Baseball Math
Taken over the course of a season, the math of the standings makes sense. Sometimes, when taken as a sample of part of the season, it can make none whatsoever. There are probably some Yankees fans waking up this morning, looking at the standings and wondering...
They're wondering how, less than a week ago the Yankees had clawed their way to 7.5 games behind the Red Sox, the closest they had been since the end of April, only to have fallen 10 games back again. They're wondering how their team could go 7-3 over that span, the Sox go 6-4, and somehow lose ground...honestly, it's why I have always hated that "last ten" column in the standings.
Sure, it can show you trends, but it doesn't really show you what's happening. Not in any meaningful manner.
Ultimately, you have to go back to the win-loss column to see what's happening. Right now, the Yanks are playing a hot Colorado club that recently beat up a bit on Boston and are coming back down off what appears to have been a temporary high caused by Clemens' return to the rotation.
They'll probably look hot again for a little while after this series by playing a very cold Giants team and a struggling Orioles club in back to back series before a somewhat tougher stretch to close out at the All-Star break against teams like the Athletics, Twins, and Angels.
And on another note...
It has been reported that Pacman Jones will face two felony counts of coercion in relation to the incident at a Las Vegas strip club during the NBA's All-Star weekend.
As I was unfamiliar with the charge, I looked it up. It typically caries a one to six year sentence, and while Nevada lawyers talking to the Tennessean, Nashville's daily newspaper, claim to have never seen anybody actually charged with this (typically, they said, this is a charge that people plead down to), I did a quick Google of the term "felony coercion sentence Nevada" and came up with this. Evidently, people do get charged with this, it just doesn't happen that often.
Somehow I don't think this is just going to go away.
Stumble It!
1 comment:
The "last 10" stat is about as useful as batting average - easy for the casual fan to digest but doesn't give a real insight as to what is going on.
I think Pacman is gone now. Two felony counts? Even if Goodell didn't throw him out, the Titans will cut him and I can't see another team taking him on with that baggage.
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