The Rest of tge Way

On June 28th the Rockies hit the halfway point of the season and were 39-42 in 4th place in the NL West trailing the Division Leading D-Backs by 8 games, Dodgers by 5.5 games and Giants by 3.5 games

Starting on June 28th, when the Rockies played a series finale against the Giants pulling out a 9-8 victory in the 9th inning.  This was their first win after trailing in after 8th, previously going 0-37.  Since then they have gone 5-11 when trailing after the 8th and 33-16 overall.

More importantly they have entirely erased the 8 game deficit to the D-Backs and are currently tied for 1st in NL West.

So now what?  The Rockies and D-Backs play 7 games starting in two weeks on September 10th through September 23rd.  The Rockies and Dodgers have 6 left against each other and the D-Backs and Dodgers play 7 more starting this weekend in Dodger Stadium.

Here is the Comparative Schedule for the D-Backs, Rockies and Dodgers for the rest of the season:

		-1		0		-2.5
Date		Rockies		D-Backs		Dodgers
27-Aug		@LAA		@SF		Off
28-Aug		@LAA		@SF		@Tex
29-Aug		Off		@SF		@Tex
30-Aug		@SD		@LAD		Ariz
31-Aug		@SD		@LAD		Ariz
1-Sep		@SD		@LAD		Ariz
2-Sep		@SD		@LAD		Ariz
3-Sep		SF		SD		NYM
4-Sep		SF		SD		NYM
5-Sep		SF		Off		NYM
6-Sep		Off		Atl		Off
7-Sep		LAD		Atl		@Col
8-Sep		LAD		Atl		@Col
9-Sep		LAD		Atl		@Col
10-Sep		Ariz		@Col		@Cinc
11-Sep		Ariz		@Col		@Cinc
12-Sep		Ariz		@Col		@Cinc
13-Sep		Ariz		@Col		@STL
14-Sep		@SF		@Hous		@STL
15-Sep		@SF		@Hous		@STL
16-Sep		@SF		@Hous		@STL
17-Sep		@LAD		ChC		Col
18-Sep		@LAD		ChC		Col
19-Sep		@LAD		ChC		Col
20-Sep		Off		Off		Off
21-Sep		@Ariz		Col		SD
22-Sep		@Ariz		Col		SD
23-Sep		@Ariz		Col		SD
24-Sep		Phil		LAD		@Ariz
25-Sep		Phil		LAD		@Ariz
26-Sep		Phil		LAD		@Ariz
27-Sep		Phil		Off		Off
28-Sep		Wash		@SD		@SF
29-Sep		Wash		@SD		@SF
30-Sep		Wash		@SD		@SF

Beyond the 13 games against the D-Backs and Dodgers, the Rockies need to keep pace with the D-Backs, and have a game or two to give against the Dodgers.  Whichever team wins the remaining series against the other two will have an advantage, but they cannot be tripped up by the others.   For instance the Rockies appear to have the easiest week coming up among the three teams, but cannot afford to go 2-4 or 1-5 against teams they should beat. 

Week in Review 8/13-19

6 Weeks left to the season here is what happened last week in the Home/Road Factors.  One take away is that it doesn't matter what your opponents record is, they can still beat you.

Home Road Factors Applied:
1. NL West: Colorado 91-71*
2. NL Central: Chicago 91-71*
3. NL East: Atlanta 87-75 
4. Home Wild Card:  Milwaukee 90-72
5. Visitor Wild Card:  Arizona 88-74 
6.  St. Louis 87-75
7.  Philadelphia 86-76

8.  Los Angeles 85-77

9. San Francisco 82-80#
10. Washington 82-80#
11. Pittsburgh 78-84

* Cubs and Rockies tied season series 3-3; Intradivison Cubs 29-27 .518 Rockies 26-24 .520; Interleague Cubs 10-5 .667 Rockies 12-6 .667; 

#San Francisco won season series with Washington 4-2

27 Outs

Baseball is a game that has no clock. Oh sure there's the between batters clock, or the inning changing clock, but there is no clock on the game play itself.

Instead baseballs official timekeeper  is outs.  In other sports you may be able to run out the clock without a play, or extend it by going out of bounds or calling a time out, in baseball you actually have to do something to win the game.

Each team gets 27 outs on offense 9 frames of 3 outs each.  When you get to 26 outs, and a lead, things look good. You can even get to two strikes on the hitter, but you still have to make the one more pitch.

So far in August:

On Thursday, August 2nd, the Rockies gave up 3 singles and a stolen base to the Cards in the 9th prior to the 26th out, to lose 3-2.

On Friday, August 3rd, the Rockies failed to get the 27th out as Eric Thames hit a 3 run home run off Wade Davis and the Brewers won 5-3.

On Sunday, August 5th, the Rockies failed to get the 27th out before Adam Ottavino gave up 3 runs allowing the Brewers to tie the game, giving each team extra outs.  The Rockies prevailed in 11 innings 5-3.

On Thursday, August 9th, the Rockies took a 5-3 lead into the 8th inning and gave up 2 in the 8th and 3 in the 9th to lose 8-5. The 3 runs in the 9th were recorded before the 25th out.

On Saturday, August 11th, the Rockies trailed 2-0 after 26 outs with two runners on, before Ryan McMahon hit a 3 run homer to win it.  

On Sunday, August 12th, the Rockies lost a 3-0 lead in the 7th and 8th innings to the Dodgers before securing victory with two outs in the bottom of the 9th on a walk off walk by Chris Iannetta. 

On Thursday, August 16th, the Rockies trailed 3-2 in the top of the 9th, as the Rockies rallied for 3 runs to beat the Braves 5-3.

And on Saturday, August 18th, the Rockies trailed 3-0 after 26 outs, and had no runners on.  The next four batters got on scoring 3 and tying the game before the 27th out.   The Rockies would win 5-3 over the Braves, in the 10th.  

So far in August, 7 games have been decided in the last at bat, demonstrating the uniqueness of  baseball.

And in other bizarre stories, the Dodgers lost tonight in Seattle when their pitcher balked in the winning run in the bottom of the 10th and the D-Backs lost in the bottom of the 9th on a walk off single.





 

Is This the Race we Thought We had in 2017?

In 2017, the NL West was one of the hottest races in MLB for the first 2 and a half months.  On Father's Day, 2017, the Rockies led the NL West and the NL with a 46-26 record, followed by Arizona and the Dodgers 44-26.  These were the top 3 teams in the league and only Houston in the AL had a better record at 46-24.

The expectation was that the race was going to be a battle to the end. But the baseball Gods had different plans as the Dodgers would go on a 47-10 tear en route to winning the Division by 11 games.   The Rockies and D-Backs would have a race for Wild Card positioning for the next two months, until the D-Backs took 5 of 7 from the Rockies in September.

This year, on June 28th, it looked like the D-Backs were in the driver's seat with a 4 game lead over the Dodgers 6 over the Giants and 8 over the Rockies.  Since then the Rockies have gone 28-16 all against teams at or above .500 at the time of playing them.  Meanwhile the Dodgers have gone 23-21 while the Arizona is 21-21 since June 28th.

It could turn out one of the teams could get hot and run away with the division again this year.  For the Rockies it may come down to the 21 day stretch from September 3rd-23rd where they play the Giants, Dodgers and D-Backs in Home and away series for a 19 game stretch.  The D-Backs have 17 games scattered against the other 3 teams from August 27th to September 26th, the Dodgers have 16 games from August 30th through the end of the season and the Giants only have 12 games against the other 3 from August 27th to the end of the season.  They also have 18 games left with teams below .500.

You may notice that I don't talk about the Wild Card slots much. My philosophy is that your eye should be on the big prize--the division title and a guaranteed series in the first round.  Once you are eliminated from that title or fall far out of the race then you concentrate on the consolation prize.  The other part of it is that the wild card chase will change considerably as the other divisions play primarily themselves during the home stretch, so even though there are 11 teams playing for the five spots, since all three division races are still unsettled, the wild card slots may run parallel to the division races.   In other words, if you stay on the heels in the division, you will probably be in a spot to be in a wild card slot as a consolation, if you don't ultimately win the division.

Win the Division. 

Projections

At the 3/4 pole of the season, it's time to discuss the likelihood of teams making the playoffs.

In the AL, a grand total of 6 teams are playing for 5 Spots.  Boston and Cleveland have double digit leads for the division title.  In the AL West it's now a three team race with Houston, Oakland and Seattle are within 4.5 games of each other.  The two teams who don't win the AL West, will compete with the Yankees for the two wild card spots.  Tampa Bay and the Angels are the only other teams at or above .500 in the AL, but are double digits out of the Visitor Wild Card position.

The NL is much different.  All three division races are 2 games or less between 1st and 2nd.  The NL West is 1 game among the top 3.  11 Teams are at or above .500.  Only the Padres, Mets, Marlins, and Reds are out of the playoffs.  8 Teams are within 7 games of either Wild Card Spot.

Many of the projection websites use run differential as a key element of their projections.  This clearly hurts the Rockies, as they have been negative for the whole season.  My system of Home/Away differential may not be better, especially in the NL West where none of the top 3 are doing well at home, but win on the road.  So maybe it will work.

If it does, here are my current projections for the NL Playoffs.

1. NL East: Atlanta 91-71
2. NL Central: Chicago 90-72
3. NL West: Colorado 86-76
4. Home Wild Card:  Philadelphia 90-72
5. Visitor Wild Card:  Play-in
            St. Louis 89-73 (H)
            Milwaukee 89-73 (A)
           Currently Milwaukee has a 7-6 Season Series lead with 6 games to play all in St. Louis.
7T Arizona 85-77
7T Los Angeles 85-77
9. Washington 83-79
10. San Francisco 81-81
11. Pittsburgh 80-82

We'll follow this over the final 7 weeks to see how it plays out.

A 7 Week Fight to the Finish

A year ago, the Rockies were 65-52 after getting swept in Miami and falling 18 games behind the Dodgers.   But they were tied with Arizona for the two Wild Card Spots.  Arizona in the next few weeks would take the commanding lead for the home Wild Card, and the Rockies went down to the wire to get the visitor Wild Card spot.

This year the Rockies rallied to win three of four against the Dodgers and are only 63-55, but only 1.5 games behind the D-Backs and half a game behind the Dodgers.

There are 7 weeks to play, and much head to head games. One team could still run away with it, but most likely with four teams in the mix (the Giants are only 6 games behind Arizona), any of the four teams can win it, and the division will go down to the final week.

Here are the remaining Schedules (3 game series unless noted):

Arizona:  Home: (20) LAA(2) Sea, SD (2) Atl (4) Chic Col, LAD,
                Away:  (23) Tex (2) SD (4) SF, LAD (4) Col (4) Hou  SD

Los Angeles: Home: (22) SF, STL, SD, Ariz(4) NYM, Col, SD
                      Away: (21) Sea, Tex(2) Col, Cinc StL (4), Ariz, SF

Colorado: Home: (23) SD, StL,  SF, LA, Ariz(4), Phil(4), Wash
                 Away:  (21) Hou (2) Atl (4) LAA(2) SD (4), SF,  LAD, Ariz

San Francisco:  Home: (21) Tex, Ariz, NYM, Atl, Col, SD, LAD
                          Away: (21) LAD, Cin, NYM, Col,  Milw, SD, STL

Schedule Quirks:  The Giants only play Ariz three times in the last 7 weeks. They also have only three game series left which means that they have an off day every week.  They also have three more  road trips that take them east of Colorado, while playing only one division foe on each trip. 

The Rockies play all 19 of their remaining games against D-Backs, Dodgers  and Giants  in a 3 week stretch from Labor Day to 9/23.  They also play 17 of their final 26 at home.

Dodgers only have 6 home games after September 5th, so 16 of their final 22 are on the road.

D-Backs have 15 of their final 25 games at home.