Wednesday, September 19, 2018

Giants Score Five Runs!

SF 5  SD 4
And they needed them all. It tool pluck and luck for the Giants to prevail but prevail they did. The Giants scored eight runs in a loss in Colorado on September 3rd and then scored 2, 3, 2, 3, 3, 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 2 before Monday's four and last night's five. In the two games before that 8-run outburst the Giants scored a run apiece. So it's pretty exciting to see a five-spot on the board. Derek Holland allowed four runs in his five frames but the relief corps held the line. The Padres missed a game-tying homer in the 9th by mere feet but them's the breaks. Hunter Pence blasted a two-run homer--he's likely in his last days in a Giants uniform, as we know, so appreciate him while you can.

If the Giants run the table they'll finish 82-80. If they win 9 of 10 they'll have a .500 season. Hey, why not? As our friend nomisnala pointed out it was pretty long odds they'd LOSE eleven straight! Improbability is not impossibility.

Chris Stratton starts tonight at 6:10 Pacific. GO GIANTS!

--M.C.

10 comments:

Russian River said...

Positive/Negative...........The Pence homerun - MONUMENTAL!
Scoring five runs - a step in the right direction, but they are playing the last place team in the west.
2-11 with RISP - That has GOT to get better!
C'mon GIANTS, let's finish the year strong.

Zo said...

"And they needed them all"........because the incompetence of the umpiring crew and the faults inherent in the replay system gave unearned runs to the Padres.

THE REPLAY SYSTEM NEEDS TO BE REVISED

Every time there is a close play that doesn't get overturned, we hear about how there needs to be "incontrovertible evidence that the call was wrong." What nonsense. What bullshit. What is the purpose of replay, to get the call right, or to avoid momentary embarrassment to the umpiring crew on the field? If the point is to get the call right, then call it based on the tv replay, not on some arbitrary standard that is higher than the standard needed to make the call in the first place! That just invites abuse and justified criticism.

Last night, there were 3 instances that may have been wrong calls. In one, in the 8th, when Longoria was thrown out at home, the catcher had to reach high over his head for the ball. He jumped. He may have come down on the plate before Longoria touched home, but there was no replay request by the Giants, so I couldn't tell for sure.

But the other two were just wrong, and upheld by umpiring crew in New York because.....why? There's an unwritten home-field advantage rule? They hate the Giants? Who the fuck knows?

The first was in the bottom of the 5th, when the Padres went up 4 - 3. Franmil Reyes hit a ball to the wall, Chris Shaw was under it, jumped and had his glove clearly knocked away by a fan reaching for the ball. Shaw as clearly not over the wall, his arm was not bent back and his glove was upright, not back. Simply, he was not beyond the plane of the wall. He as clearly upset before the umpire could get his arm up to signal a home run. The call was upheld from NY and it was clearly a wrong call. The excuse that "there needs to be incontrovertible evidence" is just not sufficient. It was clear from the one tv angle that was available to broadcast. There's a still on McCovey Chronicles.

The second was in a Longoria at bat, he hit a bloop down the right field line that was bobbled by the fielder and knocked into foul territory. It was ruled foul as Longoria was standing on 2nd base. A tv replay showed at least a body length of the fielder between where the ball hit his glove and the foul line. How is that a foul ball? There is no way it "crossed the bag on the foul side of the bag" as the announcers cite, unless Longoria hit it from about 10 feet behind the batter's box. Again, a bad call challenged and not overturned because there seems to be an undefinable standard against which replays are judged that simply does not apply to calls on the field. Either scrap the damn replay altogether or correct errant calls!

And what should I find when I open the paper this morning? The same damn thing happened at the A's game - a team which very much has something on the line, unlike the Giants and Padres. Piscotty in left got robbed (in Oakland!) by a "fan" reaching out over the rail interfering with a ball in play. It was ruled a home run, and sure enough, the A's lost.
The video on SF Gate shows it pretty clearly. And if you're at McCovey Chronicles, check out the umpire interference on third to give the doggers a run. Fucking umpires.

M.C. O'Connor said...

I'm not sure they'll ever get the fan interference thing right. The stadiums are built to bring fans closer and fans are encouraged by the spotlight to "perform" and go after balls, foul, fair, or otherwise. The announcers "bemoan" the behavior and sometimes guys get kicked out but the reality is that "fan participation" is equivalent to "turnstiles turning" and that means $20 beers and $10 hot dogs get sold. Baseball fans, it seems, want to be at the game but they also want to see themselves on the highlights. The obvious solution would be to move the fences forward a few feet so that fans can't reach into the plane of the playing field but otherwise are still close and can still catch homers.

As far as the replay standard goes, I can imagine a situation where the call is "too close" even with video. What do you do then? Vote? "Two out of three umpires" would be the new standard? I don't know. Overall I think the system is pretty good, I would like it to be faster, however. So in that case I can live with "was it an obvious blown call?" as the standard and accept that sometimes it will be wrong. It is definitely better than before, I think.

Zo said...

Except it was an obvious blown call. Twice.

Zo said...

Giants are 9 games below .500 with 9 games left to play.

nomisnala said...

I have probably griped about the umping way too much this year, but as a die hard fan, and one who truly enjoys the benefits of ultra-high definition TV, and slow motion replay on my own Televisions, (I also sometimes go to a sports bar to watch with friends), I have found this year excruciating when it came to calls going against the giants. We do get some calls our way, and each rare time, I feel like throwing a party. I would contend, without absolute proof, that the umps can cost a team as many as 10 games a season. (I used to think 5), or gain a team as much as 10 games a season, (I used to think 5). I do think the umps cost the giants more games this year than they helped. This is crucial to a team that is basically an okay pitch team, and poor hitting team, that plays many close games. Yes the giants did a good job in picking plays to be reviewed, but that is less a function of the calls in the system, than a function of the giants being very careful with the plays they choose for review. This year has convinced me that we need an electronic strike zone. Yes it may hurt some hitters, or some pitchers, but as a team, I think it will overwhelmingly help the giants. I used to hate it when fans and analysts would complain about the umps, but with better technology now available both when watching games in our homes, and technology available at the games, I have been sold on the bill of goods, that umping matters way too much.

M.C. O'Connor said...

A lot of sports results are random. "Bang-bang" plays have a 50-50 chance to go your way. That's how it has always been. The replays now make it a little better, but can't actually always determine the outcome. There is still uncertainty, even with video. I think we believe too much in the technology. It still comes down to human eyes and human judgements. Could they do better? Sure. But the replays introduce more new judgement areas, like whether the guy popped off the bag after his slide for a micro-second, or whether the ball was actually "in the glove" or not. The more detail creates more to observe and more decision-making.

As far as robo-umps calling balls and strikes, I'd be in favor of that. The problem is that is not as close as we like to believe. It's not like calling fair or foul (replay is great for that) because that is an actual line on the ground. A strike zone is an abstract projection of lines in three-space. It is not "real." Designing a system to work with all batting styles and pitch types will be tough. Those little boxes we see on TV aren't going to cut it. I think ultimately the homeplate robo-ump will have to be an AI-enhanced neural network that "learns" as it goes, not just some passive recording system.

M.C. O'Connor said...

Just finished "The Book: playing the percentages in baseball" by Tom Tango, Mitchel Lichtman, and Andrew Dolphin.

It's a bit dated, written in 2006, but Tom Tango runs a blog (tangotiger.com) that re-visits many of the analyses and looks at the contemporary game. You have to read the book to keep up with the blog! Anyway, it is a thorough and detailed book and takes some patience. It ends with a discussion of game theory and they include all the math in the appendix if you are so inclined. Mostly it is interesting to look at the game the way they do and how they handle uncertainty and variance.

The BEST book on statistics and baseball is "Curve Ball: baseball, statistics, and the role of chance in the game" by Jim Albert and Jay Bennett. It is much more readable and accessible and will definitely change much of your thinking. The Tango book is far nerdier by comparison. Even if you aren't interested in the math or the new statistics (sabermetrics) it is fun and rewarding to see the game in new ways.

M.C. O'Connor said...

Belt had arthroscopic surgery on his ailing knee. Ready by Spring Training is the word.

nomisnala said...

M.C. I think you describe the situation as it is, and with the hope of the best outcomes. But in most statistical analysis, there are bound to be outliers. Some years a team will have calls go either with them or against them, at least one standard deviation from the mean. With thirty teams, and more than 15 umpiring crews, it is likely that at least a team or two will end up with calls far enough off that they will end up 2 standard deviations from the mean. And that assumes no inherent bias. I like to think that there is no inherent bias in umpires that make it to the majors, but I think we all worry about our team when certain umpires end up calling the game behind the plate. That fact that Kruk and Kuip, discuss the expected strike zones of each home plate umpire, probably means it is important and not just for entertainment. I prefer that the games be called as fairly and as unbiased as possible. With no national league teams rising way above the other teams, the fairness of the games become even more important, for the team, the players, the fans, and in the long run, ultimately for the game. And now, I am upset with myself for continuing to talk about the umps. But I guess it seems more important to me than I thought.