Earlier I did a post that took a look at the NL East record at the start of the 7th, 8th and 9th inning. It was an update to an even earlier post that I did because I felt it was only fair to show how poorly the team had performed this past weekend vs Miami.
One of the observations from the post was that in 2012 the Mets have a record of 16-3 when ahead or tied at the start of the 7th inning and 3-12 when trailing at the start of the 7th inning. This was followed by a few questions posed to me asking how many of those games had leads lost in which the Mets offense bailed out the bullpen?
So in an attempt to answer this question I went back and took a game by game look to see how many of those games indeed had leads lost in which the Mets offense bailed out the bullpen.
As best as I can tell here are the results. The Mets have played 19 games where they were either ahead or tied at the start of the 7th inning. From those 19 games only 6 had leads or ties that the pen lost one being the April 21 game which Nieuwenhuis over ran the fly-ball with 2 outs that resulted in a tied game. Half of those 6 games the Mets offense picked up the pen for the win.
Also of the 15 games that the Mets were trailing at the start of the 7th inning the Mets came back to tie or take the lead in 6 of them. Out of those 6 three had leads or ties that the pen lost.
To close the Mets are 16-3 when ahead or tied at the start of the 7th inning and only 3 of those wins are the result of the Mets offense picking up the pen due to leads lost.
The Mets are also 3-12 when trailing to start the 7th inning with 3 of those losses due to the pen being unable to hold the lead or tie after the Mets offense gave it to them.
Below is a breakdown.
Full page view – Link
7 comments
trs86
5/14/2012-9:15pm at 9:15 pm (UTC -4)
Nice job NJ. Even if our mmo friends don’t care for stats that prove their theories wrong.
IfYouSheaSo
5/15/2012-3:24am at 3:24 am (UTC -4)
Maybe I misread the intent, but this still seems to prove to me how bad the bullpen has been at times, particularly in dramatic situations.
16-3 with a lead in the 7th:
*6* had the leads blown or tied. Not embarrassing but not something to enjoy. The fact that it’s still 16-3 implies that the offense has done the heavy lifting in late innings.
3-12 trailing in the 7th:
3 losses due to the bullpen blowing a lead or a tie (and I believe that 2 were blows of leads, but I didn’t verify). That’s not good. It’s a 50% record on late comebacks (small sample size).
Still nice research, but it does ignore some more dramatic elements (multiple comebacks in a single game that end in losses, mets rallying to bring a ‘blowout’ to within a run or two and then losing by 6, etc.)
I’ve never been a hater and still am not. I’m excited about all of it, but the bullpen *has* been disappointing.
I was at the Houston game where Dickey had a nono through 6. It was a dink, a bloop and a bomb. 1 bad pitch by Dickey. It was an great game, with the amazin’s playing amazin, then all hell broke loose for the whole series. That’s baseball.
NJstuckinTX
5/15/2012-7:02am at 7:02 am (UTC -4)
I think that was his exact point, to say that the BP looks to be better than it is due to the Mets driving in runs late.
Honestly, 3F is shakey at best, Acosta should be left on the side of the curb, Bautista you can’t even count as a BP guy, but his flash in the pan performance aside has been putrid.
Flipping 3F (maybe we can get this to like 5 or 6 F’s by ASB) has a 2.045 Whip! Acosta… 2.00… Bautista, 1.73. These numbers are horrible. (I’m not counting Hefner or DJ, but they’re right at 2.00 as well).
The thing that puzzles me the most is I figured the SP would be horrible and the BP would be fantastic. Turns out it’s the reverse.
Mr North Jersey
5/15/2012-12:52pm at 12:52 pm (UTC -4)
Correct NJstuckinTX.
The pen despite it’s faults has not been as bad as a whole as some would suggest.
The biggest thing being when the team was either tied or had the lead at the start of the 7th the pen has done enough where the result was them losing the lead or tie 6 times and 1 came on the Capt Kirk over run of what should of been a ball caught for the out.
That is not to say that the pen has shutout the opposing team in every occasion. No team can boast that. It is to say that while they may have bent they only broke 6 times. 3 of those the offense picking them up for the win.
srt
5/15/2012-7:19am at 7:19 am (UTC -4)
Good stuff here.
- 6 out of 19 lost when we were tied or had the lead by the 7th inning.
- 3 out of 15 lost by the BP when we were losing in the 7th but came back to tie or go ahead.
- 3-12 when trailing to start the 7th inning with 3 of those losses due to the pen being unable to hold the lead or tie after the Mets offense gave it to them.
On these facts alone, it looks to me like the BP has been mediocre at best. Think there might be a caveat here though. What I don’t see listed – and if memory serves me right after watching just about all these games – is the fact that the SP on the whole has not gone very deep into games, especially the first 5 weeks or so.
When you’ve got SP pitching 5 or too often, you’re bound to have more blown games. – especially if the BP is mediocre to start with.
So is it the chicken or the egg?
Terry had a habit until very recently of using Ramirez, Acosta and even Parnell for multiple innings when the SP either didn’t get through 6 full innings.
Is that the cause of more blown leads?
Terry has stated that Ramirez is capable of going multiple innings and that may be true, but the results were not often good.
If my memory serves me right on these occasions, these 3 looked better the first inning of work vs. the second.
Outside of Francisco – who has horrendous numbers after his first 4 appearances and isn’t getting the job done……are the rest really O.K. but sort of being misused a bit? Or is it just a by product on the whole of SP not going very deep into games until just recently?
NJstuckinTX
5/15/2012-8:26am at 8:26 am (UTC -4)
I’ve always felt that TC is not a good X’s and O’s coach. Good motivator, not so good X’s & O’s. And those aren’t hugs and kisses.
srt
5/15/2012-9:22am at 9:22 am (UTC -4)
Truthfully, I don’t remember the last manager we had that I actually liked his BP management philosophy.
Terry, Jerry, Willie and Bobby V all had their flaws in that regards.