[234] Indeed.

I hate that Gatorade felt compelled to add lyrics to their latest commercial. Garbage; sounds like they’re trying too hard to be hip. It was stronger with just the hard-pounding drums/handclaps.

Boy, this was just a great night. Beckett shelled, CC strong, Sox’ pen melts down, Phil philthy, stretch our lead by a game. And Brad Penny is cured by leaving Boston.

Sigh.

See youse tomorrow!

[204] The save is a mostly meaningless stat, IMO, mainly because the game has evolved such that the definition of a “save situation” no longer conforms to the way the game is played. In the old days, you had far more three inning saves, and it kind of made sense to give a guy credit for finishing a game–throwing three or four innings–even if he had a sizable lead. Defining the save normally as completing a game with a three run lead also sort of made sense–after all, three runs is still somewhat “close” if one is talking about a two or three inning save. Finally, in the old days, the relief ace often came into very hairy situations, with the bases juiced or to face the heart of the line up.

But now the great majority of saves are of the one inning variety, and a good number involve leads of two or three runs. In other words, games that teams win like 97% of the time, and about 95% of the time regardless of who is pitching (according to Bill James).

In these situations, the person who often deserves to get a “save”, IMO, is the middle reliever who held the fort or got out of a jam and then handed the ball over to the closer.

[201] Thus, in some ways, Hughes’ save tonight is more like an old-fashioned save. He came in and put out the fire in the 8th, then finished the game. So, while I agree with you that the save is pretty meaningless, I would not cite tonight as the most egregious example. For me, those would be games like last night (my apologies to Mo).

Giants truly walked the earth back then, ever listen to the live at Massey Hall album?