Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Liveblogging Game 6, 2009
I tried doing a World Series liveblog of last year’s Game 5, but that turned out to be rather unsatisfying when the game was suspended due to rain in Philadelphia. Looks like the weather’s much better in New York, so perhaps we’ll get a full game out of this one.
Also, I really, really hope that this won’t be my last chance to talk about the 2009 postseason. IOW, that the Phils win tonight and take it to a Game 7 for all the marbles.
For the record, I’m going to pop in one of those Phillies logos after every refresh of the liveblog. That won’t be every half-inning, at least I don’t think so.
[5:08pm, middle 1st, 0-0] Top of the first was uneventful, save for the fact that Victorino is playing. McCarver correctly noted that his injured right index finger—hit by an A.J. Burnett pitch in Game 5—will hurt him much less batting righthanded against Pettitte than it would (will?) hitting from the left side.
[5:11pm, end of 1st, 0-0] Three up, three down for Pedro. Boy, it would be great if he were to beat the hated Yankees for another red-wearing team.
[5:17pm, top 2nd, 0-0] It’s odd how players go hot and cold. Ryan Howard carried the club in the NLDS and NLCS, even winning the MVP in the latter. Here in the Series, though, he can’t do a thing. Yeah, lots of lefties on the mound, but he’s looked pretty bad against everybody. Not much happening yet, even though neither pitcher has shown me great stuff. Pettitte is throwing a whole lot of breaking balls.
[5:27pm, bottom 2nd, 0-0] Uh oh, a 4-pitch walk to ARod. And now that we’re back in the American League park with that %#*& designated hitter, Matsui is back in the lineup. Gotta say, I don’t like what I’m seeing from Pedro so far ... some awfully good swings from Matsui. They’ll send ARod on the 3-2 pitch, so here’s the first important pitch of the game ... and of course it’s fouled off.
[5:34pm, bottom 2nd, 2-0 Yankees] Well, to be honest, I’m not surprised that Matsui took one deep. He was really locked in on what he was being thrown. What Pedro has to do now is get it back together and stop the bleeding right away. Ah, whiffing Posada and getting the heater up toward 90 MPH ... that’s the way to do it. After the Cano liner, let’s retire Swisher and end the inning, OK?
[5:45pm, top 3rd, 2-0 Yanks] Whoa! A triple for Ruiz? He’s not a totally lumbering catcher, but it again shows the weakness of the OF arms of the Yanks. Great that he got to third, though, as the Rollins fly (hit it on the ground, dammit, Jimmy!) scores him. Tempers the damage from the previous inning, but I’m still quite concerned about whether Pedro can go very far tonight. Happ and Myers better be on their toes, because Manuel has to have Pedro on a very short leash. This is do-or-die!
[5:54pm, bottom 3rd, 2-1 Yanks] What was Victorino seeing on Jeter’s liner? The last thing you want to do is give these guys an extra out. It’s called a hit, of course, but that was definitely a misplay on the part of our CF. With the meat of the order coming up, and with Damon fouling off every strike, the tension just keeps ratcheting up and up and up. Pedro, I fear, won’t be out there much longer.
[6:01pm, bottom 3rd, 2-1 Yanks] Well, here it is. Damon walks, Teixeira HBP, and now it’s ARod with the bases loaded. Pitching up in the zone seems to be just about the only thing that’s working so far. Huzzah!!! Called third strike for the second out (which would have been the third out if Victorino hadn’t misjudged Jeter). Now we’re back to Godzilla, who owns Pedro thus far. Well, damn, a single on the 0-2 pitch and two more Matsui ribbies.
[6:08pm, bottom 3rd, 4-1 Yanks] I dunno, I might have pulled Pedro after the hit. But he does seem to be OK against everybody else in the lineup, so maybe it’s OK. And the Posada flyball justifies Charlie’s faith in his starter. But I can’t see how Pedro will still be on the hill to face Matsui the next time his spot comes around.
[6:15pm, top 4th, 4-1 Yanks] Well, well, Damon pulls a calf muscle and is pulled. I wouldn’t ordinarily do this with someone hurting himself, but—good! He’s a damn Yankee and he’s a damn pest and he’s been damn fine this Series, so I’m pleased to see him gone. I hope it’s serious enough that he won’t be able to play Game 7 if the Phils rally and win tonight. And I hope it hurts. A lot.
[6:21pm, top 4th, 4-1 Yanks] Hmmm, Pettitte seems to be losing the touch just a bit. Back-to-back walks to Werth (great eye on him) and Ibanez. Now Feliz with a chance to do some damage ... but he doesn’t come through on the 3-2 pitch. Oh well, get ‘im next time. So now I ask myself whether Pedro comes out for the bottom of the inning, and I answer that I think he will; after all, Matsui isn’t due up for a while.
[6:27pm, bottom 4th, 4-1 Yanks] Hah, I’ve channeled Charlie Manuel correctly. OK, now let’s see Pedro come through for us, OK?
[6:33pm, end of 4th, 4-1 Yanks] There ya go, Pedro! See, that wasn’t tough, now, was it? Now let’s get some runs back on those guys.
[6:42pm, middle of 5th, 4-1 Yanks] Jimmy, I take back what I said earlier about hitting it on the ground. I didn’t mean that you should hit into double plays.
In keeping with the “tradition” I established last year, I’ll take this below the fold now that the game is official.
NJ-Gov & VA-Gov ... business as usual
What’s been the underlying theme of the national press coverage of the 2009 election? I’m sure you’ve seen it or heard it.
NPR: GOP Victories Offer A Warning To Democrats
New York Times: Republicans Seek Impetus From Victories in N.J. and Va.
Washington Post: Contests serve as warning to Democrats: It’s not 2008 anymore
Associated Press (via Seattle Times): GOP sweep: Big governor victories in Virginia, N.J.
And Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele crows, based on the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial results, that the GOP is “transcendent”.
They couldn’t be more wrong.
The outcomes of yesterday’s pair of gubernatorial elections, disappointing as they were, were absolutely typical behavior for the electorates of the Garden State and the Old Dominion. Yesterday’s results were, in short, business as usual.
Why do I say this? Well, consider the following table:
| Election Years | President | VA Governor | NJ Governor |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1976 / 1977 | Jimmy Carter | John N. Dalton | Brendan Byrne |
| 1980 / 1981 | Ronald Reagan | Chuck Robb | Thomas Kean |
| 1984 / 1985 | Ronald Reagan | Gerald L. Baliles | Thomas Kean |
| 1988 / 1989 | George H.W. Bush | Douglas Wilder | James Florio |
| 1992 / 1993 | Bill Clinton | George Allen | Christine Todd Whitman |
| 1996 / 1997 | Bill Clinton | Jim Gilmore | Christine Todd Whitman |
| 2000 / 2001 | George W. Bush | Mark Warner | Jim McGreevey |
| 2004 / 2005 | George W. Bush | Tim Kaine | Jon Corzine |
| 2008 / 2009 | Barack Obama | Bob McDonnell | Chris Christie |
The table displays the results of the last nine presidential elections, as well as the outcomes of the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial elections a year later. Each cell’s background color indicates the political party of the victor in that election, using the now-standard blue for Democrats and red for Republicans. Do you see the pattern?
In every single one of the last nine elections, a year after the presidential election Virginia has elected a Governor of the “other” party. If the President is a Republican, the new Governor is a Democrat. And vice versa. Every time since 1977.
By comparison, New Jersey is a piker. They’ve been doing exactly the same thing, but merely in the last six election cycles. They’ve followed this pattern only since 1989.
Thus, yesterday’s electoral results in New Jersey and Virginia simply followed hoary tradition in those two states. A consistent pattern retained its consistency. Certainly, there were additional factors that made the elections interesting, that influenced the margins in the two contests. But the outcomes were fully in keeping with the way politics works in the two states.
Will you ever see any such analysis on your television? Will you ever hear any such analysis on the radio? Will you ever read such analysis in the newspaper (if you do, in fact, still read a newspaper)?
Not bloody likely.
Monday, November 02, 2009
Hanging on for dear life
Hey, we Phillies phans are still breathing! You wouldn’t have thought it would turn out to be quite so tough after the good guys had taken an 8-2 lead, but it wouldn’t be the Phils if they’d just cruised in from there. Now the Series stands at 3-2, but we’re heading back up to the Bronx on Wednesday (and, one hopes, Thursday).
So, what kind of chance is there for the World Champs to defend their title? We’ve already discussed the problem of being down 3-1. Adding last year’s happy result to the data I presented last October, we find that only five (12.2%) of the 41 clubs that found themselves in that predicament were able to dig themselves all the way out. The good news, such as it is, is that three of those teams did it the way the Phils would have to—taking Game 5 at home, then winning two games in their opponent’s ballpark.
The situation is now 3-2, and it doesn’t matter all that much how it got to be this way. Does WLLLW (the way this Series has gone thus far) really differ from LWWLL or LLWLW or any of the other seven paths to the current state of the Series? So let’s take a look at what’s happened in previous 3-2 World Series.
We’re now in the midst of the 105th World Series. It started in 1903, but no Series was played in 1904 or 1994. In four of them—1903 and 1919-1921—the victor had to win five games rather than the standard four. We’ll ignore those oddballs, but retain the three in which tie games were called due to darkness (1907, 1912, and 1922). Thus, our dataset consists of exactly 100 completed World Series.
Of those, 57 Series have gone at least six games. Every one of those, of course, stood at 3-2 through five games. We’ll look at those Series from the perspective of the trailing club, since that is unfortunately the case for the Phils right now. We’ll consider whether the Series eventually ended after six games or went to the full seven, whether the trailing club came back to win the Series, and whether the final game(s) were played at home or on the road.
Obviously, if the Series ends after six games, it’s because the team trailing after five lost the next game. That’s happened 22 times, 38.6% of all 3-2 World Series. The first year it occurred was 1906 (White Sox over Cubs), and the most recent one was 2003 (Marlins over Yankees); until this year, every Series since that one has ended after four or five games. The majority of those six-game Series, 13 of them (59.1%), ended in the winner’s home park. The Yankees have been involved in nine of those six-game World Series, winning the Series 4-2 in 1923, 1936, 1951, 1953, 1977, 1978, and 1996, losing in six games in 1981 and the aforementioned 2003. The Phils, now playing in only their seventh World Series, won it all in six games in 1980 and lost a six-game Series in 1993.
The good news for the Phillies is that the trailing team has won Game 6 over 60% of the time. The bad news for the Phillies is that almost 2/3 of those Series-tying Game 6 victories, 23 of the 35 (65.7%), took place at the trailing team’s ballpark. Taking the entire set of 57 Games 6, the trailing club has gone 23-9 (.719) at home and 12-13 (.480) on the road.
If we assume that the Phillies can take Game 6 in Yankee Stadium—based on prior World Series history, it’s more likely than I’d anticipated when I started looking at these data—then Game 7 is essentially a coinflip, irrespective of location. In the 23 Series where the trailing team evened things at home, they won again 12 times but lost to the visitors in 11 Series. That’s a .522 winning percentage. When the trailing team takes Game 6 on the road, their Game 7 record is 6-6.
So winning Games 6 and 7 on the road to win the World Series can be done. The 1926 and 1934 Cardinals, 1952 and 1958 Yankees, 1968 Tigers, and 1979 Pirates are the proof. But…
It’s been 30 years since the We Are Fam-i-ly Bucs accomplished this prodigious feat. Nobody has ever done it in Yankee Stadium, where the Bronx Bombers strut like arrogant SOBs in front of their even more arrogant fans. Even if I were an optimist, I’d hold out little hope for such a miraculous reversal. How sweet it would be, though, if somehow, some way, it turned out that way.
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Many thanks to Sean Forman’s wondrous Baseball-Reference.com site for offering up the basic data from which I drew these data.
Sunday, November 01, 2009
Crux of the matter
When the Phils took a 3-0 lead in the second inning last night, with Cole Hamels seemingly in full control on the mound, I briefly entertained the thought that my Phils might take Game 3 and build up momentum for a successful World Series. Twas not to be, unfortunately, as ARod doinked an opposite-field homer off a TV camera—yeah, I think the umps got that one right, and yeah, I think instant replay is useful for very, very limited situations such as that one—and the slumbering bat of Nick Swisher came to life.
The defeat, by an 8-5 margin, cranks up the pressure on the Phillies for tonight’s contest. For all intents and purposes, they must win tonight.
As I related last year, a 3-1 lead in the World Series is very difficult to overcome. It’s only been done five times; the other 36 times a club has led the Series after completing four games, that club has eventually won it all. That includes, happily, last year’s Phillies.
If C.C. Sabathia (and relievers) beats Joe Blanton (and relievers) tonight, it’s still possible for the Phils to join:
- the 1925 Pittsburgh Pirates, against the Washington Senators
- the 1958 Yankees (grrrrrrr), against the Milwaukee Braves
- the 1968 Detroit Tigers, facing the St. Louis Cardinals
- the 1979 Pirates, defeating the Baltimore Orioles
- the 1985 Kansas City Royals, against the Cardinals
If the Phils lose tonight, they can take heart in the fact that three of the above comebacks were completed on the road. The ‘58 Yanks, ‘68 Bengals, and ‘79 Buccos all won Game 5 at home and then Games 6 and 7 before the fans of their shocked opponents.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. The Phillies can still win Game 4. Which would make Game 5 tomorrow night the crux of the matter.
[UPDATE, 8:48pm]
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Seeking just retribution
On October 4, 1950, the Philadelphia Phillies took the field at Shibe Park, hosting the New York Yankees in Game 1 of the World Series. It was the first postseason appearance for the Phils in 35 years, and only the second time they’d won the National League pennant in their 68 years of existence as a franchise in the City of Brotherly Love.
On that day, I was nine days old and lying in a bassinet in Woodbury NJ, about 15 miles away from 21st & Lehigh.
A third of my lifetime (to that point) later, the Yankees were back in the Bronx and celebrating their thirteenth World Championship after sweeping the Series.
Now, 59 years later, the Phils and Yanks are meeting again to determine the World Series victor. I’ve been waiting my whole life—literally—for the opportunity to get back at the loathesome Yankees for their dismissal of the Whiz Kids. As I write this, the Phils lead Game 1 of the 2009 Series in the top of the 6th inning, 2-0 on a pair of solo homers by Chase Utley. In a sense, then, my guys are already ahead of their 1950 pace ... they were shut out 1-0 in the 1950 Series opener.
Scoring in Game 1 is the first milestone in this quest for retribution. The next one—not yet accomplished at this writing—would be winning a game against them. The ultimate, of course, would be repeating as World Champions by defeating the Yankees.
I don’t want to make too big a deal of this. I’m not seeking closure in the sense of loss/win, birth/death. It’s just that winning the World Series by beating the embodiment of pure evil that is the New York Yankees would be so absolutely sweeeeeeeeeeet!
