On the plus side, the Braves turned a triple play!
On the minus side…
Obviously, Charlie Morton twirled a stinker, as is his periodic wont. But when your offense scores one run in Fenway Park, you’re pretty much gonna lose.
(The Red Sox are 0-10 in games where they scored one run this year, and 10-0 in games where they limited their opponents to one run this year. That ain’t a park that has a lot of 1-0 games. JonathanF, back me up on that!)
What’s galling is just who held them to one measly run: a crappy ex-Phillie named Nick Pivetta, who twirled five scoreless following the anonymous opener, John Schreiber.
Nick Pivetta is not exactly an unknown quantity. Going into last night, this particular belly-itcher had made 18 appearances against the Braves, 15 of them starts, and in 84 1/3 innings, he had a 5.34 ERA. Following last night’s gem, his ERA against the Braves is all the way down to 5.04.
He’d made one previous start against the Braves this year, May 9, in which he went four innings and gave up seven earned. Just to illustrate the point, here are his previous ten games against the Braves, in order:
- May 9, 2023: 4 IP, 7 ER
- August 10, 2022: 6 IP, 3 ER
- May 26, 2021: 6 IP, 4 ER
- September 27, 2020: 5 IP, 1 ER
- August 10, 2020 (relief): 0 1/3 IP, 6 ER
- September 9, 2019 (relief): 1 IP, 3 ER
- July 28, 2019 (relief): 2 IP, 0 ER
- July 3, 2019: 5 2/3 IP, 5 ER
- June 14, 2019: 6 2/3 IP, 4 ER
- March 30, 2019: 4 2/3 IP, 4 ER
So, again: this is the gentleman who ruined the buffet at the Harrow club this morning.
Anyway, I just went into the filter and rescued JonathanF’s comment about triple plays, so here it is in all its glory:
There have been 4 triple plays that started with a flyout to the center fielder.
- The closest was on May 31, 2000, turned by the Diamondbacks against the Cardinals, which went 8-2-6.
In both of the other outs, the runners were doubled up. - There was also an 8-4-3 triple play in this game on July 4, 1988, turned by the Royals against the Red Sox.
Once again, both runners were doubled up. - There was an 8-6-4 triple play in this game on July 17, 1953 by the Yankees against the Browns.
In that game, both runners were erased on tagging up. - Finally, we have this play from a game on October 2, 1943, turned by the Senators against the Tigers, with the truly weird description: Triple Play: Flyball: CF; York out at 2B/CF-C-2B; Wakefield out at Hm/2B-C-3B.
So, that would be 8-2-4-2-5.
Duvall’s blood sugar must have been low again. Not sure if that joke has already been made.
We had a 148 wRC+ in June, obviously far and away the best in MLB. This month, 107 wRC+, good for 13th. Hard to be the best team in baseball when you can’t stay red hot like that.
And yet…here we are, as of right now, still the best team in baseball.
It’s a pain to try and format this, so I won’t.
Here are the Parks with over 1000 games played, sorted by the fraction of 1-0 games.
Games 1-0 Pct
PARKID NAME
DEN02 Coors Field 2219 10 0.0045
ARL02 Rangers Ballpark in Arlington 2136 21 0.0098
PHI09 Baker Bowl 1386 14 0.0101
NYC21 Yankee Stadium II 1124 12 0.0107
PHO01 Chase Field 1993 22 0.0110
SEA02 Kingdome 1763 21 0.0119
DET05 Comerica Park 1831 23 0.0126
MIN03 Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome 2265 29 0.0128
CLE06 League Park IV 1623 21 0.0129
BAL12 Oriole Park at Camden Yards 2440 32 0.0131
KAN06 Kauffman Stadium 3967 53 0.0134
MIL06 Miller Park 1754 24 0.0137
PHI13 Citizens Bank Park 1525 21 0.0138
BOS07 Fenway Park 8096 113 0.0140
NYC14 Polo Grounds V 3361 49 0.0146
TOR02 Rogers Centre 2599 39 0.0150
HOU03 Minute Maid Park 1862 28 0.0150
CHI12 Guaranteed Rate Field;U.S. Cellular Field 2522 38 0.0151
NYC15 Ebbets Field 2961 46 0.0155
CIN08 Cinergy Field 2606 41 0.0157
STL07 Sportsman’s Park III 6226 104 0.0167
MIN04 Target Field 1006 17 0.0169
CLE08 Progressive Field 2304 39 0.0169
WAS11 Nationals Park 1183 21 0.0178
ATL01 Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium 2469 44 0.0178
MIA01 Sun Life Stadium 1513 27 0.0178
CIN09 Great American Ballpark 1569 29 0.0185
PIT07 Three Rivers Stadium 2433 45 0.0185
KAN05 Municipal Stadium 1348 25 0.0185
DET04 Tiger Stadium 6317 119 0.0188
STP01 Tropicana Field 1987 38 0.0191
ATL02 Turner Field 1657 32 0.0193
MIN02 Metropolitan Stadium 1681 34 0.0202
PHI11 Shibe Park 5251 110 0.0209
PIT06 Forbes Field 3957 83 0.0210
STL10 Busch Stadium III 1366 29 0.0212
NYC16 Yankee Stadium I 6742 144 0.0214
SFO03 AT&T Park 1857 41 0.0221
MON02 Stade Olympique 2150 48 0.0223
PHI12 Veterans Stadium 2642 59 0.0223
MIL05 County Stadium 3499 79 0.0226
ARL01 Arlington Stadium 1750 40 0.0229
STL09 Busch Stadium II 3227 75 0.0232
OAK01 Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum 4392 104 0.0237
CHI11 Wrigley Field 8144 195 0.0239
ANA01 Angel Stadium of Anaheim 4548 112 0.0246
SEA03 Safeco Field 1863 46 0.0247
SFO02 Candlestick Park 3188 80 0.0251
WAS09 Griffith Stadium 3258 82 0.0252
SAN01 Qualcomm Stadium 2781 71 0.0255
CIN07 Crosley Field 3949 101 0.0256
CLE07 Cleveland Stadium 4201 110 0.0262
SAN02 PETCO Park 1509 41 0.0272
NYC20 Citi Field 1096 30 0.0274
BAL11 Memorial Stadium 3036 84 0.0277
PIT08 PNC Park 1733 49 0.0283
CHI10 Comiskey Park I 5536 166 0.0300
NYC17 Shea Stadium 3776 114 0.0302
WAS10 Robert F. Kennedy Stadium 1047 32 0.0306
HOU02 Astrodome 2787 97 0.0348
BOS08 Braves Field 2576 93 0.0361
LOS03 Dodger Stadium 5253 200 0.0381
PS: I realized that that lasţTriple play should be 8-2-4-2-5, of course. (And thanks, Alex, for not just rescuing the comment, but actually reformatting it better.)
(JonathanF, I just took your text, copied into Excel, ran a Text to Columns with a “space” delimiter, than used this function to concatenate using a nonspace delimiter, a tilde – =IF(I2=””,IF(H2=””,IF(G2=””,IF(F2=””,A2&”~”&B2&”~”&C2&”~”&D2&”~”&E2,A2&”~”&B2&” “&C2&”~”&D2&”~”&E2&”~”&F2),A2&”~”&B2&” “&C2&” “&D2&”~”&E2&”~”&F2&”~”&G2),A2&”~”&B2&” “&C2&” “&D2&” “&E2&”~”&F2&”~”&G2&”~”&H2),A2&”~”&B2&” “&C2&” “&D2&” “&E2&” “&F2&”~”&G2&”~”&H2&”~”&I2) – and then ran Text to Columns again!)
Even if I had known to do that, which I didn’t, I stand by my opinion that it’s too much of a pain. But your pain is our gain.
Oh, agreed!
Good work you guys, I am just gonna stay in my lane over here…
I got crushed by a couple of people on Twitter last night for saying Charlie was terrible as he is wont to do once in a while, so I’m glad you see it similarly, AAR. He has been mid in my opinion a good share of the season and last night made me waver a bit – we may need to go get a starter by July 31. A Sox friend of mine reminded me that the Sox have traditionally beat him up pretty good, but I countered with who in that lineup was around then? Devers maybe? We need and should expect more from Charlie.
Hopefully Bello struggles a bit tonight and we enjoy Striderday!
1 year/$20M for a 2-3 WAR pitcher who’s supposed to be, at best, your third starter…
Stay in your lane, indeed.
@Christian: I think Charlie is just kind of inherently mid, as you put it. He’s done a surprisingly good job holding down the No. 2 slot in the rotation for much of the season, and it’s been much needed. But I don’t think he can do it forever, so it’s a good time for Fried to come back and drop him back to No. 3/4, depending on how you feel about Elder.
Everybody’s got a role to play.
Exactly. Charlie has provided exactly what we paid him for; over the past three years, he’s twirled 471 innings with a 3.76 ERA (3.73 FIP) and an ERA- of 89, 11% better than league average. He’s been good for 8 WAR over that span, for which we’ve paid him $55 million. That’s not the kind of bargain we’ve gotten from Arcia and d’Arnaud, but he has been worth every penny and then some. He just sucks occasionally. Same as the offense – Acuña and Albies went 0-8 last night and Bob’s your uncle. It happens.
People also undervalue the flexibility that comes with the short-term nature of the commitment. Look at the Verlander and Scherzer situations. You typically can’t get a pitcher who has the ability to put up a 3 WAR season under contract for only one year on the open market.
I wouldn’t bet on it happening — Charlie’s ERA is probably going to approach his 4 xFIP before all is said and done; there are gonna be more stinkers — but Charlie may out-fWAR Verlander and Scherzer combined. He’s been better than either Verlander or Scherzer so far.