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Mile-High Meltdown

Close your eyes and think back to Ju…. Wait. Don’t close your eyes. Just think back to July 6th. The Seattle Mariners have just come away with a series win over the Angels. Their longest winning streak of the year (8 games) was stopped two nights before, but avenged by the win yesterday. They were sitting at a 56-32 record, a cool 24 games over 0.500, and their highest point of the year. The A’s were in a distant third at 48-39. Our (new) bitter rivals, the Colorado Rockies, were coming to town for a three game set. We were all riding high, our path to the playoffs never felt more alive. What happened next, however, can best be told graphically.

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While not a complete cratering, since the Colorado home series, the Mariners have compiled a 16-23 record, leaving them 17 games over 0.500 (72-55). While this may not have been terrible, the rapid rise of the A’s now has us out of the playoffs and 4.5 games behind.

Separating the season into before and after the first Colorado series, we can see a startling difference in the quality of play. (Arbitrary end point alert) Let’s first look at the hitters.

Games K% BB% AVG OBP SLG OPS ISO BABIP wOBA wRC+
1 to 88 20.7% 7.2% 0.260 0.322 0.422 0.743 0.162 0.303 0.321 106
89 to 127 18.9% 5.6% 0.246 0.297 0.380 0.677 0.134 0.282 0.294 87

As we have all seen, the team’s offense has taken a dive lately; the numbers are down across the board. I have been tracking stats the past few seasons and finally decided to see how the numbers actually look over the past month and a half. I am no baseball expert, so I am not in a position to offer a reason for this decline.

The decline in play is not limited just to the offense, the pitching staff was also faring much better prior to the start of the Colorado series than it was after.

Games BB% K% BB/9 K/9 HR/9 AVG ERA FIP xFIP WHIP BABIP LOB% HR/FB%
1 to 88 6.8% 22.9% 2.54 8.58 1.11 0.242 3.87 3.86 3.93 1.21 0.292 74.1% 12.2%
89 to 127 6.3% 19.0% 2.45 7.35 1.39 0.269 4.87 4.48 4.42 1.34 0.304 68.2% 13.1%

The walk rates are about the same, but the strikeouts are down, home runs, ERA, FIP and xFIP are all up, and the results have not been good at all. We have all seen it, and the numbers support all that we have been seeing.

While the play has been worse overall, there have been glimpses of the first half success recently. A September hot streak could easily be coming. The A’s could remember that they are the A’s and their play can decline. The Astros could keep falling back as well. Again, this post is not to offer an explanation, it may simply be that the Rockies actually are our rival and they knocked us out. This post is more to point out what the numbers are showing, and to act as a platform for discussion.