A's swept by the Braves tonight. They've lost 5 in a row. They're now technically in 2nd place by percentage points.

The Royals are now 4.5 games behind the Angels/A's for best record in the AL.

And ......... WIN

Not necessary. That means the pen isn't taxed.

Sure, there's value in him gobbling up IP. But only if they're good IP. He's got a 4.50 ERA which is below league avg so is he creating much value doing that? Maybe, maybe not. Hard to argue either way mathematically

That's just insane.

He's No. 2 in innings because Vargas missed a month with a fluke medical DL stint. But, regardless, he's still 5th in the rotation in terms of the starts they would want to give him.

I don't know why you're hammering on the concept of 1-5 starters recently, but it is thing front offices look at as they construct a team. There are some starters you look at as back-end guys you just want to eat innings and keep you in games. You go into the season planning to limit the role of those guys in favor of your other, better starters. You shuffle the rotation when possible to get your better starters MORE starts at the expense of those 4 and 5 starters.

Personally, I tend to think of guys more as Aces (or top of rotation/true 1s), good starters (mid-rotation/2-3) and back end starters (4/5 guys that you want to eat innings and keep you in games). But the roster/team construction concept is still the same.

End of the day, Guthrie was the Royals 3rd-best/3rd most important starter last season at this time (you could argue it was Duffy, I guess, but he was just a few starts away from being shut down). This season, he is their 5th best/5th most important guy.

I think he's going to end up giving the Royals 200 basically league average innings (considering he's just a tick below that currently and traditionally struggled in July before having better August and Septembers). Which is actually pretty impressive, considering how bad his July was this year.

I'm hammering an illogical fallacy, and I know you agree that it's such. Guthrie hasn't missed a start so he should end up with ~210 IP and that'll guarantee him 2nd most On the team. "He's now a 5th" is something old school baseba fans say and I know you're new school. If people like me existed in 1993 Appier wins the CyYoung (still pissed about that robbery)

Yeah, I just want to win the division and get in... but technically speaking they're also only 2.5 behind Baltimore for the number 2 seed too.

Long way to go though. But it's cool to see they haven't just passed the Tigers, now the entire AL is looking more wide open. Didn't look that way a month or two ago when Oakland was running away with it.

And guess who won the all-star game? Yeah, that could matter to us. Drink it in.

Where would that Willingham shot have landed in (or near) the K?

Based on this, probably hits the Hall of Fame.

http://www.hittrackeronline.com/hrde...p?id=2014_3229

OK GANG I'M HERE