Memorial Day, May 29: Guardians come to town

[dtk9119]

Finally someone makes hard contact 

[O's84]

What are the chances Mountcastle actually does something here?

[Alasdaire]

3 minutes ago, SteveA said:

Yeah, and sitting Henderson vs a lefty isn't exactly hurting the offense.

It's a day off for Adley, otherwise I don't see how we could have put a better offense vs lefties on the field today.

Even though Henderson isn't there yet with his production, I get the sense that his presence in the lineup makes people feel like our offense is better than it is. My point is kind of that when you remove the excitement that Adley and Henderson bring, it's like turning the lights on at a hole in the wall bar and you start seeing things you didn't want to before.

[SteveA]

This guy at 3B has made a couple good plays now.

As did Jung over the weekend.   

[Winter]

5 minutes ago, Winter said:

so many bad ABs -- players seem to be feeling too comfortable and need reminded there is a player waiting to take their starting spot at just about every positions except Mullins/Rutschman. 

and hays

[O's84]

Urias on 1 pitch, he has been absolutely awful since coming back.  Hopefully the rust will wear off soon.

[dtk9119]

This is so freaking pathetic 

[allquixotic]

5 minutes ago, Alasdaire said:

That's kind of my point. When you take out those two, this is what the lineup looks and feels like.

There's a lot of talk about how we need to add a top of the rotation starter to put us over the top, but I don't think the rest of the team is close enough to justify that. Help is on the way as we graduate guys, but we're not there yet.

Maybe, but the offense has been far better against far superior pitching than the Rangers and the Guardians. We just seem to suffer these team-wide offensive outages that happen in the middle of the season. I've seen it happen basically every year that I've been on OH. It tends to last a fairly long time, and the depths to which they can sink can be jaw-dropping (multiple consecutive shutouts).

The difference between a good O's team and a bad one is that the good ones (like 2012 and 2014, and maybe this year?) will bounce back reasonably quickly from forgetting how to hit a baseball -- maybe a week, week and a half; and during that stretch they'll manage to scratch out 2 or 3 runs in well-pitched games and win a couple. The bad teams can be shut out 2 or 3 games in a row, and basically fail to produce any offense at all for the better part of a month.

Edited May 29, 2023 by allquixotic

[Alasdaire]

Just now, allquixotic said:

Maybe, but the offense has been far better against far superior pitching than the Rangers and the Yankees. We just seem to suffer these team-wide offensive outages that happen in the middle of the season. I've seen it happen basically every year that I've been on OH. It tends to last a fairly long time, and the depths to which they can sink can be jaw-dropping (multiple consecutive shutouts).

The difference between a good O's team and a bad one is that the good ones (like 2012 and 2014, and maybe this year?) will bounce back reasonably quickly from forgetting how to hit a baseball -- maybe a week, week and a half; and during that stretch they'll manage to scratch out 2 or 3 runs in well-pitched games and win a couple. The bad teams can be shut out 2 or 3 games in a row, and basically fail to produce any offense at all for the better part of a month.

Agree with this. I think the variance is in part due to the roster being composed of young guys and mediocre veterans. Other than Mullins, there's no one we can depend on offensively.

[tntoriole]

4 minutes ago, baltfan said:

Not like there is some advantage in getting into the Guardians’ pen

So if they have no starting pitching weakness and no bullpen weakness, how are they 23-29 ? 

[SteveA]

The #s say we OPS .730 vs RHP and .781 vs LHP, but it sure hasn't felt like it the past few days.   Texas even paraded as many lefties from the bullpen as possible against us and were effective.   

Does anyone know where you can get OPS splits vs LH & RH broken down by home and away?   I can't help but wonder if we are worse at lefties at home home with the Wall and that most of that .780 was built on road lefty-mashing?

[Dunk35]

Urias is bad after the injury. Did he do any rehab? 

[tntoriole]

So now Perez comes in to blow up the game 

[Alasdaire]

1 minute ago, SteveA said:

The #s say we OPS .730 vs RHP and .781 vs LHP, but it sure hasn't felt like it the past few days.   Texas even paraded as many lefties from the bullpen as possible against us and were effective.   

Does anyone know where you can get OPS splits vs LH & RH broken down by home and away?   I can't help but wonder if we are worse at lefties at home home with the Wall and that most of that .780 was built on road lefty-mashing?

The splits section on Fangraphs will have that for individual batters. Not sure about teams though.

[SteveA]

1 minute ago, tntoriole said:

So if they have no starting pitching weakness and no bullpen weakness, how are they 23-29 ? 

One of the lowest scoring teams in MLB.   3.4 rpg, tied with Oakland for worst in MLB.    Only one batter on the entire roster has an OPS+ of over 100 (100 is average).