June 17: Cubs 3, Athletics 2

Thousands gathered on Michigan Avenue late last night to celebrate the Cubs' two-game winning streak.

Cubs' MVP: Carlos Marmol, .310 WPA 

Because it's a cumulative stat, you know that if a pitcher only gets two outs but leads the game in WPA, they were a pretty freaking big two outs.

Marmol entered the game in the top of the ninth inning, with one out and the go ahead man on third. The A's win probability at the time was 68.3%

He walked the first batter, because he's Carlos Marmol. But he retired the next two batters on three pitches to end the inning, dropping the A's win expectancy to 36%.

Marmol did fail to retire a batter via strikeout, however, and his K/9 has now "plummeted" to 16.43.

Athletics' MVP: Dallas Braden, .173 WPA, (.227 pitching)
Braden pitched six innings of one run ball, his only blemish a solo home run in the first inning by Jeff Baker. He struck out four and walked one.

Everyone knows Dallas Braden this season from his perfect game, his vendetta against Alex Rodriguez, and his free-spirited grandmother. It's been quite a season already for the the 27 year old pitcher, but ever since his perfecto he's been human.

In the last month before today's start, Braden's FIP is at 4.52, his WHIP is over 1.5, and teams are hitting over .300 against him. He hasn't been missing bats lately as teams are making contact 88.9% of the time against Braden the last month, good for sixth worst in the AL. His slider has been particularly bad, and Braden only threw it once today. His changeup is his best pitch and it was on today, getting eleven swinging strikes with it. A's fans should be encouraged by his start today.

Cubs' LVP: Alfonso Soriano, -.241 WPA
Soriano struck out with the bases loaded in the first, flew out twice, then struck out again in the eighth with a man on third and two outs with the game tied. Soriano's been in a funk the last two weeks, hitting .161/.291/.355 in that span, while striking out 29% of the time.

Athletics' LVP: Jerry Blevins, -.360 WPA 
Blevins came in to pitch the bottom of the ninth after Bob Geren forgot that in the National League his closer Andrew Bailey would have to bat if he wanted to stay in the game. Blevins walked the bases loaded (one intentional) and the only out he could manage was Starlin Castro's sacrifice bunt. Kosuke would win the game with an RBI single.

A lot of people questioned the intentional walk to Koyie Hill, and I have to say I agree. Blevins completely owns lefties this season; his FIP against lefties is 0.51, and his K/9 is over 13. So they walk Koyie Hill and his .245 wOBA to face the right handed Theriot, then pull the infield in against the left handed Fukudome with speedster Geovany Soto at third. Brilliant!

Biggest Hit of the Game:
Mark Ellis' solo home run in the seventh broke a 1-1 tie late in the ballgame. (.192 WPA)

Biggest Out of the Game:
With runners on first and third and only one out in the top of the ninth, Gabe Gross fouls out to Starlin Castro. (-.184 WPA)

June 16: Cubs 6, Athletics 2

Cubs' MVP: Ryan Dempster, .120 WPA (.183 pitching)
Demp threw 6.2 innings, giving up two runs on eight hits. He struck out seven while walking just two. Pitch counts be damned, this was the fourth time this year Ryan Dempster has thrown at least 120 pitches.

Ryan Dempster's slider is good. A year ago it was called the best in baseball by Chris Harris at ESPN. Here is a visualization from Brooks Baseball of an overhead view of his average pitch from last night. His slider is the blue one, his fastball green.

Look how similar it is to his four seam fastball until the last ten feet or so. His slider looks like a weak fastball to hitters. It's understandable why it's so effective when he mixes them well. He got nine swinging strikes on his slider in yesterday's game alone.

And last night wasn't even his best display, as it was only deviating an inch or two. Check out the same chart from his May 25 start against the Dodgers, his best of the season.

Same pitch until the last fifteen feet, but about a six inch differential in where they ended up.

The pitch itself isn't overpowering, it simply catches hitters by surprise. Compare it to an overhead visualization of Zack Greinke's slider, which he doesn't throw as often as Dempster but has earned a reputation of being nasty:

Looks a lot different from Demp's slider.

How does their horizontal and vertical movement compare?

Dempster:

Greinke:

My limited understanding of pitch f/x is that the further from the 0,0 point on this plot, the nastier your pitch is. Dempster and Greinke's sliders resist gravity at similar rates but Greinke gets a lot more side to side movement. It's a harder pitch to hit.

If anything, Dempster's slider hovers around the 0,0 point a little too much. If he threw it repeatedly by itself, it'd probably get mashed. But by coupling it with his fastball, he's been missing bats effectively in 2010, compiling the  best K/9 ratio (8.37) as a starting pitcher of his career thus far.

Athletics' MVP: Conor Jackson, .084 WPA
Oakland's newly acquired toy had two hits, a walk and a run scored in his second game with the team. Jackson was struggling with the Diamondbacks this season before the trade, after putting up two solid but not spectacular years from 2006-2008. Then he got "valley fever"  and hasn't been the same since. It's hard to predict how a healthy Jackson will bounce back in a superior league and a cavernous stadium, but when one of the Brothers Patterson is getting plenty of time in your outfield, it's time to reevaluate things.

Cubs' LVP: Ryan Theriot, -.062 WPA
Theriot went 0-4 in the leadoff spot last night and saw a whopping total of nine pitches. I've heard some talk of Ryan Theriot's "resurgence" since his abysmal May (.236/.257/.245, .238 wOBA) because he's pieced together a few multi-hit games. So far in June he's hitting .275/.315/.294, good for a .283 wOBA. Improvement!

The only Cubs' regulars who have worse wOBAs in June than Theriot in June are Kosuke Fukudome (.258) and Starlin Castro (.191). At least those two have the excuses of calendar month and age, respectively.

Athletics' LVP: Gio Gonzalez, -.340 WPA (-.277 pitching)
Gonzalez gave up six runs on eight hits in five innings of work last night. He walked three and struck out three. Gonzalez has been a decent pitcher this year, earning a 4.02 FIP thus far. He gets a lot of weak infield flies and throws a pretty decent curveball, although he still walks plenty of batters.

Last night he spent more time in the middle of the strike zone than he probably would have liked, particularly his curveball, and the Cubs were able to make solid contact.

Internet Lord Harry Pavlidis wrote a small piece on some of his pitching tendencies as well.

Biggest Hit of the Game:
In the second inning, Derrek Lee homers off Gio Gonzalez to tie the game at 1-1. (.109 WPA)

Biggest Out(s) of the Game:
With men on first and second in the first inning and a run already on the board, Kurt Suzuki grounds into a double play to end the threat. (-.077 WPA)

It Was Over When:
Daric Barton grounded out with men on second and third and only one out in the seventh. A run scored, but the Cubs' probability of victory rose to 95.4% and stayed above 95% the rest of the game.

June 15: Athletics 9, Cubs 5

Short Recap:

Painful, extensive WPA Recap:

Cubs' MVP: Chad Tracy, .105 WPA
Tracy walked to lead off the fifth inning, in which the Cubs scored two runs. He also doubled in a run in the sixth.

How exciting. I think I'll wet my pants.

A's MVP: Kevin Kouzmanoff, .312 WPA
Kouzmanoff compiled a whole lot of WPA without doing that much. He did reach base four times, but his two biggest contributions included an error by Tyler Colvin and a wild pitch by Jeff Stevens, both in the seventh inning.

For some reason I thought Kouzmanoff was having a great year, but his wOBA is only .324 and his OPS is an average .741. Defensively at third, he's been a vacuum though. In 63 games (small sample, yes) his UZR rating has him at 5.1 runs above average, trailing only Adrian Beltre for tops in the AL. So while his bat has been lackluster, he leads all Oakland position players with 1.6 WAR thus far, ahead of first baseman Daric Barton (1.5 WAR) and catcher Kurt Suzuki (1.2). Ugh.

The "emergence" of these three apparently has given the A's enough reason to DFA former 28 year old young prospect Jake Fox. The predictable cries from the short bus of Cubs nation have already emerged to bring the beloved Fox back. Fox has been almost three runs below average on fastballs this season in Oakland, which have traditionally been his bread and butter as a hitter. I will admit, if he were to come back, his .264 wOBA and .327 slugging would fit right in with the Cubs' corner infielders.

Cubs' LVP: Carlos Zambrano, Derrek Lee
Big Z technically did compile the worst WPA (-.240) last night, but Zambrano was penalized for Derrek Lee's bases loaded blunders (yes, plural) in the fourth inning. Hardly his fault.

So last coupled with his 0-4 at the plate, I'm just going to hand last night's LVP to D-Lee. Because I can.

Athletics' LVP: Ryan Sweeney, -.118 WPA
The former White Sox prospect and pride of Cedar Rapids, IA went 0-5 on the night. He was also robbed by Marlon Byrd with the bases loaded in the fourth.

Biggest Hit of the Game:
With two outs in the sixth, Koyie Hill's RBI single makes it a one run game. Hill also advanced to second on the throw. (.136 WPA)

Biggest Out of the Game:
With the bases loaded and nobody out in the seventh, Mark Ellis grounds into a 5-2-3 double play, and no runs score. (-.152 WPA) To keep things interesting though, Jeff Stevens wild pitched a run home the next batter, followed by Cliff Pennington's RBI triple on which he also scored on Tyler Colvin's throwing error. It's a way of life.

Biggest Out of the Game by the Cubs:
After Starlin Castro's RBI single cut the A's lead to two in the fourth, Ryan Theriot gets caught stealing third. (-.093)

For every day from here on out that Ryan Theriot is in the starting lineup, I will personally kick one puppy.