Coming in halfway through the Orioles' game against the Yankees, it's been all birds up to this point, with Baltimore pulling off a hat trick of solo home runs. All three have come off New York's ace (at least statistically so far) Hiroki Kuroda. The only damage on the other side has been a bases loaded walk - a mistake that was more shameful than damaging - by the O's statistical ace Chris Tillman.
Coming in halfway through the Orioles game with the Yankees tonight makes a certain amount of sense, because we're also coming in halfway through the baseball season. That's a large enough sample size to establish a statistical base for 2013, but it's not until the All-Star Break, on July 16th, that I pause and take stock of current stats for all players on all teams.
However, I couldn't wait another two and a half weeks, so I did a trial run of my roster project/experiment with the participants in tonight's ESPN Sunday Night Baseball matchup. What follows are the raw (and quite sloppily captured) statistical data for the active rosters of each team.
Trying to work in the scientific method as much as possible, that's the "evidence" as clear as I could gather it. I'll be back in the later innings with the results section.
Bottom of the 7th inning (7:30 pm) - BAL 3, NYY 2
As my computer falls to 24% battery life, Yankees no. 24 Robinson Cano just hits a smooth home run putting New York within 1. He's NYY's top offensive scorer, and it'll make a pretty scary lineup with him hitting in front of Baltimore's offensive scoring leader Chris Davis in the All-Star Game in a couple weeks. Of course, the winners aren't announced until July 6, but those two are who I picked and I'm pretty confident I picked winners this year.
At least in terms of my All-Star ballot, if not my fantasy team. I also voted for Adam Jones in the OF and J.J. Hardy at short - although I didn't vote for Nick Markakis, since I would rather see Joey Bats in the lineup. I am a strong believer that at midseason, the 1,000 fantasy point threshhold is an important milestone to denote All-Stars in all possible cases. Manny Machado, the new leader of the division-leading Cancer Crabs in my Fantasy Astrology league, is having a tremendous season, but there's no way he loses to defending Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera for the starting 3B job.
In terms of starting pitching, I also picked both of tonight's starters in one of my leagues, but I've since streamed out Tillman for better weekly matchups. And now the Orioles have done the same, calling on one of their top relievers, sidearmer Darren O'Day. He's actually fallen to third on the RP depth chart behind closer Jim Johnson (the team's pitching points leader) and former starter Tommy Hunter (who came over from Texas in the same deal as megaslugger Davis). Mariano Rivera also leads the Yankees pitching staff in points, but tonight's starter Kuroda joins him in the thousand point club.
O'Day gets the second out in the 7th and will stay in to face the lefty Ichiro, just a shell of his former self. There are a lot of lefties at the top of the Yankees order, but I agree with Buck Showalter leaving in the righty and letting him finish the inning he started. And both our gut feelings paid off as Ichiro goes down with a shallow pop-up.
So that was all the elite players on either active roster. As Kuroda comes back for his half of the 7th, we'll see if I have one more post in me before the end of this game.
Top of the 9th inning ( pm) - BAL 4, NYY 2
Jim Johnson is coming in with a save situation, and I can't think of anyone I'd rather have closing games either for the Cancer Crabs or for the Baltimore Orioles. He's also been the third most dependable closer in the AL behind his opponent's 9th inning stopper and Joe Nathan of the Rangers. A lot of people looked at his relatively low strikeout rate and thought that all those saves were smoke and mirrors, but he's consistently shown that he knows how to get batters out in high-leverage situations.
Except apparently not veteran lefty 1B Lyle Overbay, their second stringer behind out-for-the-season Mark Teixeira, who just laced a double into the left center field gap. Now Johnson will face the tying run in Jayson Nix, who's filling in for Derek Jeter. But a good two-seam fastball sits him down, leading to the third second stringer in a row Chris Stewart, who gets drilled by the pitch bringing up the Yanks' only third stringer in the lineup, 3B David Adams. The rookie is behind both the injured Alex Rodriguez (Biogenesis scandal notwithstanding) and Kevin Youkilis, and showed his ineptitude with a big strikeout.
Now the Yankees' only chance to avoid a sweep by the Orioles rests on the shoulders of leadoff hitter and center fielder Brett Gardner. I was going to write something about how he took over the outfield captain's position from Curtis Granderson when he broke his forearm in Spring Training, but he aggressively swings at the first pitch and knocks a big, appropriately titled Baltimore Chop up the middle, which was niftily handled by Ryan Flaherty to end the game.
SportsCenter tells me that there is an NBA free agent frenzy, so I'll just go ahead and switch over to Keeping Up With the Kardashians on E! to watch Bruce deal with his hearing problem. Fun Fact: I once played soccer with Bruce Jenner in the parents/kids practice of my boyhood soccer team - which means I played soccer with Rob Kardashian by extension, a fact I'm less excited about, him not being an Olympic decathlete or anything. Not that I'm not superexcited to hear about how his sock line goes...
But regardless of how reality TV's first family fares in their new episode tonight at 9, this matchup is over, and with it this week's worth of baseball. Jim Johnson helped the O's hang on and add another game in their lead over the Yankees. Also, despite Chris Davis's monster week, his Pisces Fish could not prevail in their battle with the Cancer Crabs, led by Davis's teammates Machado and Johnson. So enjoy the charts until either my next roster project trial run or until the All-Star Break. Or until I decide to write about something other than baseball, like my Batman: The Animated Series Video Power Hour, which this week has eclipsed 2,000 views on the YouTubes. Only time will tell!
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