Davies KO'd, and rally falls one hit short

[braves guru]

Miami — Before Monday night's series opener with the Florida Marlins, Chipper Jones explained how the Braves could have the second-best record in the National League while ranking 10th in hitting and ninth in team ERA. "When we get beat, we get clobbered," he said, "and when we win, we win close." Kyle Davies didn't pitch well Monday, and the Braves got clobbered much of the night before staging a rally that fell short in an 8-7 loss at Dolphin Stadium.

More...

 

[Vercingetorix]

There is, unfortunately, a better explanation of how the Braves are doing so well, and that is that they've been extraordinarily lucky so far.

The Braves have scored 93 runs and given up 87 so far. Using Bill James's old Pythagorean Method, at that rate the Braves could expect to win games at about a .533 clip. 19 games is way too few to be statistically significant, but if you multiply 19 by .533, the Braves could reasonably expect to be 10-9 right now. So they're about two games ahead of where they could expect to be, given how many runs they're scoring and giving up.

The Mets, in contrast, have been enormously unlucky thus far. They've scored 109 runs and given up only 57 -- both best in the National League. At that ratio, they can expect to win games at about a .785 pace. They've only played 18 games so far, so they could reasonably expect to have won 14 out of 18. So they're two games behind where they could expect to be. Based on the rates at which the two teams having been scoring and giving up runs so far, the Braves ought to be more like four games back already, not half a game.

A bullpen helps you in close games, and so far the Braves' has been better than the Mets'. But the runs scored/runs allowed numbers are pretty disturbing; the Braves are going to have to do something about that ratio if they want to stay in the race with the Mets.

 

[Chief]

The numbers don't really scare me too much because the Braves really haven't started hitting yet. McCann, Chipper and Kelly Johnson have had hot streaks, but nobody has really gotten off to a torrid start. They are going to score runs, I think it's just a matter of how many quality innings they can squeeze out of James, Redmond, Cormier and Davies.

 

[Vercingetorix]

I'm not quite as confident as you that they're going to score enough runs. If Kelly Johnson and Francoeur both have good-to-excellent years and Chipper stays healthy, they'll probably be fine. If any one of those three things doesn't happen, though, then you start looking at an awful lot of holes in the lineup

I guess I look at it like this: there are eight positions on the field. The two at which it ought to be easiest to just find a bat to plug in (LF & 1B) are currently both sinkholes. Two more (2B & RF) are occupied by young players with definite upside, but I don't think there's enough evidence yet that you can count on either one to supply a ton of offense over the course of a year. Chipper is still effective at 3B, but he has been brittle over the last few seasons, and if he goes down for awhile there's nobody behind him. On the plus side, CF and SS should be fine, and you have to be optimistic that McCann will keep putting up good numbers.

That's four out of the eight positions with some uncertainty about them, and five if you count Chipper as an injury risk. That's about two too many for me to be confident that the offense isn't going to be a problem for much of the year -- especially considering that, in three out of five games, they'll probably need to score five or six runs to win.

 

[freak]

especially considering that, in three out of five games, they'll probably need to score five or six runs to win.

Like today, with Redman on the mound.

 

[Vercingetorix]

Like today, with Redman on the mound.

Exactly. Although in fairness, he should have had a chance to win his last time out. What'd he go, 7 innings and only giving up 3 runs against the Cubs? I was in New Orleans and didn't see the game, but when you're lucky enough to get an outing like that from Redman you've got to put a few runs on the board. Got to do better than that tonight.