Next Up: The St. Louis Cardinals

Two absolutely crazy frustrating items, presented without comment after getting swept again in Miller Park:

National League Central
Intradivision Won-Lost
Team        W  L Pct.  GB
St. Louis  32 18 .640  --
Chicago    30 24 .556   5
Cincinnati 25 29 .463   9
Milwaukee  23 29 .442  10
Pittsburgh 21 31 .403  12

Pittsburgh Pirates
Record against NL Central Teams
Team        W  L Pct.  GB
St. Louis   6  7 .462  --
Milwaukee   6  8 .429 0.5
Chicago     5  7 .417 0.5
Cincinnati  4  9 .308   2

The relevance is that if the current standings hold--New York, St. Louis, and Los Angeles winning their divisions, Pittsburgh and Chicago as wild cards--the Pirates will have to go 4-2, at worst, against National League Central teams in order to reach the League Championship Series. On a brighter note, I suppose, at least they won't have to play the Brewers or Reds!

Anyway, with Milwaukee in their rear view mirror, the Pirates begin a three game series in St. Louis tonight.

How Are They Doing Lately? Hey, here's something new: The Cardinals are good! They're 19-8 over the last 30 days, the best record in the National League, a game better than the Pirates and a game and a half better than the Mets. The offense has been middling--4.6 runs per game, ninth in the league--but they've given up just 3.3 runs per game, the fewest in the league by a wide margin. The Pirates are Giants are tied for second at 3.9. This has been the story all year for St. Louis. Their 2.67 ERA to date is the lowest in a non-strike-shortened year since the Year of the Pitcher in 1968, and they're on pace to win 105 games, which would be the most in the majors since the same franchise won 105 in 2004.

What's Going Right? The starters' ERA over the past 30 days, 2.79, is over six tenths of a run better than any other National League team. The 2.40 bullpen ERA is second only to the Pirates over the period. How've they been doing it? Over the past 30 days, they're middle of the pack in strikeout and walk rates and getting batters to swing at pitches outside the strike zone, but they're among the leaders in ground ball rate, inducing soft contact, and preventing hard contact. They've also allowed the lowest percentage of fly balls to go over the fence and stranded the most baserunners--both measures that often reflect some luck, but they've been doing it so long, there's no reason to expect a sudden sharp reversion to the mean.

What's Going Wrong? They've had their fair share of injuries, but even so, the Cardinals' offense has been nothing special over the past 30 days. Their .257 batting average is ninth in the league, their .323 on base percentage eighth, and their .410 slugging percentage tenth. They've hit 26 homers, tying them with the Dodgers for the fourth fewest after the significantly power-challenged Braves, Giants, and Marlins. They're tied for the fourth fewest stolen bases, 12, and their 60% success rate on steal attempts, second lowest in the league, suggests that they shouldn't have tried any at all. (The same could be said of the Pirates, with a league-worst 14-11 record in stolen bases.)

Who's Hot? The only Cardinals starting pitcher with an ERA over 3.00 over the past 30 days is tonight's starter, Carlos Martinez, and you could make a good case that he's pitched a lot better (29 strikeouts, six walks, one home run in 30.1 innings) than his 4.15 ERA would suggest. Saturday and Sunday the Pirates will face Jaime Garcia, who hasn't struck out a lot of batters, and John Lackey, who's walked quite a few, but their ERAs over the last 30 days are 2.12 and 2.97, respectively. Closer Trevor Rosenthal has 11 saves over the past 30 days to go with a 0.75 ERA and 16 strikeouts in 12 innings. Two relievers acquired at the trade deadline, Steve Cishek and Jonathan Broxton, have combined for a 1.35 ERA and 21 strikeouts over 20 innings, though Broxton's issued a lot of walks (eight in eleven innings).

On offense, the Cardinals are without arguably their best hitter, Matt Holliday, as well as first baseman Matt Adams and Rookie of the Year candidate Randal Grichuk, all out with injuries. Their top performers over the past 30 days have been stalwart third baseman Matt Carpenter (six homers, 20 runs scored, both best on the club, .350 on base percentage, .490 slugging percentage), pending free agent right fielder Jason Heyward (.304/.373/.457 slash line), trade deadline pickup first baseman Brandon Moss (.281/.414/.579), and might-not-be-playing-but-for-all-the-injuries outfielder Stephen Piscotty (.333/.360/.571).

Who's Not? Shortstop Jhonny Peralta is batting .255 over his last 30 days with a .318 on base percentage--not bad numbers for a shortstop, but below his career averages--and he's had almost no power, with three doubles and no other extra-base hits among his 25 hits. Second baseman Kolten Wong's hitting .240 with a .291 on base percentage that's moved him away from the top of the Cardinals' lineup. About the only pitcher who hasn't shone over the past 30 days is setup reliever Kevin Siegrist, who's allowed a 5.25 ERA, 10.80 since August 9.

What's the Outlook? The Pirates are facing the best team in baseball, at its home park, coming off three straight losses against one of the worst teams in baseball (only six teams have a worse record than the Brewers, only three outside of the woeful National League East). So this wouldn't seem to be shaping up as a good series for the Pirates, who enter play 6.5 games behind St. Louis. But as I pointed out at the top of this post, Pittsburgh's had more success against St. Louis than any other team in its division. The key is to try to scratch out three or so runs against the Cardinals pitchers and hope the depleted Redbird offense can't respond. (This probably guarantees that all three games will be decided by 9-7 scores.)

Next Up: The Miami Marlins

I was at a college reunion over the weekend so I didn't do a preview of the Pirates' series against the Mets. I would've said some of the same things I'd said about the Twins: team's been a pleasant surprise to date but appears to be overachieving. What I wouldn't have said was that the series would turn out to be a shellacking: Pirates outscoring the Mets 21-4, beating Thor and The Dark Knight along the way. As a result, the team's offense looks less inept: tied for the fourth-worst park-adjusted OPS, fourth-worst on base percentage with the bases empty, below-average offensive performance at three positions (first base, shortstop, and right field). Hey, those are all improvements! The two most disappointing players in April are having a May resurgence. Josh Harrison's slash line has improved from .213/.250/.363 in April to .312/.333/.455, while Andrew McCutchen's gone from .194/.302/.333 in April to .321/.411/.580 in May. The Pirates will attempt to keep it going, hosting three games against a Miami Marlins team that appears to be in disarray, before starting a West Coast swing on Thursday.

How Are They Doing Lately? The Marlins' 12-16 record over the past 30 days is the fifth-worst in the National League. Over the past two weeks, they're 3-10, the worst record in the league. A week ago today, they fired their manager, Mike Redmond, and replaced him with their then-general manager, Dan Jennings. Jennings' managerial experience consisted of...well, he coached at a high school in Alabama in the 1980s. Seriously. Redmond was fired following after a 1-7 run, culminating in the loss of three straight to the Braves. Under Jennings, the Marlins extended the losing streak to eight straight before taking two over the weekend from Baltimore.

What's Going Right? Over the past 30 days, Marlins starting pitchers have a 3.83 ERA, sixth best in the league. They're helped by a home park that suppresses offense, but still, for a team that's had arguably its two best starters (Jose Fernandez and Henderson Alvarez) on the disabled list for all but four starts this year, that's not bad. The relievers have a 3.50 ERA over the past 30 days, sixth best in the league, but that's misleading.

What's Going Wrong? Disregard that reliever ERA: The Marlins have four saves and six blown saves over the past 30 days. By the measure Win Probability Added, which calculates the odds that a team will win a game at any point, the Marlins relievers have been, by far, the worst in the league. On offense, the team has been sixth in batting average over the past 30 days but tenth in on base percentage and thirteenth in slugging percentage, indicating that they've gotten a bunch of singles but little else; they're eleventh in walks, fourteenth in doubles, and tied for twelfth in homers. 

Who's Hot? The Marlins offense consists largely of second baseman and leadoff hitter Dee Gordon and rightfielder and No. 3 hitter Giancarlo Stanton. Over the past 30 days, Gordon's batting .380 with nine stolen bases (both first in the league) while Stanton has eight homers (tied for sixth) and had driven in 26 runs (fourth). Outfielder Ichiro Suzuki, 41, is defying time with a .314 batting average over the past 30 days. The team's best starting pitcher has been Dan Haren, who threatened to retire during the offseason when the California native was traded away from the Dodgers in the deal that brought Gordon to Miami. He's 3-1 with a 2.97 ERA over the past 30 days. Fellow starters David Phelps (1-1, 3.07 ERA) and Tom Koehler (2-1, 2.41) have been solid as well. None of the three get a lot of strikeouts, which suggests they might struggle to keep up their recent performance. Reliever A.J. Ramos, who became the team's closer on May 12, has two saves and a 0.71 ERA over the past 30 days, and setup man Sam Dyson has a 1.93 ERA over 14 innings.

Who's Not? Third baseman Martin Prado exemplifies the problem with the Marlins' offense. He's batting .267 over the past 30 days, above the league average of .255. But he's walked only four times and he's had only five extra-base hits to go with 26 singles, so his on base percentage of .309 compares to a league average of .317 and his .345 slugging percentage compares to a league average of .400. As I said, the Marlins get a bunch of singles and little else. Two players who were expected to be significant contributors to the offense have been awful: Left fielder Christian Yelich has a .189/.283/.264 slash line over the last 30 days, and first baseman Michael Morse has been worse: .203/.239/.234 with no homers. The Marlins starters after Haren, Phelps, and Koehler have been bad, and demoted closer Steve Cishek has two saves, three blown saves, and 6.08 ERA over the past 30 days. 

What's the Outlook? The Marlins were viewed by some as a playoff contender this year. (Not I.) Instead, they're last in the National League East, and their 18-27 record gives them the third-worst winning percentage in baseball. The main hope is the return of Fernandez from Tommy John surgery sometime over the summer. The Pirates will face one of the Marlins' best starters, Phelps, tonight, countering with Charlie Morton's first start following offseason hip surgery. The struggling Jeff Locke (6.67 ERA, fourth-worst in the NL over the past 30 days) and the not-struggling Gerrit Cole (1.95, sixth-best) start the next two nights. The Marlins haven't announced their starters. If the Pirates can take the series 2-1, they'll return to .500. A sweep would put them two games over .500 for the first time since April.

Things I Didn't Know: NL East

In coming weeks, you will have innumerable opportunities to read previews of the upcoming season. I dug through last year's results and came up with items for each team that you probably won't see in the previews but that I thought were interesting.

I started with the NL West and Central. Now, the NL East.

Atlanta Braves, 96-66: So that's why they're giving Craig Kimbrel all that money...Relief pitchers, as a group, are not terribly consistent. A good bullpen one year can be lousy the next. The Brewers were fifth in the NL in reliever ERA in 2011, last in 2012, and third last year. The Dodgers were 14th in 2011, third in 2012, 9th last year. You get the picture. They bounce around. Except the Braves. The Braves have been first, second, and first in reliever ERA the past three seasons. That's amazing consistency. And Kimbrel, who's led the league in saves each of the past three years, has a career 1.39 ERA. You know how many pitchers have an ERA that low through their first four seasons, minimum 200 IP? One guy: Craig Kimbrel.

Washington Nationals, 86-76: The Nats were a team of extremes last year. They had a 24-41 record against teams that finished at .500 or better. No team had fewer wins against such teams. They also had a 62-35 record against teams with losing records. Nobody had more. Part of this was because they play in the NL East, where they were one of only two teams with a winning record, but that was true in the NL West too, and neither the Diamondbacks nor the Dodgers matched the Nationals' dominance of bad teams or inability to beat good ones.

New York Mets, 74-88: The Mets were a losing team last year, but they were the fourth-best road team in the NL last year, one of only four to finish above .500 on the road (41-40). That, of course, meant that they had a losing record at home. Only the Mets and Cubs lost were worse at home than on the road. The Mets were the fourth-best team in the NL on the road and the second-worst at home. Mets fans who wanted to see their team win had to travel. 

Philadelphia Phillies, 73-89: The Phillies scored the third fewest runs in the league last year, 610, which is bad enough, but that figure is inflated by the games they play at home at Citizens Bank Park, a hitters' park, where their 344 runs scored ranked fifth in the league. Which means that on the road...Yeah. Awful. Scored 266 runs; only the Marlins were worse. Fewest road home runs in the league. Second-fewest doubles. This was a terrible offense, masked by the home ballpark.

Miami Marlins, 62-100: The Marlins finished last in the National League East. They had the worst record in the league. They were really bad. So, given my west-to-east order of presentation, they're the last NL team I'll hit. So it's by coincidence, not design, that I saved the best for last: This is the most amazing tidbit I found. THE MIAMI MARLINS HAD THE BEST WINNING PERCENTAGE IN THE NATIONAL LEAGUE WHEN LEADING A GAME AFTER SEVEN INNINGS. I'm serious. Quick, who was their closer? (Steve Cishek, 34 saves) Who were their setup guys? (Mike Dunn, Chad Qualls, A.J. Ramos) How in the world did they win more of the games that they led after seven (41-2, .953 winning percentage) than the Dodgers (71-4, .947), Braves (72-6, .923), Cardinals (86-6, .935), and Pirates 74-5, .937), other than that they played a lot fewer of them? I don't know either. But they did.