April Games Recap

Well, take out that Perfect Game and all the stats etc were much better.  Unfortuntately, can't ignore it.  Below are several tables showing the stats from the first six games of the year.  I went to 6 out of the 9 home games for April.  A couple of notable games, the 4/18 game was the lowest attendance, and the 4/21 game was the 21st Perfect Game in MLB History.

We were 2-4 in the six games (0-1 in one run games), shut out the first and the last.  The last, of course, being Humber's game.  The average attendance was just over 22k, at 22,220.  Take out the inflated numbers of the first game and it was actually 17,459.  In April of last year I had gone to 8 games in which we were 4-4 and average attendance was 21,411.  We scored 19 total runs, our opponents 25 for total run differential of 6 runs.  There weren't any huge blowouts, but 3 of the 4 losses we lost by 4 runs, which is very interesting.

 Vargas, Hernandez, and Beavan all had quality starts, which is at least six innings of 3 runs or less.  Unfortunately if your team doesn't score runs you can't win.  Beavan was especially unfortunate as he was up against Humber.  Vargas probably wins for best start, this round. Noesi's first start he went 8 innings and gave up no runs, but wasn't able to get out of the 2nd inning in his second start which skewed his numbers.  It is really hard to draw any conclusions with just 1 or 2 starts.  I was lucky enough to be able to see all starting pitchers on this home stand.  The starters accounted for 62% of innings pitched, and 76% of runs scored against us.  So, we can say that our relief pitchers were more consistent, although at times it didn't feel like it.

Something new this year, now that I have excel, is being able to keep track of our hitting performance by month.  As much as I thought we were improving in this matter, a .200 batting average is not going to win you many games.  However, take out the Perfect Game and it is a more respectable  .234 with .326 OBP, .373 SLG, .699 OPS.

Surprisingly, our most consistent regular hitter was Jesus Montero who reached base in 5 of the 6 games.  He was catcher in three of those games and had 2 homers, 1 double, and 4 RBI with a .364 average while slugging 1.000 with an On Base Plus Slugging of 1.417.  Coincidence?  Time will tell.

Another surprising statistic is that Figgins lead the team in strikeouts, that is not what you want from your lead off position.  My impression of him the first couple of games is that he was back to his old self, getting on base and wreaking havoc.  The numbers don't indicate this.  If he doesn't improve soon it may be time to part ways.