Monday, July 27, 2009
The Importance of This Tampa Bay Series
I was fiddling around with the standings to see how important this next series against Tampa Bay was. Coming off their 9-1 home stand, the Yankees are 60-38 and lead Tampa Bay (54-45) by 6.5 games. Here are the four scenarios:
Tampa Bay sweep
Yankees: 60-41
Rays: 57-45, 3.5 GB
Tampa Bay takes two of three
Yankees: 61-40
Rays: 56-46, 5.5 GB
Yankees take two of three
Yankees: 62-39
Rays: 55-47, 7.5 GB
Yankees sweep
Yankees: 63-38
Rays: 54-48, 9.5 GB
If the Yankees can take two of three then go 31-30 over their final 60 games of the season, the Rays would have to go 38-22 (.633 WPCT) over their final 60 games to catch them. That’s the equivalent to a 103 win pace. If the Yankees sweep, the Rays would have to go 40-20 (.666 WPCT / 108 win pace) to catch a 31-30 Yankee team.
Log5 would tell us the Rays should take two out of three, but if the Yankees can improve on that, they’ll be setting themselves up really nicely for the rest of the season.
Matchups for the series are:
Monday July 27
NYY: A.J. Burnett, RHP (9-4, 3.74) vs. TB: James Shields, RHP (6-6, 3.70)
Tuesday July 28
NYY: CC Sabathia, LHP (10-6, 3.67) vs. TB: Scott Kazmir, LHP (4-6, 6.69)
Wednesday, July 29
NYY: Joba Chamberlain, RHP (6-2, 3.86) vs. TB: Matt Garza, RHP (7-7, 3.68)
Since a wise man once said ‘You can’t predict baseball’, I won’t try. In fact, I may throw all my stats into the East River. But I will say that the first and third matchups look like they’re basically tossups, and the middle matchup seems like the key one for the Yankees, although we know Kazmir is better than he’s pitched so far this year.
Update: Part 2 of Chris Jaffe’s look at the best teams to never win a World Series is posted at the Hardball Times for anyone who may be interested.
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