Road kill
In golf, there's a popular saying that you drive for show but putt for dough. In other words, it's impressive if you can crush the ball off the tee, but it does you no good if you can't sink the six-foot putts.The baseball equivalent of the six-foot putt is the road game. Most teams are better at home than on the road. That much is obvious. You can impress the home fans by winning often in your own ballpark, but the playoff-caliber teams are the ones who find ways to win on the road, especially in the close games.
The Wild Things have a winning record at home (8-7) but that means nothing because of their performance away from Consol Energy Park. Washington is 3-10 in road games. Only Evansville (3-12) is worse away from home. Half of the Wild Things' road losses have been by one run, in large part because of their anemic .202 batting average in away games.
When the Wild Things were at their best years ago, they were terrific on the road. From the team's inaugural season of 2002 through 2006, Washington had the Frontier League's best road record in four of those years. In the other, they were second best.
The formula for success on the road, it seems, has been lost. This year, Washington has lost all five of its road series, and going back to last season the streak is eight in a row. In that span, the Wild Things are 4-18 away from Consol Energy Park. More than half of the 18 losses have been by one run.
Maybe the tide will turn tonight at Traverse City. If it doesn't, then the upcoming nine-game homestand will have to be looked upon as a gift from the schedulemaker, a chance to move up in the standings before playing 12 of the next 18 on the road.
posted by Chris Dugan at
6:55 AM
2 Comments:
home or away, it doesn't matter.
lowest (by a long way) batting average in the league---would need to have gotten 22 more hits over the 28 games just to catch next to worst b.a...
next to fewest walks drawn in the league--despite getting like 25 walks in the last 3 games....okay, it just seems like it. it's 15 over the past three, which is an increase of 1.56 PER GAME....and still only joliet has fewer (8) and they have 8 more homeruns...
the wild things have the third fewest at-bats in the league, the fewest total sacrifices, specifically because they also have the lowest on-base percentage, slugging percentage, ops (whatever that is)...nobody gets on base, nobody to sacrifice, no long innings, no runs, nobody left on...probably have the fewest in that category too, though can't seem to find that number quickly.
meanwhile, the miserable offense (home and away) is wasting, embarrassingly so, the solid work of the pitching staff. an 11-17 record with a team 3.51 era is pititful, partly due to having the fourth-most errors in the field. but it is much more due to the total, complete, top-to-bottom absence of anything resembling an offense. won't even use the word attack....would settle for a sniper at this point but none has been found.
have seen/heard more than enough to know the offense has become an issue of "me", what "i" want to do at the plate...gonna swing for the fences even if in an 0-2 with the winning run at third....gonna crush the ball even if a bunt is what's really needed or signaled for....gonna take strike two and strike three down the middle without offering becuase i don't want to bunt, i am, after all, a career .230 hitter having played my way out of affiliated ball...
dandy don is warming up in the cage, loosing those long-silent vocal cords....."turn out the lights, the party's over"....he's not on stage yet, but he's ready.
Well said.
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