Rays need series split in finale with White Sox
Rays need series split in finale with White Sox
Drifting back now in the AL East, Joe Maddon's Rays could use a win Thursday afternoon to at least gain a split in this series with the White Sox before heading to Toronto for the weekend. Building momentum over the next few days here in Chicago and then at the Blue Jays could be crucial for the defending AL champs as they look ahead to a home series next week against the division leading New York Yankees.
The World’s Most Interesting Man isn’t an advertising gimmick – he’s flesh and blood and sitting right there in the Tampa Bay Rays dugout.
Manager Joe Maddon is the kind of smart that everyone can appreciate. He’s amiable, he drinks wine and listens to rock and roll, and he’ll use whatever strategy works, like giving a bases-loaded intentional walk last August to Texas Rangers slugger Josh Hamilton while leading 7-3 in the bottom of the ninth. It worked; Marlon Byrd struck out, and Tampa won 7-4. That “maverick” approach led Tampa Bay to the World Series and earned Maddon American League Manager of the Year honors from both the old guard at the Baseball Writers Association of America and the seamhead contingent at Baseball Prospectus.
Maddon’s insistence on hustle might be his most endearing quality. Nobody in the majors has come close to matching Tampa Bay’s stolen base total this year. The Rays have swiped 138 bases heading into Thursday’s matinee (2:05 p.m. Eastern, on CSN and Fox Sports Florida) with the Chicago White Sox, who used to be pretty good at this sort of thing but now sit tied for 12th overall with 62 steals.
Speed is good. But it has to be used the right way, and Maddon knows what he’s doing. Sabermetricians are well aware that Bill James has crunched the numbers and says you need to be successful on at least 70 percent of your SB attempts to make a positive contribution to your ball club. Tampa Bay has been caught stealing just 33 times for a success rate of 81 percent. Chicago has been caught 29 times for a success rate of 68 percent. The Rays are crushing the rest of the league on the basepaths with a combination of quantity and quality.
That speed extends to the outfield, where LF Carl Crawford (47 stolen bases, eight fielding runs above replacement) and CF B.J. Upton (32 SB, nine FRAR) are putting on a show –Crawford even won the 2009 All-Star Game MVP award for a home run-denying catch at the wall. However, this is where the Pale Hose start measuring up to their opponents. I’ve been critical of White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen for his small-ball tactics, but even he can’t mess up the defense he’s getting from a healthy Jermaine Dye (zero SB, 14 FRAR) in right and Scott Podsednik (15 SB, nine FRAR) in left.
Guillen also has no control over the location of Thursday’s game: U.S. Cellular Field, where the Sox are 26-23 for a deficit of 1.96 units. The Rays are money losers on the road thus far at 22-28 (minus-5.75 units), and they’ve already dropped two of the first three games in this series:
Game 1: White Sox 4, Rays 3 (CWS -101)
Game 2: Rays 3, White Sox 2 (TB -115)
Game 3: White Sox 4, Rays 3 (CWS +137)
If you do your shopping, you can get the finale’s betting odds at anywhere from Sox -105 to Sox -120. The total remains nine runs despite the first three games easily going under the posted total. Both starting pitchers for this matchup have had their issues of late; Tampa Bay’s Scott Kazmir (6.62 ERA, 5.28 xFIP) has been wildly inconsistent from start to start, while Mark Buehrle (3.52 ERA, 4.42 xFIP) recently coughed up eight runs to the Twins in just 3.1 innings of work.
We can cut Buehrle some slack here. He’s been putting money into our wallets all year long with a 14-5 team record and 7.60 units in earnings. Those 5.26 runs per game of support help considerably, but Kazmir is the fortunate recipient of 6.62 runs per game, enough to keep his supporters 0.75 units in the black with a team record of 8-5. The over is 10-3 in those starts compared to 7-12 for Buehrle. Looking beyond the two lefties on the mound, the under is 19-7 in the last 26 meetings between these two clubs. Score one for the defense.
Drifting back now in the AL East, Joe Maddon's Rays could use a win Thursday afternoon to at least gain a split in this series with the White Sox before heading to Toronto for the weekend. Building momentum over the next few days here in Chicago and then at the Blue Jays could be crucial for the defending AL champs as they look ahead to a home series next week against the division leading New York Yankees.
The World’s Most Interesting Man isn’t an advertising gimmick – he’s flesh and blood and sitting right there in the Tampa Bay Rays dugout.
Manager Joe Maddon is the kind of smart that everyone can appreciate. He’s amiable, he drinks wine and listens to rock and roll, and he’ll use whatever strategy works, like giving a bases-loaded intentional walk last August to Texas Rangers slugger Josh Hamilton while leading 7-3 in the bottom of the ninth. It worked; Marlon Byrd struck out, and Tampa won 7-4. That “maverick” approach led Tampa Bay to the World Series and earned Maddon American League Manager of the Year honors from both the old guard at the Baseball Writers Association of America and the seamhead contingent at Baseball Prospectus.
Maddon’s insistence on hustle might be his most endearing quality. Nobody in the majors has come close to matching Tampa Bay’s stolen base total this year. The Rays have swiped 138 bases heading into Thursday’s matinee (2:05 p.m. Eastern, on CSN and Fox Sports Florida) with the Chicago White Sox, who used to be pretty good at this sort of thing but now sit tied for 12th overall with 62 steals.
Speed is good. But it has to be used the right way, and Maddon knows what he’s doing. Sabermetricians are well aware that Bill James has crunched the numbers and says you need to be successful on at least 70 percent of your SB attempts to make a positive contribution to your ball club. Tampa Bay has been caught stealing just 33 times for a success rate of 81 percent. Chicago has been caught 29 times for a success rate of 68 percent. The Rays are crushing the rest of the league on the basepaths with a combination of quantity and quality.
That speed extends to the outfield, where LF Carl Crawford (47 stolen bases, eight fielding runs above replacement) and CF B.J. Upton (32 SB, nine FRAR) are putting on a show –Crawford even won the 2009 All-Star Game MVP award for a home run-denying catch at the wall. However, this is where the Pale Hose start measuring up to their opponents. I’ve been critical of White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen for his small-ball tactics, but even he can’t mess up the defense he’s getting from a healthy Jermaine Dye (zero SB, 14 FRAR) in right and Scott Podsednik (15 SB, nine FRAR) in left.
Guillen also has no control over the location of Thursday’s game: U.S. Cellular Field, where the Sox are 26-23 for a deficit of 1.96 units. The Rays are money losers on the road thus far at 22-28 (minus-5.75 units), and they’ve already dropped two of the first three games in this series:
Game 1: White Sox 4, Rays 3 (CWS -101)
Game 2: Rays 3, White Sox 2 (TB -115)
Game 3: White Sox 4, Rays 3 (CWS +137)
If you do your shopping, you can get the finale’s betting odds at anywhere from Sox -105 to Sox -120. The total remains nine runs despite the first three games easily going under the posted total. Both starting pitchers for this matchup have had their issues of late; Tampa Bay’s Scott Kazmir (6.62 ERA, 5.28 xFIP) has been wildly inconsistent from start to start, while Mark Buehrle (3.52 ERA, 4.42 xFIP) recently coughed up eight runs to the Twins in just 3.1 innings of work.
We can cut Buehrle some slack here. He’s been putting money into our wallets all year long with a 14-5 team record and 7.60 units in earnings. Those 5.26 runs per game of support help considerably, but Kazmir is the fortunate recipient of 6.62 runs per game, enough to keep his supporters 0.75 units in the black with a team record of 8-5. The over is 10-3 in those starts compared to 7-12 for Buehrle. Looking beyond the two lefties on the mound, the under is 19-7 in the last 26 meetings between these two clubs. Score one for the defense.