Ottawa Lynx Week Five

It was a week that saw our top starting pitcher leave to play in South Korea, a week where we hit two home runs, and a week of road games with no breaks. Eleven games in ten days with no day off for travel beginning with an all night bus ride to Rochester immediately after the game Friday. Ottawa had to play two games on the afternoon of the day they arrived in Rochester. Granted, as originally scheduled, the series in Rochester was to be a two game set, (one game Saturday and one Sunday), but with the bad weather in week one it was decided that there would be a makeup game May 5, forcing the Lynx to play three games in two days. Then it would be off to Louisville and then Indianapolis, four games each then back home. No off days for travel coming back home-nineteen games, (counting our next home stand). The starters would have to keep up those quality starts or the Ottawa bullpen will soon be overworked and in shambles. Road trips are tough enough for any team but surely the IL can do better than this. You’re having a good season if you can play near .500 on the road and .667 at home and these types of road trips don’t make it any easier.

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Lynx Week Four

Week four was the start of an eight game home stand . The Lynx schedule brought the Indianapolis Indians in for four games followed by the Louisville Bats, the first and second place teams in the Western Division. The Indians starting pitching would feature three of the stars of the Pittsburgh Pirates system, each of whom, because of various arm and shoulder problems, found themselves in the minor leagues. This matchup together with the to this date weak Lynx offense did not have the promise of an easy series for Ottawa who had been enjoying a successful home stand after a difficult opening season road trip. Indianapolis starters performed as advertised but the Lynx pitchers with the exception of game two of the series, were equal to the task, continuing their solid season. Three of the four games featured great pitching duals from both teams starters.

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The Ottawa Lynx In April (Part Three-Fielding)

It has seemed obvious from the last two segments of the Lynx in April that the Lynx defence has been the most consistent and important part of their game in April. We looked at the pitching breakdowns yesterday and with the large amount of base runners allowed coupled with a fairly decent team ERA, and with not much offense to speak of, a simple process of elimination should lead us to the above conclusion. But traditional fielding stats really don’t tell us very much and the evolving modernization of those stats can make for more complicated reading than the various time travel theories presented by the world’s leading physicists. Therefore, I am not going to delve into such calculations because, after all, baseball is supposed to be fun isn’t it? Instead, although I will quota a few general statistics. My summation of the Lynx defence in the month of April will be much more subjective than my discussion of hitting and pitching.

Continue reading Ottawa Lynx April Wrapup Part Three →

The Lynx In April 2007 (Part Two)

Hitting and even pitching can be streaky but if you have solid and consistent defence you’ll always have a chance to win. The 2007 version of the Ottawa Lynx appear to be proving what baseball people have been saying for many years, solid defence can rescue many an ugly pitching stat. Let’s examine the pitching for the Ottawa Lynx in the month of April.

Continue reading Ottawa Lynx April Wrapup Part Two →

The Lynx April 2007 (Part One-Won-Lost and the Lynx Offence)

The Ottawa Lynx completed the first month of the 2007 season with a 10-9 won lost record, not great, not terrible, but on the good side of .500 with an 8-4 record after a 2-5 start on the road. Getting off to a good start and perhaps leading the division or at minimum staying close to the division lead is of prime importance in the early going. If a team falls significantly behind due to a poor record in the month of April, any hot streak which they enjoy later will have been wasted just getting back to or near the .500 level. In most seasons, except those in which a team finishes close to .600, a team will have one or two cold streaks and one or two hot streaks. The key is limiting the length of the cold streaks and having them more towards the middle of the season. It is also preferable to have a cold streak against teams in another division and hot streaks against your own. But that is a matter of the luck of the schedule and I suppose, luck of the draw. There are statistical categories and analysis ad nasuem to explain everything from the effect of the moon to which movie todays starting pitcher watched three days ago. Stats are useful in their own right but I’m not a slave to them and more often than not prefer to analyse what I’ve seen and not what I’ve read. As we discuss April 2007 and the Ottawa Lynx, it should be interesting to try and determine what these stats might be telling us.

Continue reading Ottawa Lynx April Wrapup Part One →

Fourteen games into this 2007 season, Lynx third baseman Brennan King struck the first Lynx home run of the season Tuesday night. But Ottawa hasn’t needed the long ball to this point to win games. This version of the Ottawa Lynx managed only eighty three all of last year while in Scranton, (twelfth in the International League), but finished on top of the Northern Division. Ottawa had scored seventeen runs against Scranton three days previously- seventeen runs with nary a long ball. Pitching, defence and clutch hitting. Home runs simply make a win easier to come by-it can erase any previous mistakes or failings in a game. The pitching staff have given up only eleven this year the strangest stat being Brian Mazzone having given up three home runs but only four earned runs. This proves the importance of not giving up walks.

Continue reading Ottawa Lynx Report Week Three →

“Pitching and defense are the keys to winning ball games.” An old and hallowed baseball cliche to be sure but Ottawa manager John Russell’s comment after the third Lynx win in a row on their current home stand has been an absolute. Ottawa came off a miserable road trip which took them through Rochester, Buffalo and Syracuse and began their 2007 home schedule with a 2-5 record and sitting in last place in the Northern division of the International League.

Continue reading Ottawa Lynx Week Two →