Monday, April 18, 2011

Baltimore/Cleveland series review

Expectations. They are coke bottle glasses to insight.

Sometimes you choose to see a movie before looking to see what was showing. Such was the case when I saw The Host (2006). It simply was the only movie that seemed watchable amongst a dreadful selection. I wasn't expecting much. However, it is a well done horror movie. It playfully engages the standard monster movie formula. There is old school monster movie camp, including a mad scientist that sets things in motion. But the characters also deal with serious emotional issues like overcoming failure. I walked away from seeing The Host in a good mood and feeling that I had got my money's worth.

Is The Host a good movie? I am not sure that I can judge anymore. I enjoyed it. But my enjoyment is, in part, a product of being pleasantly surprised.

I will only speak for myself here. I had relatively low expectations entering this season. They were higher than some. Baseball Prospectus had Cleveland finishing 4th in the AL Central with a 74 - 88 record. My prediction was Cleveland finishing 4th in the AL Central with a 78 - 84 record. I thought Baseball Prospectus' projections for Brantley, C. Perez, and Carmona were low, and Cleveland would get an extra four wins by those three players exceeding BP's projections.

Here we are. Cleveland is 11 - 4. They have swept Baltimore. This is the third sweep in five series. It is better than I was expecting.

Jose Mesa's eyes (warning signs) - Cleveland is 11 - 4. Grady Sizemore comes off the DL and hits a home run. He will replace the left field platoon that was hitting .175 with no home runs. The starters turned in another 3 quality starts. The bullpen was shut down again. What is not to like? Let's go with obvious here. Mitch Talbot's injury. It seems like Cleveland is deep here. But that can quickly evaporate. Jeanmar Gomez replaces Talbot's spot in the rotation. We will get to see him on Tuesday.

John Hart's vision (signs of encouragement) - Cleveland is 5 -1, when they face a left handed starter. In this series, they faced the red hot left handed rookie Zach Britton. Cleveland got 5 runs on the lefty. Britton had given up only 1 run in his two previous starts. The reason that Cleveland's record against left handed starters is so significant is that Cleveland features lefties at the 1, 3, and 5 spots in their lineup. The addition of Sizemore will further shift the balance of the lineup to the left. The risk of a left heavy lineup struggling against lefties is that it tempts the manager to play bench players against left handed starters. We don't want Choo, Hafner, Sizemore, and Brantley on the bench at the same time.

Alex Cole's batting average (misleading stat) - Joe Smith's 9.00 ERA. Smith threw 1 inning and gave up 3 hits and 1 earned run. Joe Smith's first outing does not look good. However, Smith threw 19 pitches and 15 were strikes. Of those 15 strikes, Smith got 5 swings and misses. Batters looked at 4 strikes looking and batters made contact on 6 pitches. On the 6 pitches that batters made contact, Smith gave up 3 hits, got 2 outs, and had 1 foul strike. Smith was simply unlucky in this outing. He had a .600 BAbip. Moreover, Smith was getting a swing and miss on 33.3% of his strikes. So, it was not the case that hitters were able to crush his every pitch.

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