Widge Effect

by rebstock on Jul 10, 2006 10:20 AM CDT Comment 1 comment

While I understand that it is impossible for A.J. to sit behind the plate for all 162, I had been noticing that Widger has been hand picked to catch Buehrle. Or at least Widger was catching a lot more Buehrle games than any other of the starting 5. With Mark's recent troubles, I thought what part does Widger have in all this? Mark's record sits at 9-6 going into the All-Star break.

With Widge manning the helm, Mark is a poor 1-5 with 2 no decisions.

His record with A.J. calling the shots? If your arithmetic is up to snuff, Mark is 8-1 with 1 no decision.

That is a pretty significant difference. While it simply can't be all Widger's fault, the offense got Buehrle off the hook for a couple starts with A.J. catching, it shouldn't be ignored. I didn't take the time to find splits for Buehrle's ERA with each but I thought the record was interesting.

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Numbers

Those numbers are compelling and it would be interesting to try to distill them into some sort of cause and effect. But having watched the vast majority of those games, it's difficult to pin Mark's penchant for grooving batting practice fastballs on Widge. Perhaps there is something less tangible at work here, such as how the game is called or how AJ is able to focus pitchers, but as far as I can tell there have been games where Mark's location was just awful.

by the wolf on Jul 10, 2006 10:32 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs