In the wake of last night's canceled game (rain), manager Jim Pankovits thinks the day off will do some good for the struggling ValleyCats:
“I’ve got to be perfectly honest. I’m a little surprised that we’re where we’re at. I think we have a better club than we’ve shown. Hopefully, we’ll be able to put together some wins. As you said, we’ve lost a lot of winnable games and I think it’s just a matter of having a good, late-inning type win, maybe a come-from-behind win that might spur some confidence with some guys. I think we’ve got the bats going for the most part now and if we can get a little pitching to go with that and can play a little better defense, we’ll be all right.”
From the season-opener on June 18 to June 26, the ValleyCats were 4-5. From June 27-present, the ValleyCats are 5-10. So after 24 games, Tri-City is 8.5 games back of division leader Vermont, and have the second-worst Win% in the League.
2 comments:
Pank's definitely right - the 'Cats are better than their record. More than anything else, they've been hurt by dumb luck.
They've given up 109 runs and scored 101, for a run differential of -8. That ties them for 10th in the 14-team league (and two others are -6).
Tri-City has a .375 winning percentage and a .462 Pyth%.
It's not as if the problem has been the bullpen, either. I can't track down any explicit bullpen sortables, but ValleyCats' relievers have a 2.88 ERA; Vermont leads the league on overall ERA at 2.82, and league average is 3.93.
After today's blowout win, 'Cats have +1 run differential and .400 record. That's the biggest gap between expected and actual W-L record in the league, and only one other team (Auburn) is even close.
By RS/RA, Tri-City is in a group with seven other teams who should be at .500 (three teams are well above, three well below), but probably don't have a shot at the wild-card because of their unlucky start.
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