prod & ponder

(picture of the lower deck after RFK started clearing out yesterday)
Before and during the breaks of yesterday’s game I was reading Moneyball . While these days I’m mostly doing qualitative research, my MA degree focused on statistical analysis and game theory, so let’s just say this number-crunching approach to baseball has its appeal to me.

So with Moneyball sensibilities, here’s my explanation for why we lost yesterday’s game. Or, perhaps more accurately, why I’d expect us to usually loose if we played that same game a million times with the same lineup: Nick Johnson’s absence.

Nick is the Nats #1 hitter when it comes to On Base Percentage, which Moneyball does a compelling job of stressing as a key ingredient in game wins. Let’s adopt one of the formulas mentioned in the book: judge strength by 3*On Base Percentage + Slugging Average (and divide the whole thing by 4 for the sake of neatness). Using that, the Nats’ lineup for the game yielded an average of .334 versus the Phillies’ .338. If Nick was in the mix instead of Church, the Nats would have been at .355.

I know it’s popular to think that with the Nationals’ problem of men left on base we need stronger hitters. Actually, we have respectable slugger stats, and we had better slugger stats in our lineup yesterday than the Phillies (.442 vs .338). What we need, if the ideas discussed in Moneyball are correct, is to work on getting on base, and it sure would help that stat if Nick could return quickly to the lineup.

It was a beautiful day for catching an afternoon game of baseball. 27,483 folks filed into JFK, everyone I saw smiling widely.

Unlike box scores, scorecards tell the narrative story of a game. So if you’d like to hear my account, here’s a pdf of my scorecard from today’s game. I also had my camera with my, so here’s a shot of Loiza pitching like a fiend. I’ve posted more shots of the game on flickr.

A few observations:
* Esteban Loaiza threw 11 strikeouts. 11! Through the 8th inning he only allowed 2 hits. And while the Nationals’ bullpen has struggled with the strike zone, Loaiza only gave up one base-on-balls. (btw, I noticed a mistake in my scorecard… Loaiza ultimately gave up 4 hits, not 3)

* Can I once again suggest that, if we are going to have National Guard sponsorship of the team or stadium, the Nats adopt a “no man left on base” motto. 6 men left on base by my count. Grrr.

* At the end of top of the eighth inning the crowd gave Loaiza a standing ovation. Why? a) Because he darn well deserved it for his magnificent pitching and b) Because everyone saw his arm was getting tired and assumed he would be pulled before the 9th inning. People were plenty surprised to see him back up at the top of the 9th inning, not so surprised to watch him then immediately give up a HR and base hit. Frank Robinson: wakey wakey man… stop letting great but exhausted starters go into the 9th; pull players before they falter.

* Guzzman Hit! Guzzman Hit! (really, twice) And damn did that guy want it. His hit in the 7th was a little dribbler that would have been an easy out against most batters, but he ran like a man chased by rabid greyhounds, and he took a superman-style, face-first dive just under the glove of the phillies 1st baseman trying to tag him passing by. Think Bernie Mac in Mr. 3000 getting his first hit and doing a face-first slide, ending by covering and clutching the bag like it was the most precious thing in the world. It was like that.

* Wilkerson is the man. He leads off and finds ways to get on base, he plays center, he plays left field, and now he’s playing first base and getting the job done. Can he pitch? That’s about all that’s left.

* Two other folks sitting near me were scoring the game, and the crowd in general was following every pitch. It was feeling darn near like a game at Wrigley. Yay again for baseball in DC.

It should be a nice Wednesday. I’m having lunch with friend Greg at the World Bank (no matter what your view on their global politics, you can’t deny that they have a great cafeteria), will spend a few hours tucked away in a coffee shop somewhere downtown grading papers, and then it’s off to the late afternoon Nationals game against the Phillies.

George is usually a pretty stoic fellow, but today he was gussied up for the GMU “SEXtravaganza”.

DCist mentioned some controversy over the event in their morning wrap up, and I thought I’d nab an image from the event on my way to class.

Unrelated, but for the curious, today’s class topic was Appreciative Inquiry. The semester is rapidly winding down: one more week of classes before study week and then final exams. (And then: grading hell.)

Sure, the Nationals’ new mascot, Screech, is far from a creative masterpiece. Very far. But is it just me, or does it look like he has the ability to give the finger? For mascots this would be an unheard of new and wonderful superpower.

I also think that perhaps he’s no eagle, but actually a… Chickenhawk! (of foghorn leghorn fame)
“There’s the big schnook over there
Chicken, chicken, chickenchickchichichichicicken!
Gosh, I’m a chicken hawk, I catch chickens and eat ‘em
Yeah, yeah, yeahyeah, yeah, yeahyeahyeah etc
Are you my mommy
I’m a chicken hawk, and I smell chicken”

The tulips along the front steps have started blooming in a big way. I know DC has been full of tulips over the past couple of days, but trust me, these suckers are freakishly huge and pretty. I’ll try and get some photos of them wide open, but in the meantime, here’s some photos I took of them after a storm had passed through and they’d snapped shut.


It’s passover this week, which is just loads of fun. Actually, the first two nights of it are fun. What’s not to like about Seder dinner, which essentially is dinner theater among friends with a built-in call for drinking four cups of wine. The seder follows the basic template of so many Jewish holidays: we were persecuted, we survived, now let’s eat. Most seders also have terrific lessons and calls for social justice as part of the legacy of having known enslavement.

What’s less fun is the remaining dietary restrictions during the rest of passover. There’s just not a week’s worth of entertaining and tasty things you can do with matzah (aka: “the bread of affliction”). Frankly, I think the rabbis who came up with this might have it all wrong. Trying to recreate the diet of our people on the run in modern times actually makes for very time consuming meal prep, which doesn’t seem to fit. Instead, I think we should look more at process instead of product, and say… no meal that takes more than 5 minutes to prep and eat. Yes, take-out Taco Bell is, in my estimation, the perfect modern diet for a people on the run (”make a run for the border”… out of Egypt and enslavement). Just a thought.

Didn’t you hear? Today is National High Five Day. Don’t leave anyone hanging.

And yes, today I ended my perfect home game attendance streak with the Nats. Considering the miserable weather, I’m feeling ok with that. Besides, they shouldn’t have been playing anyway. It’s way too early in the season to be risking injuries on a soaking wet field at a lightly attended afternoon game.

If you’re curious, here’s a pdf of my scorecard to Tuesday’s Nationals-Marlins game. As a warning, sometimes drinking beer takes priority to accurately recording the pitch counts, and I certainly botched a few of the fielding details.

Personally, I far prefer seeing a game’s scorecard to browsing box scores. Scorecards tell the story of the game and give you a gist of it in a way that raw stat summaries can’t. For a good tutorial on how to keep score, along with downloadable scorecards, check out baseballscorecard.com. Right now I’m experimenting with keeping score on my PDA, and hence the nifty online version of my card.

All that said, the cause of tonight’s loss was pretty easy to spot, no matter what sort of summary you look at: Livan Hernandez just didn’t deliver. I know Hernandez did a great job last Thursday of throwing for a marathon 8 1/2 innings, but c’mon guys… when your starter walks the opposing team’s pitcher when no one is on base and when the batter is holding the lowest batting average on the lineup, then it’s time to call make a call to the bullpen. That could have spared us giving up the 5 runs that followed in the third inning and what should have been a very winnable game for the Nats.

Some pondering I had during the game this afternoon…
a: I’ve attended all the Nationals’ home games.
b: The Nationals have won all their home games.
c: What if I’m the rally monkey?
(insert joyful, pride-less monkey dance here)

Hey, it’s just a thought. Regardless, the Bull Durham reasoning of “respect the streak” has to stand, and I’m in for every home game so long as this one lasts.

Isn’t it fun how baseball fans can simultaneously be so fond of both statistics -and- outlandish spurious correlations? You bet.

A few obervations:
* The Nats seem to genuinely want to win and are rooting for each other. You ought to be able to take this for granted, but such is not the case across MLB these days.
* Having kids near you cheering like mad with all their heart is better than box seats. There was a group of us at Saturday’s game who totally were ready to give the most valuable player award to this 8 year-old behind us who was yelling out exactly what we were thinking at just the right moments.
* When the entire opposing team gathers together at the pitcher’s mound to discuss things, yell out “candlesticks always make a nice gift”
* If I’m ever on a jury involving a case were a Nationals fan does some form of grotesque physical harm to an Orioles fan yelling “OOooohhhss” during the national anthem, I’m voting to acquit. And look, I know other people have had the crazy thought, so I’m just going to write it out loud: O’s-Nats semi-subway series.
* Subversive idea about the whole armed forces sponsorship: start calling it Peace Park.
* If we must have military sponsorship, could our motto maybe be “no man left on base!”

Just thoughts.
See everyone at the game tomorrow.
And yes, the blog will eventually get back to non-baseball related musings. Eventually.

The top image was today/Sunday’s game. To close, here’s Saturday’s game under the light: