Bewerbungen » http://www.angelsfanproshop.com

CHICAGO (AP) — The Cubs were in need of a strong outing by a starter http://www.angelsfanproshop.com/authentic-zack-cozart-jersey , and Jose Quintana delivered.The left-hander struck out 11 in seven innings of four-hit ball as Chicago blanked the Pittsburgh Pirates 2-0 on Thursday night.Quintana (1-1) bounced back after being roughed up for eight runs and eight hits in three innings against Milwaukee during his first start of the season last Friday. It was the longest outing by a Chicago starter this season.“That’s as good as we’ve seen him,” Cubs manager Joe Maddon said. “That was dominant. Strikeouts, strike throwing. Everything was working.“He was outstanding, and we needed that.”Daniel Descalso and Victor Caratini each had two hits and an RBI in a game that was delayed 69 minutes by rain before the eighth inning.Caratini left after the delay and X-rays indicate the backup catcher might have a broken hamate bone in his left hand. He believes he was injured on a swing, and a CT scan is scheduled for Friday.“It’s definitely frustrating, especially because I started out the season the way I wanted to,” Caratini said through a translator.Steve Cishek pitched the eighth and Pedro Strop got three outs for his first save. The Cubs took two of three in their first home series after opening with a 2-7 road trip.Pirates starter Joe Musgrove (1-1) allowed two unearned runs and four hits in 6 1/3 innings.“I think the biggest downfall for me was that third time around the lineup, getting behind a lot of hitters,” Musgrove said. “You get behind guys like that, especially the third time around, they know what I like to go to, what’s working for me all game long, so I’m kind of exposed a little bit.”Because of severe storms predicted to move into the area late Thursday night, the Cubs pushed up the start of the game a half hour. The rain began as Chicago rallied for both runs in the seventh.With one out, Jason Heyward lifted a pop fly to shallow left field and the strong right-to-left wind blew the ball toward the line. Because of a defensive shift, no Pittsburgh fielder had a clear shot at it. Three players converged and the ball hit off the glove of third baseman Jung Ho Kang in fair territory and fell in.The play originally was called a double, but was quickly changed to an error on shortstop Erik Gonzalez.Descalso followed with a single to drive in Heyward for the game’s first run. Descalso went to second on the throw to the plate and scored when the next batter, Caratini, doubled to right-center against Francisco Liriano.By that point Huston Street Jersey , a steady rain had begun. Shortly after the seventh inning ended, a bolt of lightning flashed in the distance beyond center field and the umpires stopped play.EARLY EXITMaddon was ejected in the bottom of the fifth by plate umpire Mike Estabrook for arguing balls and strikes.With runners on first and second and one out, Caratini took a low breaking ball on a 3-1 pitch for a strike. After hearing complaints from the Cubs dugout, Estabrook took a few steps down the third base line and held up a hand, essentially saying that was enough.Maddon walked out and slowly made his way to the home plate area. He was ejected almost immediately after speaking to Estabrook.TRAINER’S ROOMCubs: If the hamate bone in Caratini’s left hand is broken, the fear is surgery could be required and he’d be sidelined four to six weeks. Oddly, Caratini was injured on the first pitch of his at-bat in the seventh. “The first swing I felt a crack, but I felt hot so I kept going,” he said. “Once I got to second base and I took my glove off, I could tell there was something wrong.”ROSTER MOVESPirates: INF Kevin Kramer was recalled from Triple-A Indianapolis to take the roster spot of SS Kevin Newman, who was placed on the 10-day injured list with a lacerated finger on his right hand.Cubs: RHP Jen-Ho Tseng was released. The 24-year-old from Taiwan had been designated for assignment Saturday.UP NEXTPirates: RHP Trevor Williams (1-0, 2.25 ERA) takes the mound Friday night in the opener of a three-game series at Washington. LHP Patrick Corbin (0-0, 3.75) starts for the Nationals.Cubs: LHP Cole Hamels (1-0, 5.73 ERA) pitches the opener of a three-game home series against the Angles on Friday afternoon. LHP Tyler Skaggs (1-1, 2.45) goes for Los Angeles. Using Interleague splits helps us understand"In recent days the DH has once again been a hot topic, both Nationally and herein the comments sections at the AZSnakepit. One specific aspect ofthe discussions prompted me to take a closer look atjust how much of an advantage the DH gives the AL over the NL.It certainly affects roster construction, as AL teams are more likely to have defensively challenged sluggers on their roster while the NL game requires more defensively oriented and position flexible utility players coming off the bench.So it’s fairly obvious that the AL DH’s are likely to be stronger hitters. However intuitively, it would seem that NL pitchers are better hitters than AL pitchers, so that might offset the AL “roster construction” advantage. We’ve discussed this in the past http://www.angelsfanproshop.com/authentic-zack-cozart-jersey , but I felt it was time to do a bit deeper dive on the matter, and see where the data takes us.First, as always, CONTEXT.There can be little doubt that the AL has dominated interleague play for a long time.In factthe AL had an unbroken streak of 14 consecutive years with a winning record vs. the NL going back to 2003. That streak wasbroken in 2018 as the NL finally posted a winning record.Wikipedia has a pretty good summary of the seasonal records HEREThe NL actually had the better record in 4 of the first 7 seasons of interleague play before that 14 year drought.Here is a quick summary of all time, and also the last 10 years, which is the data set I’ll be using below.So that is fairly definitive. The AL has had a sizable advantage in head to head play.Websites such as Fangraphs and Baseball-Reference also calculate relative league strength, or League Equivalencies .They do this by comparing how players who played in different levels, or different leagues in the same year or year over year performed.Regression models are used on that data, and it gets pretty complicated.However on a per player basis, thisis usually worth up to 1-2 runs difference in the value/WAR calculations.It may not seem like much, but these add up on a team basis.Over the last 10 years, AL teams on average are credited with roughly 10 runs extra per year in WAR calculations, or approximately 1 WAR . This works out to about a .012-.013difference in Win % .Thats actually less than half the actual WL % difference we have seen in head to head play.So while some may take objection to these sites crediting the AL for being the tougher league,if anything they might be understating it. SO....the AL is stronger than the NL.This is fairly well established. The question then becomes, how much of this can or should we attribute to the supposed “unfair advantage” the AL has due to the DH, and the impacts it has on roster construction.Full disclosure, I have thought or believed this was a significant factor, and have stated so on the pages of this website in the past. SPOILER ALERT:I may have been wrong, or at the least Nolan Ryan Jersey , vastly overstated the effect.Lets take a look.All the stats I’m using below are the last 10 years of interleaguesplit data from Fangraphs.I felt that is a large enough sample to work with, while at the same time keeping things more current.DH COMPARISON Well, this should come as no big shock.AL DH are significantly better than NL DH in head to head games. Some of this is definitely the road park penalty, as most hitters hit better at home than on the road,(MLB OPS H/R Split in 2018 was 20 points in favor of the home team). By definition, at least for the next year or two,all NL DH are on the road.But 73 points of OPS, 30 points of wOBA and 21 points of wRC+, as well as a raw total 127 runs created show pretty clearly that this partof the equation tilts decidedly towards the AL.PITCHERS BATTING COMPARISONHere we also see as expected the NL pitchers are hitting a lot better than AL pitchers. Again, some of that his the home park advantage, but most of it is probably as we’d suspect, lack of reps for the AL pitchers.SO a sizable chunk of the AL advantage is indeed eaten away here.The pitchers PA’s are a lot less than the DH PA’s, so some of that NL advantage is muted due to fewer PA’s. But wait, what about pinch hitters ?Another piece of this puzzle that needs to be taken into account is pinch hitters. After all, how many times have heard the announcers remind us that the visiting team’s big bopper DH is waiting in the wings to come in and pinch hit at a critical moment in games in NL parks.Surely David Ortiz or Nelson Cruz lurking on the bench presents more of a threat than aChris Owings or Daniel DescalsoPINCH HITTERSTurns out, on a macro basis, not so much. It’s basically a push.Thats kinda surprising perhaps, but as I think about it, not only do NL Pinch Hitters usually have the home field advantage http://www.angelsfanproshop.com/authentic-zack-cozart-jersey , (presuming most AL PH at bats are for the pitcher), but NL PHare also more used to preparing for just one PA.Pinch hitting is hard to begin with..212/.300/.339.639 OPS last year.So perhaps these results should not feel so shocking.Lets total it all up.DH, Pitchers, and Pinch hitters:These overall results were surprising to me. I assumed that the DH and PH advantage for the AL far outweighed the pitchers hitting advantage for the AL.But it simply hasn’t been true over the past 10 years. The advantage is in fact very small, and certainly does not come near explaining the success the AL has had over the NL in interleague play.This is a classic case where I was guilty of confusing what I believed with what I actually knew.Happens to the best of us;)So if the advantage is not due to the DH, or as has just been shown, the advantage for NL pitchers offsets most of the AL DH advantage, why has the AL won so many more games ? Well, looking at all the rest of the hitters,i.e.NON DH, Pitchers and PH the gap starts to look pretty large.One last table though, a quickie pitcher viewThe interesting thing here is how much larger the era gap is between relief pitching compared to starting pitching,almost half a run.How much of the AL advantage is due to better pitching, or fielding, or hitting is not something I have figured out how to tease from the numbers yet.But most likely it’s simply a combination of better players overall leading to the AL dominance over the years. WHY do they have better players ,?Is it simply higher payrolls, or better drafting and player development and overall management ?I don’t know.What we do have a clearer picture of though is the AL advantage is not really due to the DH. I stand corrected.