Game 95: Penny, Sox stop losing skid
by Randy Booth on Jul 25, 2009 12:50 AM EDT
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Who would have thought Brad Penny would be the one to stop the Red Sox's losing streak?
Penny went 6.1 innings of one run (it was unearned) ball to get the win in the 3-1 game. He gave up five hits, walked none and struck out four to earn his 7th win of the year. His ERA now sits at 4.71.
The offense, while it wasn't plentiful, was good enough. Jason Varitek singled in J.D. Drew and Jed Lowrie had a sac fly in the fourth. Drew added the Sox's last run in the fifth when Kevin Youkilis scored on his fielder's choice. Jacoby Ellsbury and Dustin Pedroia each had two hits.
The bullpen was dynamite, like always. Manny Delcarmen (.2IP, 1K) and Hideki Okajima (1IP) worked hitless, scoreless relief. Jonathan Papelbon earned his 25th save, but it was iffy. He loaded the bases in the 9th with one out, but he struck out the final two batters to end the game unscathed.
A win, but not the greatest of wins. It's nice to see Penny and the 'pen pitch well, but the offense is still absent. Maybe Adam LaRoche can help? He was suited up, but sat on the bench for the entire game.
The Sox will send Jon Lester out to the mound for game two on Saturday at 7:10 p.m.
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Offense was actually much better tonight, despite the score.
Game 1: 4 R, 6 H, 5 BB, 1 2B, 1 HR, 12 K
Game 2: 2 R, 6 H, 4 BB, 3 2B, 1 HR, 7 K
Game 3: 1 R, 6 H, 0 BB, 1 2B, 0 HR, 7 K
Game 4: 3 R, 8 H, 1 BB, 1 2B, 0 HR, 6 K
Game 5: 2 R, 5 H, 4 BB, 2 2B, 0 HR, 4 K
Game 6: 1 R, 6 H, 2 BB, 0 2B, 1 HR, 9 K
Game 7: 3 R, 9 H, 4 BB, 2 2B, 0 HR, 7 K
Most hits, 2nd most walks, most baserunners, and while 7 Ks aren’t good, it’s not as bad as 9 or 12.
I agree
3 runs is not a lot to show for it, but we had nearly 2 baserunners per inning against Bergersen, who is a good pitcher. A lot better than on the road trip. Hopefully that continues-a bit of HR power (we have not had a HR from anyone save Green/Lowrie since the break) would help convert 9 hits 3 walks=3 runs to 5-6 runs.
Was Penny really hitting 98 or is the NESN gun totally juiced?
I was wondering the same thing.
If we wind up with too many starting ithers down the stretch, I think Penny could make a pretty badass set-up man.
Manny ain't the only bad man.
Yeah. There is always a use for these guys.
Remember D-Lowe wasn’t even in the rotation at the start of 2004 post-season and he ended up winning the deciding game of a few series. Its the biggest cliche in the book, but I’ll say it anyway: You can never have too much pitching.
"Ninety percent [of my salary] I'll spend on good times, women, and Irish whiskey. The other ten percent I'll probably waste."
-Tug McGraw
if you take Youk and Papi out
it was only 2 Ks-Youk Ked 3 times, Papi 2 times.
still 3 runs is weak define much better please
"Man that ball got outta here in a hurry, you know anything that travels that far oughta have a damn stewardess on it, don't you think?" - Crash Davis
This
We didn’t cash in on ’em due to bad luck, really. If you buy into the “changing the lineup, all mental considerations aside, is worth very few runs” idea which seems to be well accepted, then you generally have to agree that a high ratio of baserunners:runs is just getting hits at the wrong time.
by Ben Buchanan on Jul 25, 2009 5:01 PM EDT up reply actions
I other news
Julio Lugo, playing second base, homered and tripled for the Cards.
Did you know that
if the simple law of averages held with the Yankees games this year and the soc won half, (4) instead of 8, we would be 6 games out. Now I think we have 7 games left with the Yankees, who are not a bad team. Therefore, statistically it is likely we may lose most of those games.
For an old guy, you sure as hell don't understand math worth shit.
That’s textbook Gambler’s Fallacy right there.
by Ben Buchanan on Jul 25, 2009 9:00 AM EDT up reply actions
No, I disagree because:
You have to make the asumption that the teams are even in theri skill levels, and then math/statistics would predict a normal distribution of wins and loses for that year. I AM making that assumption,, but you are surely free to disagree. Anyway, under that asumption with a big enough sample size. the outliers will eventually cancel each other out to give the correct a mean. Therefore for that to happen, the Sox are due to statistically lose to the Yanks most of the next 7 games.
Now I hope they (the Sox) do not lose most of the next 7, and with humans, statistics can be skewed by sample size for sure. AGAIN if the skill levels are the same and the sample is big enough, the mean will be reached eventually!
What do you and others think that mean is between the Yanks and Sox given the skill levels of these teams this year??
by NG on Jul 25, 2009 9:54 AM EDT up reply actions
Nonsense
if that is what you meant, than you are making the gamber’s fallacy. If a team wins, say, the first n games and the two teams are evenly matched, then the previous results have no influence on the future results. The right answer is that if the Yankees and Sox are evenly matched, then the most likely outcome is that they split the remaining games.
Not if you figure that the results so far
are an outlier on the normal distribution curve. If the teams are similar in skill levels this year, that curve is accurate, IMO. Again, feel free to disagree with the skill level asumptions, but state why!
Uggh
do you want a technical explanation? Lets say the probabilities of the Sox-Yankees games are set theoretically at 50-50. Then if you play an infinite number of games, the results will tend towards half wins for the Sox, and half wins for the Yankees. So lets say it just happens that the Sox won the first 8 games (unlikely, but possible). Then
(8+n)/N——>1/2 regardless of the 8 (N is total games, n is the remaining games) if n, N tend toward infinity (8/N—→0). The past games have no bearing on the future games, and if an infinite number of games are play it will tend towards a perfect binomial distribution REGARDLESS of how many finite outcomes went in favor of one team.
Now for the untechnical-think of it this way: You toss a fair coin. The first 8 times it comes up heads. You toss it 10 more times. Do you expect that 9 of those will come up tails to balance out the previous outcomes? Wrong, it just was the random variation of a finite sample-the correct answer is that the best guess is 5 more will be heads and five more tails.
Buzzy & USG are right...
Yankees fan here (but I live in Boston. Go figure), but also a math geek, and Buzzy and USG are right. If the teams are evenly matched, it doesn’t matter what happened earlier in the season. Odds are they will split the rest. The normal distribution curve is a fallacy.
However, out of the remaining games there are four more games in the Bronx than there are at Fenway. The remaining games will probably lean in the Yankees favor because of that, but the odds are that the Red Sox win the season series by a lot.
Let me try a different take on outliers!
If the teams have equal abilities, don’t you think the Yankees have an edge because they will be perturbed by losing the first 8. That situation being an outlier may well add incentives to make an outlier the other way which in the big scheme of things tends to get back to the mean of 50-50. I know one cannot prove this reverse outlier mathematically, but human nature will tend to predict it, IMO, if the basic ability levels of the two teams are the same.
by NG on Jul 25, 2009 1:55 PM EDT up reply actions
Actually
The Yankees have more to lose. The “edge” you talk about is very fragile if they lose the first game of the next series. It would be a huge blow to them and then comes Beckett. Down 2-0, 10 games in a row? The desparation will be pretty cool to watch, because desparate teams make mistakes (see the last series between these two teams). So that first game is a MUST win for the MFY or else a big slide is coming.
Once again, more informed.
"Human nature will tend to predict it"
This is the exact reason why we have things like fallacies. Human intuition says one thing and reality says the other.
If the Yankees and Red Sox are considered even teams, then logic would say that they will split the remaining games as evenly as possible.
by Ben Buchanan on Jul 25, 2009 5:06 PM EDT up reply actions
THINGS DO NOT TREND "BACK" TO THE MEAN OF 50-50.
Well, they do, but only because if the remaining 8 games are split, then they series stands 12-4, which is a lot closer to 50-50 than 8-0. Life will not overcorrect itself to meet the odds.
@bs_uf15bosox9be:OverTheMonster-ALLERGEN WARNING:May contain PB.
Did you know that if something different had happened then things would be different?
Manny ain't the only bad man.
I think it's time to deal for a bat.
No matter how good Penny is, I just don’t see him keeping this up. Let’s trade him now, because his trade value is fairly high, along with Lowell or something for a decent corner infielder.
Well, I'll appreciate for you to keep my zingers outta your mouth!
Lowell carries 0 trade value.
And is the only one hitting consistently of late to begin with.
If we’re going to upgrade via Penny (which I doubt we will with Wake potentially hurt and Buchholz/Smoltz inconsistent) it’ll be for an OF.
by Ben Buchanan on Jul 25, 2009 10:56 AM EDT up reply actions
I think we should all calm down
the offense is not this bad. Teams have slumps. This is a team that consistently put up between 5.2-5.4 runs per game for the last several years and for the first 3 months of this year. The pitching is good, so if we get back to hitting, we will be fine. We don’t have a lot to trade except prospects that would be better to hold on to, and we have a lot of guys that you can’t just get rid of. These two things sort of lock us in for now. Lets hope that the offense turns around, and we will be fine. If not, I am not for screwing the future to make what would likely be marginal improvements now. I would consider (in the off season) trading prospects if the player is right (e.g. can we trade for AGonz-what would it take?) but those deals are not going to come now. What is really on the table now are marginal quick fixes for guys like Victor Martinez. Sorry, but I pass on 30 year old guys who are basically past their prime and don’t help the Sox moving forward.
Why
don’t you think he can keep it up? His career post all star break WHIP and BAA are basically the same as his pre-all star break stats. His BB/K actually goes up a bit 2.15 to 2.23 . His Winning percentage goes down but he was on several LAD teams that had terrible offenses. He may actually just be the guy we are watching.
Once again, more informed.
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