Add new comment

1

Honestly, the streak call was (IMO) pretty obvious.  Having 5 good starters (no gaping hole in the 4 or 5 slot), is what you need to extend winning streaks.
But, the offense was obviously going to remain among the worst in baseball.  A 79 team OPS+ is inducive to long losing streaks.  (And my take on the bullpen was that it would be much weaker than it turned out to be, which would negate some of the win-streakiness).
Most people would see the big strength on pitching and the big hole in hitting and assume they balance out.  But, I've seen repeatedly the psychological realities of "extremism" in sports.  Good or Bad play "feeds on itself".  So, when pitchers get hot, they will tend to all get hot at once.  Likewise, when a team slumps, it is common for the whole team to slump.
Yes, there will be periods of .500 ball for a team as extreme as the Ms.  But, the streaks were much more likely (IMO) than from a more uniformly mediocre club. 
The final losing streak, of course, was extended when the starting pitching imploded after the break.  I certainly didn't call that.  But, that (IMO), was an artifact of the initial hitting-driven part of the streak.  Once the streak got to a certain length, the pitchers didn't expect they could win 3-2.  And suddenly, they're hoping to win 1-0, and the whole thing feeds on itself.
However, I have no feeling for the 4/5 pitchers yet, so I wouldn't be betting on any extended winning streaks the rest of the way.  But, I would be willing to predict the club plays .500 ball (or above) from August 1st to the end of the season.

Filtered HTML

  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <blockquote> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd><p><br>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

shout_filter

  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <blockquote> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.