i mentioned a little bit about this in another thread, then dove into it further with some in-depth research (read: surfed espn.com for about 10 minutes) and found a rather interesting statistic that might give some of you nay-sayers some hope for these 2006 astros. the team is currently 58-63. but do you realize they've blown 9 saves in games they eventually went on to lose? just to put that in perspective: between '04 and '05, lidge blew 8 saves total. during that stretch, he converted 90% of his saves. (71 in all.) so for all the "this team sucks; bench so-so; the offense blows" rhetoric, had lidge been "lights out" lidge this year, they would have won 8 of those 9 games. they'd be 66-55, a 1.5 up in the division. give us just 5 of those games - barely half of the nine blown saves - and they'd be 63-58, a game up in the WC standings. sure, the team is flawed. but it's been in position to win 9 more games than it has this year. NINE. which is not to heap blame on lidge (a class guy - utmost respect for him the way he's handled 2006), but rather to correctly point out that if garner can steady the back of the bullpen, this team has what it needs to win enough games to go to the postseason. keep the faith, people... in my best fred hickman, no team wants to face oswalt, clemens and pettitte in a playoff series. as for lidge, i think the WBC had an impact on him - messed with his routine (when he needed routine more than ever) and put baseball back on his brain sooner than he needed it. combined with all the innings he's logged the past two years, i just think he's mentally and physically exhausted and needs an OFF-season. if he gets one, i suspect he'll be back stronger and better next year. just a hunch.
I want to give up so bad... but I know I can't. No matter how much this team sucks, blows games, makes bad moves, etc. you can't help but love them. The club, IMO, is a class act, from front office to the players.
How exactly are they defining a blown save? Some of the sites, if Qualls gives up the lead in the 7th, that's generally considered a blown save even though it wouldn't have been a save if he hadn't blown it. Lidge has "only" blown 5 saves this year, so I'm not sure where the 9 is coming from unless they are including all of those. But in that case, you have to consider those from the last few years as well in the analysis.
I'd have a lot more hope if the Wildcard race was between 2 or 3 teams instead of practically the whole NL. There are 10 teams that are less than 6 games behind Cinci. I got excited after we swept the Pirates, then I remembered that they are the Pirates. We're 2-5 since then.... I hate to say it, but....it's football season. I've moved on.
Of course, the Pirates then proceeded to sweep the Cardinals, who managed to score a total of 3 runs in 3 games against them. The NL is so jumbled this year, it's impossible to say who's going to win it. Whichever team goes on a 10 game win streak probably wins it - and the Astros have as good or better a chance of that than anyone else because they are so streaky.
Lidge has only blown 6 saves, plus the five run lead that wasn't a save situation. And the Astros haven't even lost every game that he had a blown save in. Therefore even if Lidge pitched as "lights out" as you wish, it would not make an 8 game difference in our record. Not even close.
Going back over the game logs, you can point to 7, maybe 8 (if you count May 24 against the Nats) games that Lidge cost the Astros. For 2005, I counted 4 such games.
no, he's blown 5; 4 that they've eventually gone on to lose. wheeler and qualls have combined to blow 6; 5 that they eventually lost. thus, as originally stated, 9 blown saves they've eventually gone on to lose. last year, between the three, there were 51 save opportunities; lidge was used in 90% of them (46). this year, there've been 40 save opportunities between the same three and lidge has only been used in 78% (31). what do you account for that discrepancy? yep, lidge hasn't been lights out. had he been lights out, of the 9 blown saves, he would have been in for 8 of them and closed 7 so yes, i was off. by 1. we'd still be at least a 1/2 game up on STL, maybe more since, iirc, at least two blown came against the donruss'.
See my first post. If you have a 5-2 lead and Qualls/Wheeler/Lidge for the 7th/8th/9th and Qualls gives up a Grand Slam, it's counted as a blown save but not a save. The Qualls blown saves were not in save opportunities. It's a bizarre stat. So you can't compare blown saves to save opportunities because they measure different things, oddly enough.
i saw it and promptly ignored it. what's your point, other than splitting hairs over worthless minutiae? they've lost 9 games this year in which they've had a late inning lead, which is atypical of the past several years. straightening that out will go a long way to getting this team back in the playoffs, and counters the many angry posts about our offense, which has put us in position to be 9 games better than we are right now.
i don't believe our offense put us in position to win tonight. besides those 9 losses that our bullpen has blown, what about the other 50+ losses, didn't our offense decide not to show up?
We didnt have a great offense last yr and managed to win because our starting pitching and bp kept us in the games.
Our offense this year is worse than last yr... we managed to have 2 other guys step up last year....ensberg and lane this year, it has only been berkman
we're actually scoring more runs this year. we're on pace to score 40 more than we did last year without ensberg going fluke. further, the team's OPS last year was .730, dead last in MLB; this year, it's .741, again, w/o ensberg. so, yeah... it wasn't better.
I think you meant the thread to read "astros 2007:"... I think its obvious we'd be in a better position if Lidge would have converted 1/2 of his blown saves...However, we still can't hit consistently so its not all his fault...We're done...The miracle has left the building...
4 Games back with three at home against the Brewers. Meanwhile: The Reds (+4) visit the Dodgers. The Padres (+3.5) visit the D-Backs (+0.5). Philly (+2.5) visits the Nats. The Giants (+2) visit the Braves. Florida (+1) visits the Cards. If the Astros sweep while the Dodgers, D-backs, Phillies, Braves, and Cards take 2 of 3 the race gets very interesting (2 games out of the lead). I think we root for the Dodgers, D-Backs, Nats, Braves, and Cards this week. Keep that funk alive!
