On ESPN.com, Jayson Stark highlighted this potential pitfall for the streaking Cubs:
Fuck me…
Time to start poking holes in my Diamondbacks Voodoo dolls. Somebody please tell me that everything will be okay.
well on the plus side, the NL west winner might be the weakest division winner in history by record.
They are looking mighty shitty right now.
MIGHTY shitty…
Eh, just a bump in the road. We still have the most wins of any team in the majors. I’m not particularly worried at the moment. They’ll hit their stride again. Although Tuesday night’s game particularly pissed me off, with runners on first and second, nobody out in the tenth, and not a single Cub could get a fucking hit to drive in the game winning run. It would have been nice to gain that game on the Brewers.
That familiar stumbling fall a few feet short of the finish?
Most of that shit is fucking meaningless, and Jayson Stark appears to be a moron.
Firstly, it’s pretty much inevitable that anyone who gets to the playoffs is going to face good pitching. Not only do teams that get to the playoffs tend to have good pitching, but teams with a couple of real aces can really take advantage in the short LDS by getting off to a 2-0 start. This is nearly always a possibility, and it’s not some unique situation that the Cubs are facing this year.
The fact is, the playoffs are a bit of a crapshoot for everyone. Winning or losing a 5-game and even a 7-game series is always a possibility, no matter how big the disparity between the teams’ regular season records.
This is stupid.
Brandon Webb is a good pitcher. His ERA this year is 3.19, and his WHIP is 1.17. He’s been a good pitcher for quite a while, having won the Cy Young in 2006, and coming second in 2007. He has a career ERA+ of 144. All of this is much more relevant than a sample size of six games, which is how many he’s pitched against the Cubs (4-1, with 1 no-decision). The last time he even took the mound against the Cubs was over 2 years ago, in July 2006.
This is even more retarded.
Again, Dan Haren is a very good pitcher, having probably his best year. His WHIP this season is an outstanding 1.09, and his ERA+ is the best of any year in his career. The fact that he gave up 2 earned in 7 innings in “his only start against the Cubs as a D-back” is completely irrelevant. That is a one-game, seven-inning sample size; it doesn’t get much smaller than that.
You might almost argue that the sample size here is getting large enough to actually tell us something. Maybe.
But then you look and see that Randy Johnson will be 45 years old come the playoffs, and that his ERA this season is 4.21 and his WHIP is 1.28, both figures that are well shy of his career average, let alone his career best. Sure, he might come out and throw a 2-hitter to lead the D-Backs past the Cubs, but the Randy Johnson that’s pitching now is not the same one that amassed a 13-0 record against Chicago.
This is, perhaps, the most priceless of the lot.
You know how many runs the Dodgers scored against Cubs pitchers in those 7 games? 18!
Not only that, but 7 of those 18 runs came in a single game. In 4 of the 7 games, the Dodgers managed only a single run, and the Cubs won the season series 5-2. If this season series is any indication of playoff expectations—as Jayson Stark seems to be arguing—then the Cubs should be delirious to see the Dodgers come October.
It’s mostly meaningless.
Randy Johnson is 13-0 against the Cubs and most of those wins took place when he was a very, very different pitcher than he is today and the Cubs didn’t have the best offense in the major leagues. How many of those wins were rolled up when Johnson was winning four straight Cy Young Awards, or that one year with the Astros? Check the stats, and I think you’ll find the answer is “almost all of them.”
Any team can win a short series, but if you absolutely had to bet $20 one way or the other, bet on the Cubs. Sure, there’s a high chance they’ll lose. There’s a higher chance either the Diamondbacks or Dodgers will lose.
Nix panicus. If the Dodgers win the division, they will self-destruct in 4 games, guaranteed.