from 3000. He’s been on a tear as he approaches the milestone, with multiple hits in four of his last five games. Gausman is the right-handed Boyd, as batters from both side of the plate are hitting over .300 against him.
Here is how the NN with Park ranks the players:
0.365, 0.793 — Jose Altuve batting against Matt Boyd.
0.327, 0.768 — Daniel Murphy batting against German Marquez.
0.316, 0.749 — Gerardo Parra batting against Tanner Roark.
0.311, 0.740 — A.J. Pollock batting against Mike Leake.
0.300, 0.738 — Charlie Blackmon batting against Tanner Roark.
0.310, 0.737 — David Peralta batting against Mike Leake.
0.321, 0.736 — Justin Turner batting against Ty Blach.
0.308, 0.736 — Jose Ramirez batting against Miguel A Gonzalez.
0.291, 0.731 — DJ LeMahieu batting against Tanner Roark.
0.310, 0.728 — Adrian Beltre batting against Kevin Gausman.
So it’s a Jose Altuve day. His probability of getting at least a hit in the game is 25 points higher than Daniel Murphy. For the second day in a row, that probability is above .790. Wow.
In case you are wondering, the NN gives Bryce Harper a .697 probability of continuing his hit streak today.
As always, your best pick will fail to get a hit about 25% of the time.
Here is the daily list of active streaks of plate appearances without a hit, with pitchers eliminated:
There are some big names near the top of the list today.
Good luck!
Having watched a few Brewers games this week, I am very impressed by their defense, especially their positioning. Against Washington, and against the Cubs Friday night, there were a number of balls put in play hard, and a Brewers defender was standing right in the way. It looks to me that whoever is positioning the defense is doing a very good job. The Brewers lead the Cubs 2-0 in the sixth.
FanGraphs does not rank the Brewers defense very highly, so sometimes what you see isn’t as real as it seems.
Robbie Ray was hit in the head with a line drive. I hope he was not hurt too badly.
There’s no score between the Diamondbacks and the Cardinals in the fifth.
Jose Altuve stays hotter than an Apollo capsule returning to the earth. He’s 3 for 4 tonight against Detroit and needs a home run for the cycle. The Astros lead the Tigers 6-5 in the top of the eighth, but the Astros will need to score a bit more or go into extra innings to bring Altuve to the plate again.
The Phillies score seven runs in the fifth inning to take an 8-0 lead over the Braves. The Phillies hit three home runs, a triple, a single, drew a walk, and had a batter hit. If the Phillies had hit a double, they would have earned their way on every way possible!
Masahiro Tanaka is perfect through five innings as the Yankees lead the Rays 2-0. Tanaka struck out nine so far, as it’s tough to get a hit when a batter can’t put wood on the ball. Tanaka is working efficiently, throwing just 62 pitches so far.
Jose Altuve extends his hit streak to 19 games in his first plate appearance, tripling off the wall in right-center and scoring on a sacrifice fly. He ties Bryce Harper and Whit Merrifield for longest hit streaks in the majors this season, 19. The game between Colorado and Washington was washed out tonight, so Harper will need to wait until tomorrow to try to extend his 19 game streak.
The Astros lead the Tigers 1-0 in the middle of the first inning.
Mike Matheny stopped short of saying Yadier Molina is tired, but Molina heard it anyway.
Matheny changed course mid-sentence, but he implied that Molina is tired.
On Friday morning, Molina responded via social media, stressing on Instagram his readiness to play as the Cardinals try to stay in contention in the National League Central.
“I train to play 174 games because that’s what it takes to be Champion,” Molina wrote on the site. “I’m not tired and the day I feel tired I’ll express it myself.”
Molina is old an catches a lot of games. His OBP is down this season about 30 points from his career average. It’s amazing he stayed productive this long.
Here’s Matheny and Molina discussing the situation with the press.
Adrian Beltre sits four hits from 3000 as the Rangers host the Orioles. Chris Tillman goes for Baltimore, coming into the game with a 7.01 ERA and 87 hits allowed in 60 1/3 innings. Beltre hits Tillman well, 8 for 18 in his career with with two doubles, a home run, and no strikeouts. It might be a very good night for Beltre to collect multiple hits.
The surging Royals visit Boston as Jason Vargas face David Price. Vargas was hot through June, 12-3 with a 2.22 ERA, but allowed 14 runs in 12 2/3 July innings. I’m interested to see how fans react to David Price, since this is his first home start his details of his spat with Dennis Eckersley were made public. Price pitched well at Fenway this season, with a 2.67 ERA, five walks and 26 strikeouts in 27 innings.
Dallas Keuchel returns to the mound and Jose Altuve tries to extend his hit streak against Jordan Zimmermann as the Astros take on the Tigers. Keuchel was absent for a stretch of 46 games. In that time, Houston starters went 19-11 with a 4.54 ERA, while the team went 28-18. Zimmermann owns the fifth highest BA allowed this season, among pitchers facing at least 400 batters.
The Cubs and Brewers start a crucial NL Central series in Milwaukee as Jose Quintana takes on Brent Suter. In two starts since moving from the White Sox to the Cubs, Quintana pitched 13 innings, walked two and struck out 19. That’s good for a 2.02 ERA. Suter makes his sixth start to go with six relief appearances. He’s 1-1 with a 2.60 in his five starts this season.
Enjoy!
Here are the top picks my programs produced for use in Beat the Streak. This post mostly explains the ideas behind the calculations. In addition, this post shows tests on the Neural Network (NN). This post discusses an NN that includes the ballpark. I recently updated the models, and the results of those tests are here.
For 2017, I am just going to publish the Log5 hit averages and the NN probabilities with parks factored in. I am keeping track of the results here. I added a graph that gives a visual representation of the probability and success each day. The sheet also includes a table that summarizes the length of positive and negative streaks.
First, the Log5 Method picks:
0.365 — Jose Altuve batting against Jordan Zimmermann
0.340 — Jean Segura batting against Rafael Montero
0.327 — Daniel Murphy batting against German Marquez
0.326 — Justin Turner batting against Matt Moore
0.324 — Ben Gamel batting against Rafael Montero
0.322 — Didi Gregorius batting against Austin Pruitt
0.316 — Gerardo Parra batting against Tanner Roark
0.314 — Marwin Gonzalez batting against Jordan Zimmermann
0.314 — Chris Taylor batting against Matt Moore
0.313 — Yulieski Gurriel batting against Jordan Zimmermann
Altuve tries to become the third batter this season to achieve a 19-game hit streak. He may be the hottest players in the majors right now, although Gergorius is making a run as well, and Harper is no slouch. Altuve is just 1 for 9 against Jordan Zimmermann, however.
Here is how the NN with Park ranks the players:
0.365, 0.792 — Jose Altuve batting against Jordan Zimmermann.
0.327, 0.768 — Daniel Murphy batting against German Marquez.
0.340, 0.760 — Jean Segura batting against Rafael Montero.
0.316, 0.749 — Gerardo Parra batting against Tanner Roark.
0.300, 0.738 — Charlie Blackmon batting against Tanner Roark.
0.326, 0.738 — Justin Turner batting against Matt Moore.
0.303, 0.735 — David Peralta batting against Michael Wacha.
0.301, 0.734 — A.J. Pollock batting against Michael Wacha.
0.324, 0.733 — Ben Gamel batting against Rafael Montero.
0.322, 0.732 — Didi Gregorius batting against Austin Pruitt.
It’s a very similar list. The NN likes Rockies hitters against Tammer Roark more than the Log5 method does, and brings in some Diamondbacks as well. Altuve is easily the consensus pick, as the league is hitting .308/.363/.531 against Zimmermann.
If Altuve gets a hit tonight, the NN will record its longest streak of the season, 10 games. It reached nine games three times now. His .792 probability of getting a hit is the highest the NN produced this season.
As always, your best pick will fail to get a hit about 25% of the time.
Here is the daily list of active streaks of plate appearances without a hit, with pitchers eliminated:
Good luck!
