Rox Talk - Week 21

The Week That Was

A 4-2 week against the Marlins and Dodgers. The Rox currently stand at 60-68.  Nine and half games behind the D-Backs for the division lead in third place. Currently 32-33 at home and 28-35 on the road, the Rox have been outscored by its opponents 588-581 (expected wins is 63 versus historical wins at 60). On pace for 76 wins with 735 runs scored and 744 runs against. Playoff indicator (Runs scored/Runs Against ratio) is 0.99 (1.16 indicates high playoff potential).

So hypothetically, based on runs scored vs runs against, Rox should be 63-65 and thus possibly only 6.5 games back from leading the division (assuming Rox had some luck on their side this year).  In addition let's also assume they are playing 0.600 at home (average over the last 4 years) which means Rox should have about 38 wins at home this year versus the 32 they currently have.  So let's say they aren't raking at home but still winning at home then Rox should be sitting at maybe 66 - 62 right now and about 3.5 back?  How frustrated are you now with Rox season?  Amazing to think that we throw in some luck and better home record and realistically Rox aren't that far away from contending in the West.  Now of course the reason for close run differential is attributable to a bunch of blow out wins at home.

1 run (18-23)
2 runs (11-12)
3 runs (11-12)
4 runs (4-5)
5 runs (4-5)
6 runs (2-4)
7 runs (2-3)
8+ runs (7-4)

Yup when you lead in the 8+ runs department it shows our Rox have about 24 run swing differential going for us.

So looking at the record it looks like we should be a little better off...what about season projections?  75% through the season the offense looks like this (note: projections were based on who likely was going to be the starters throughout the season):

Blue is last season's numbers, yellow is the average from the experts (with error), and the next three are final 162 projection after each quarter.  First quarter had a lot of super stars who then fell back to earth the second quarter.  Third quarter has come back and for the most part CarGo, Fowler, Helton, Tulo, Smith, Iannetta, and Wiggy have lived up to expectations.  Amazing thing is even with these seven players living up to expectations the team is on pace to score about 75 runs less than expected.

And the pitchers?

Mostly just a mess.  U-Ball was certainly not what we expected.  De la Rosa got hurt and Cook was hurt before finally coming back.  Chacin has been good but has struggled and Hammel has just regressed.  Bullpen has been steady although the Paulino thing never worked out.  Fill ins like Nicasio were huge and currently the runs allowed projection is about on based on what was expected.

Hard to believe but it is the offense holding our Rox back!