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SnakeLines, Week 8: Pitcher Strikeouts

Another good week for the SnakePit Casino, as it walks away with a great deal of imaginary money, courtesy of Martin Prado performing exactly as predicted with runners in scoring position.

By Jim McLennan

Week 7 review

Date Opp Pitcher Score Inn RoB Out Pit(cnt) Play Description
05-17 @MIA Kevin Slowey a 0-5 t3 12- 2 2 (0-1) Single to SS (Ground Ball); Ross Scores; Montero to 2B
05-17 @MIA Ryan Webb a 1-9 t9 --3 2 4 (1-2) Groundout: 3B-1B (Weak 3B)
05-18 @MIA Tom Koehler a 0-1 t2 -2- 1 2 (1-0) Fielder's Choice SS; Ross out at 3B/SS-3B; Prado to 1B
05-20 @COL Jon Garland t 0-0 t2 --3 0 2 (1-0) Groundout: 3B-1B (Weak 3B)
05-21 @COL Jhoulys Chacin d 4-2 t7 -23 1 3 (1-1) Single to CF (Ground Ball thru SS-2B); Ross Scores; Kubel Scores
05-21 @COL Matt Belisle t 4-4 t8 1-3 2 1 (0-0) Flyball: RF

Things started brightly, Prado getting an infield hit in his very first chance last Friday, knocking in Cody Ross. However, he came up empty the rest of the series, and despite three opportunities, that was it until the second game of the series at Coors, where he had a two-run single. He had another chance later on in the same contest, but came up empty and although Prado came up three times with runners on base in the week's finale yesterday. all of them were only with a runner on first [he did advance them each time, with a trio of groundouts]. That left Martin's final tally for the week at two hits in six at-bats, on the casino line.

Nor many of you went for that. only three of the 19 competitors in this round, with the majority deciding Prado was "due" for a big week. This seems like an example (along with the standard fan optimism) of what's knows as the Gambler's Fallacy: "the belief that if deviations from expected behavior are observed in repeated independent trials of some random process, future deviations in the opposite direction are then more likely." In other words, because Prado had sucked so hard with runners in scoring position the first 40 games, that he'd be likely to perform better than average there this week. Nope. His previous numbers have absolutely no impact there.

I trust we all learned a valuable lesson from this. And so, with only those who went for "push" able to cash in their slips on the week, we get:

  • Winners (3): frienetic, Gildo, rd33
  • Sinners (16): AJV19, azcougs, blank_38, BrokeNBattleX, Craig from Az, Diamondhacks, grimmy01, GuruB, Marc Fournier, Muu, piratedan7, SenSurround, SongBird, TolkeinBard, walleye01, Xipooo

Which makes updating the standings a quick and easy process again, with only that trio picking up two points apiece for nailing it on the nose. Before we get to those, pardon me if I take a few minutes to imagine rolling around the bed in all the theoretical SnakePit dollars I won... Right, thank you for that. Onwards!

  • 5 points
    blank_38
  • 4 points
     AJV19
    frienetic
    Gildo
    grimmy01
    SenSurround
  • 3 points
    AzRattler
    Craig from Az
    Marc Fournier
    piratedan7
  • 2 points
    azshadowwalker
    eel
    GuruB
    Maizefed
    rd33
    TolkienBard
  • 1 point
    AZfan85308
    backtocali
    BobRob12
    BrokeNBattleX
    JoelPre
    navyazfan
    Shawnwck
    Songbird
    walleye01
  • 0 points
    azcougs
    AzDbackfanInDc
    azsportsfan31
    BattleMoses
    BigLeagueAZ
    Daniel Corbin Jr.
    Diamondhacks
    hotclaws
    imstillhungry95
    leemellon
    LiamNeeson
    littleRoom
    Muu
    since_98
    Surksquatch
    Xipooo

Week 8 line

It's back to Chase Field, for at least the start of this week. There's three games against the Padres, and then the Memorial Day double-header on Monday against the Rangers. We have Tuesday off, then it's to Texas we must go, for the return pair of interleague games. That's seven in total for this round, five of them at home and two on the road - the DH will be in effect for those, and it could play into the final tally, because the number you need to predict this week is, how many strikeouts our pitching staff will get. It's going to be interesting: Brandon McCarthy and Wade Miley will each get two starts. Here are some other numbers to help figure out where you stand.

  • Strikeouts per game: 7.7
  • Strikeouts per nine innings: 7.6 [includes extras, road losses where we pitch 8 innings]
  • Strikeouts per home game: 8.0
  • Strikeouts per road game: 7.4
  • Strikeouts last seven games: 53
  • Strikeouts last five home games: 43
  • Strikeouts last two road games: 14
  • Strikeouts last series vs. San Diego: 26
  • Strikeouts by San Diego per game: 8.0
  • Strikeouts by Texas last four games: 19 [we've not faced them this year]
  • Strikeouts by Texas per game: 6.1

Strikeouts by Arizona pitchers the upcoming week: 49½

Straight over-under this week, with no push - unless Angel Hernandez is involved, in which case awarding half a strikeout seems entirely possible! Place your bets before first pitch tomorrow night, as usual simply by posting in the comments.

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