Millions of loyal baseball fans have looked forward to 4/20 for weeks … because there are now just 171 days until the start of the MLB playoffs, of course! No other reason.
An action-packed Wednesday lived up to the hype – gifting us one particularly cool moment plus a couple of insane stat splits.
Check out the first triple play of the 2022 season!
🚨 Triple Play Alert 🚨 pic.twitter.com/BJvTXiDBY9
— Texas Rangers (@Rangers) April 21, 2022
Pretty cool. The ole’ 3-6 TP off the bat of Jesse Winker. That look Winker gives at 0:16 in the video says it all – like, really dude?! What do I have to do?!
No one on the Wagerbop staff was more excited than this guy after the triple play. Yours truly had a unit on the Rangers (+138) moneyline. Texas fell behind 4-0 to Seattle and lost 4-2 as a 9th-inning 2-run rally proved too little too late and the Rangers fell to 2-9 on the year.
The Orioles Have the 2nd-Most Unlucky Offense in All of Baseball
Man, I’ve been all over the Orioles lately. They … are … due!
In Tuesday’s loss out in Oakland – the Orioles smashed 11 shots off the bat with an exit velo of 99mph or more. They had 3 hits to show for it.
In Wednesday’s 1-0 win over the A’s – Baltimore once again had numerous at bats with runners in scoring position, hit the ball hard, but had nothing to show for it.
Queue this Ryan Mountcastle lineout with 2 on in the 8th. Even the announcer expresses his sympathy.
I noticed the O’s routinely getting robbed at the dish, and I wanted to make sure this wasn’t recency bias or anything like that.
Baseball Savant shows each team’s wOBA compared to their xwOBA – allowing us to see who is getting lucky and who’s getting unlucky right now.
wOBA stands for weighted on-base average. It’s a sabermetric which attempts to more appropriately weight the productivity of a hitter in the box than traditional OBP.
xwOBA is a new statistic in the Statcast era which analyzes a hitter’s exit velo and launch angle to determine what his wOBA should be – his expected wOBA. Much like using xFIP to determine which pitchers are getting lucky/unlucky – a large discrepancy in wOBA vs xwOBA is a clear indicator something is afoot.
Guess what! I’m not imagining things! The Orioles have the 2nd-largest negative differential in the entire MLB. Only the Chicago White Sox are getting more unlucky with their hard-hit ball placement.
The Orioles’ true wOBA ranks 27th in the MLB – pretty pitiful. Their expected wOBA, however, is very respectable and ranks 19th.
Oh wow, 19th?! I can hear the sarcasm from here. I know, I know. 19th is still not very good. Look at the big picture, though.
Orioles pitchers have fared outstandingly well in 2022 – allowing the 5th-fewest runs in baseball. The 5th-best ERA paired with a 19th-ranked offense is pretty legit. That combination could make a playoff run.
The 5th-best ERA paired with a 27th-ranked offense is a recipe for losing a lot of 2-1 games … which the Orioles have already done twice.
The O’s have managed to scrape together 4 wins – 3 of which were done by scoring 2 runs or less. This is not a sustainable formula for success.
If Baltimore keeps pitching lights out they can upset the balance of power in the AL East. The hits will fall. Just keep chuggin’ along, Baltimore.
See you on top, boppers!
Kreighton loves sports, math, writing, and winning — he combines all of them as a writer for WagerBop. His favorite sports to review are MLB, NFL, NBA, NCAAF, and NCAABB.
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