Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Giants vs. Phillies, A Retrospective. Or, why numbers lie

3 Days Until NLCS
Andy: Hey Jamie, want to hear a stat?
Jamie: What kind of stat?
Andy: A good stat, about the Giants and Phillies.
Jamie: No.
Andy: You sure?
Jamie: How good a stat is it?
Andy: Really good.
Jamie: Don't want to hear it.
I've infected my family with my weirdness.
The stat is meaningless, of course, as any stat that suggests the Giants might beat the Phillies is. There's really only one formula for a Giants series victory.
Game 1: Timmy allows 1 hit, Halladay allows 2 hits (both by Posey). After 47 innings, they call the game and the team with the most hits wins.
Game 2: Phillies win 3-0. Giants have chances to score runs for Matt Cain, but...nahhh. It's funnier to see how sad he gets when nobody scores any runs for him.
Game 3: Sanchez strikes out 24, Giants score a run off Cole Hamels when Jason Werth misplays a flyball in right field due to incoming seagull poop. Giants win 1-0
Game 4: Giants win due to having a superior 4th starter. Joe Blanton sucks. Bumgarner gives up 2 runs. Giants win 4-2.
Game 5: Timmy allows a solo homerun to Carlos Ruiz. Halladay throws perect game. Philies win 1-0
Game 6: Cain allows 7 unearned runs. Giants implode. Phillies win 7-0
Game 7: Sanchez strikes out 40. Cole Hamels allows Pat Burrell to hit a double, and then accidentally throws Juan Uribe a fastball. Giants win 2-0.
Any deviation from this plan will result in the Giants being swept.
But the stat IS really good. Insanely good. Only an insane person would hear this stat and not think: wow....the Giants could win this thing.
But if you don't think boxscores like this haven't made me insane, then you're not really reading these emails very closely.
oooo, ooo, or my favorite:
Let's look back at the Giants vs. Phillies in 2010...
The first matchup was Jonathan Sanchez vs. Roy Halladay. We dropped 5 runs on Halladay and won 5-1. Ho hum. Eli Whiteside hit a homerun. Of course he did. I think that was homerun #1 for him. Later, he hit 0 more.
In game 2, Todd Wellemeyer defeated Jamie Moyer, which is hilarious, and not just because I just said the words "Todd Wellemeyer defeated..." Wait, actually that is the only reason it's hilarious.
In game 3, Timmy absolutely shut down the Phillies and led 4-1 with 2 outs and 1 on in the 9th. What happened after that was horrific, and the final score was Phillies 7, Giants 6, in 11 innings. Shoot me now.
In August, Roy Oswalt beat Barry Zito 9-3. Matt Cain got lit up by the Phillies, who started Joe Blanton just to give us a chance. But then Sanchez beat Hamels 5-2, and the "two" was the bullpen's fault.
I'm still not going to say the stat. You can't make me.
Lincecum, Cain and Sanchez together were 2-1 with a 1.98 ERA in four starts against the Phillies in 2010, and Halladay, Oswalt and Hamels were 1-5, 6.17 in seven starts against the Giants.
Ah! Who did that? Get out of my computer!
Besides, I don't believe that stat. Nobody has a 6.17 era against the Giants. The Padres had a 6.17 era against the Giants, but only if you shifted the decimal point five places to the left. See? That's TWO Padre references in this email, and they haven't even played baseball in like 10 days. I'm still not over them. When I go to sleep at night, I have nightmares about Clayton Richard throwing cutters to Pablo Sandoval. It's not normal or healthy or normal.
Ok, but how cool is this?
The scattered nature of this email is because my brain is scattered. I'm still not over the Padres, but apparently we're in the NLCS? Really? C'mon. No we're not. This is all a big joke. We're going to wake up tomorrow and find out it's the Cardinals in NLCS, or the Mets. Or the Rockies. Or they've cancelled the NLCS and just advanced the Phillies to face the Yankees so Fox can drool on itself.
Today's Poll Question:
Which aspect of the Phillies' pitching worries you the most?
A) The "pitching" part. We don't do well against "pitching."
B) The stupid nickname ("H2O" for Hamels, Halladay, Oswalt). Teams with stupid nicknames always beat us, dating back to the 2010 Padres who were nicknamed "LOL" for Latos, Orwell, LeBlanc. Wow, that was a bad joke.
C) Roy Halladay. The odds of throwing two no hitters in a row in the playoffs is slim, I know. But...ITS THE GIANTS
D) The bullpen? Sorry, I don't really watch baseball. Do the Phillies have a good bullpen? What? And his name is Brad? That's hilarious. Never mind. Is Moyer still around?

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