Recap of the Orioles/A’s Series and The Week Ahead

After losing the first 2 games of the series against the scorching-hot A’s, the Orioles, behind Wei-Yin Chen, were able to win the last game of the series 6 to 1. Chen pitched 5.2 innings and struck out 12. With the win, Chen improves to 9-6 on the year.

To recap the series the Orioles started the series against Oakland on Friday night, where Zach Britton faced off against A’s rookie right-hander Jarrod Parker. This game went back-and-forth, with the A’s getting off to a 5-0 lead by the 2^nd inning. However, the O’s rallied back with a homerun by Chris Davis in the 2^nd inning and a homerun by Adam Jones in the 5^th inning. Jones homerun put the O’s up 6-5. In the 6^th inning the A’s pinch hit Seth Smith for Johnny Gomes and Smith hit a base-clearing double to put the Athletics up 8-6. However, the O’s battled back in the 8^th inning and eventually took the lead 9-8. The A’s came up in the 9^th against O’s closer Jim Johnson, who has pitched extremely solid this season, and scored six runs off of him. The O’s fell 14-9.

In the second game of the series, Tommy Hunter squared off against Bartolo Colon. The game was kept scoreless until the 4^th inning, when smoking-hot A’s OF Yoenis Cespedes hit a two-run homerun off of Hunter. Hunter, who has been plagued by the long-ball all year, gave up another homerun to A’s 1B Chris Carter in the 6^th. The O’s lone run came in the 9^th inning when Nick Markakis homered.

Thankfully for the Orioles, Chen was able to put together a great outing today and Matt Wieters finally showed some sign of life with a three-run homerun in the 3^rd inning off of A’s success-story Travis Blackley. Recently-acquired Omar Quintanilla also homered for the O’s.

(Another note from the today’s game is that the Orioles started OF Lew Ford in left-field today and he batted 5^th. Ford hasn’t played in the big leagues since 2007, when he was a member of the Minnesota Twins. It’s great to see Ford make it all the way back to “The Show”.)

However, the two losses against Oakland did hurt the O’s in the Wild Card Standings. They are still 2.5 games back of Oakland and Anaheim.

The Orioles have some very crucial games in the upcoming week. If the O’s want to stay at the top of the playoff hunt they must win both series against the Yankees and the Rays.

The next week could really determine whether the O’s stay in the playoff hunt or return to their former ways of being at the bottom of the cellar in the AL East. 

Fun With PITCHf/x for Hitters

Recently Dan Brooks of Brooks Baseball fame and Baseball Prospectus teamed up to supply some pitchf/x data for hitters in  really unique way on the Baseball Prospectus website.  Dan is constantly adding functionality to the application, and his most recent update has some pretty cool implications for understanding the data behind batter performance.  This post is going to highlight a lot of the really cool visualizations that this new tool allows us to create.

Adam Jones

This first breakdown compares Adam Jones' True Average on breaking balls down & away versus his True Average on those same pitches this season.  Keep in mind that the typical Small Sample Size (SSS) warning applies here, but it's interesting nonetheless.  For a description of True Average check out Baseball Prospectus' glossary here.

Adam Jones TAv Career - Normalized for RHH

Adam Jones TAv 2012 - Normalized for RHH

The interesting point here is that, over his career, Jones has performed well below average on breaking balls down & away compared to other MLB right-handed batters.  However, so far this season, Jones' performance has been above league average (.260) in all 4 quadrants of the low and away portion of the zone.  This is certainly interesting, and could be a reason for Jones' success thus far this season.

Chris Davis

Here we're going to look at how pitchers have been pitching to Chris Davis so far this season, something that I think shows how well pitchers adjust to hitters over the course of a season.  The first image will show, compared to other left-handed hitters how often Davis sees "hard pitches" (fastballs) in a certain zone.  The second image shows Davis' True Average over the various zones against "hard pitches".

Chris Davis Frequency 2012 - Normalized for LHH & "Hard Pitches"

Chris Davis TAv 2012 - Normalized for LHH & "Hard Pitches"

As you can see, the league has adjusted.  Davis sees many more hard pitches, basically fastballs of various types, up in the zone compared to other lefties.  Consequently, hard pitches down in the zone, typically a staple for many pitchers, are not being seen by Davis.  This is likely because of his performance on those pitches, as exhibited by the True Average image above.  Davis has multiple zones where his TAv is significantly above the league average figure of .260.

Nick Markakis

The last player we'll analyze today is another long-time Oriole, Nick Markakis.  The interesting thing about Nick's data is that it seems nobody knows where to pitch Nick.  The lowest % in terms of pitch frequency is 85.63% which is quite high.  The second image shows how Nick has performed against pitches in the various zones, and highlights the lack of a hole in the zone for the most part.

Nick Markakis Frequency Career - Normalized for LHH

Nick Markakis TAv Career - Normalized for RHH

This color scheme shows just how good Nick has been at covering all zones across the plate.  Of the 25 zones in the breakdown, only 4 of them show TAv values that deviate significantly from the league average figure.

Takeaways

All in all this tool is very cool.  If you haven't already, you should play around with it here and see if you can find any interesting data.  I hope to do more of this in the future, and I really think the applications for this data are truly endless.  Let me know any interesting points you notice from the graphs above, or feel free to link to new graphs in the comment section.

Opening Day Magic

Friend of the blog Jonathan Foreman wrote up a nice piece about Opening Day at Camden Yards.  In my absence, Jon represented the blog at the game and passed along a few notes for fellow O's fans.  Enjoy!

At the Orioles opening day game (a true opening day, unlike those tricky home openers the last two seasons) on Friday a friend turned to me and said, “this is surreal.”  I agreed.

Maybe it was Rick Sutcliffe throwing a perfect strike for the opening pitch to Chris Hoiles, or the scoreboard error before the game that had Brian Roberts in the lineup, and J.J. Hardy playing DH, or new PA announcer Ryan Wagner (who for my money did a fantastic job), or the streaker on the field in the top of the forth inning wearing nothing but shorts and a cape, or the marriage proposal third base side in the stands. (Editor's note - I think we all know that streaking involves nudity).

There are a lot of maybes, but there is one definite: opening day is a packed house of Orioles fans.  It is something that reminds my generation of 1996 and 1997, and of the Cal Ripken years in general at Camden Yards.  We celebrate the twentieth year anniversary of Camden Yards this year, and opening day is the one moment that it feels like the first few years, not the last fourteen.

With that said here are some positive notes from the game:

• Anyone who did not see the game will look at Jake Arrieta’s stat line, but his performance was even more impressive than his stats.  There were a few questionable calls on balls that should have been strikes that lead to his early walks.  He was throwing consistently in the mid-90s, and most of his pitches looked crisp.  What surprised me though was how good he looked defensively (including snagging a plastic bag that was floating past him and putting it in his back pocket).

• The ball was flying off of J.J. Hardy’s bat today, but Nick Markakis looked like the best hitter on either team today.  He looks much stronger than last season, where in the first game he looked malnourished.  A homerun, triple, and walk is a good way to start the season for a guy who needs to recapture his power stroke (and just might have). (Editor's note - Markakis added a 2nd HR tonight as well.  This is good).

• There are a lot of Chris Davis bashers out there, and he has to prove that he can hit major league pitching.  However, there is little question about his glove.  Davis made a diving catch while keeping the tip of his toe on the bag on a Mark Reynolds throw that would have been Reynold’s first error of the year, but instead was an out at first.   Also, an overzealous Adam Jones threw a cannon to first to try to catch a tagging up runner and Davis leapt in the air to make the catch on a ball that likely would have advanced the Twin’s runners (and hit Buck Showalter in the face). (Editor's Note - Not to be denied, Reynolds got that error back tonight by misplaying a ground ball).

• The ballpark upgrades make Camden Yards look even better than it did twenty years ago.  Rather than spell all of them out, comment below on which upgrades you feel are the most welcome this year.
  
  
  - Jon Foreman