Yesterday, the Braves, Indians, and Diamondbacks took an important first step towards advancing by winning the opening game of their respective series. How big a step? In the 24 Division Series played to date, the winner of the first game has gone on to win 16 times. That’s two-thirds of the time, 66.7%. The biggest…
About a month into the season, the Oakland A’s were 8-18, and the New York Yankees were primarily worried about the Boston Red Sox. As late as June, speculation was that the A’s would ship first baseman Jason Giambi to the Yankees at the deadline, as they were hopelessly behind the Emerald City Juggernaut. Well,…
One criticism levied against the A’s this year is that they are somehow too dependent on home runs. There are two reasons to scorn this pointless argument. One is that it’s essentially a last-gasp defense of batting average: The A’s have a poor team batting average, and we all know that’s bad, like pollution and…