Out the Window, May 1 to May 4

As we sit eating dinner, here's what we see out the window (that's May 1 on the top, May 4 on the bottom):

Dinner, May 1 to May 4

Sunday, May 1:

Spaghetti, garlic bread, wine and dessert.

The dinner is below. The spaghetti sauce was just vegetables--bell peppers, mushrooms, onions, tomatoes. The garlic bread was a 'take and bake' baguette we got at Coborn's. Very good, with lots of garlic and butter. And a little salad, of course.

The wine is Los Vascos Cabernet Sauvignon from Chile. It's consistently good, and relatively cheap. Highly recommended.

And what's dinner without dessert? Here we have chocolate and almonds and three cheeses: Parmesan, Roquefort (the world's finest food) and some kind of strong smelly French white cheese that I love but Kate passed on.

Monday, May 2:

This is a chicken stew we made from an Indian cookbook (whose title I'll have to find). It involved a lot of black pepper and was really really good. There's a lot of prepwork for Indian food, though. The salad has the usual lettuce and chopped veggies (carrots, green onion, celery, bell pepper) but also Roquefort (the world's finest food) and some walnuts. No wine, 'cause it's not the weekend.

Wednesday, May 3:


Finishing off the spaghetti sauce, with more garlic bread.

Thursday, May 4:

Vegetable noodle soup, with raisin cornbread and saguaro honey that we picked up in Arizona over spring break when we were visiting my mom. The noodles were extra wide, which made them a little too chewy. Making our own noodles might be the way to go here.

Red Sox: April 16

Wow. What a bad way to start the season. And let me note that Blogger doesn't handle tables very well.

After 12 games, they are 2-10:

• At a .500 pace, they'll end at 77-85.
  
• At a .550 pace (89 wins over a season), they'll end 85-77.
  
• At a .575 pace (93 wins over a season), they'll end 88-74.
  
• At a .600 pace (97 wins over a season), they'll end 92-70.
  
• At a .610 pace (99 wins over a season), they'll end 94-68.
  
• At a .620 pace (100 wins over a season), they'll end 95-66.
  

So, can they make the playoffs? Let's look at the last ten years.

First, let's look at what it takes to get into the playoffs in the American League:

Year	Top 3 AL East	Best 2nd place not in AL East
2010	96, 95, 89	88
2009	103, 95, 84	87
2008	97, 95, 89	88
2007	96, 94, 83	88
2006	97, 87, 86	95
2005	95, 95, 80	93
2004	101, 98, 78	91
2003	101, 95, 86	93
2002	103, 93, 78	99
2001	95, 82, 80	102

Getting to the wild card recently (since 2007) requires 89 wins, but 93 wins would be comfortable, and 95 would almost guarantee the wild card. Something happened between 2006 and 2007; the highest win total of a team from the Central or West that finished second dropped pretty sharply.

How many teams have got to 89 wins? 92? 95? Here's the table over the last 10 years:

Wins	Number of Teams	Teams
116	1	Mariners, 2001
105	1	Cardinals, 2004
103	3	Yankees, 2002, 2009; A's, 2002
102	1	A's, 2001
101	4	Braves, 2002, 2003; Yankees 2003, 2004
100	3	Giants, 2003; Cardinals, 2005; Angels, 2008
99	2	Angels, 2002; White Sox 2005
98	2	Diamondbacks 2002; Red Sox 2004
97	7
96	6
95	11
94	4
93	9
92	8
91	7
90	8
89	7

Out of 300 teams:

• 13 have won more than 100 games; that's 4 percent.
  
• 28 have won 95 to 100 games; that's 10 percent.
  
• 20 have won 92, 93, or 94 games; that's 7 percent.
  
• 22 have won 89, 90, or 91 games; that's 7 percent.
  

So:

• To get to 89 wins, they have to play at a 93 wins pace; 18 percent of teams have done that.
  
• To get to 92 wins, they have to play at a 97 wins pace; 8 percent of teams have done that.
  
• To get to 95 wins, they have to play at a 100 win pace; 4 percent of teams have done that.
  

Getting to the playoffs will require an impressive run over the rest of the season. Of course, another question for another day is: how many teams who've won 92 games have gone 2-10 over some stretch?

There are some wierd numbers for the hitters. Pedroia is playing great (.348/.423/.565), while Youkilis is getting on base but not hitting (.200/.451/.371) while Ortiz is hitting but not getting on base (.262/.333/.500). Nobody else is playing particularly well: Saltalamacchia and Crawford have OPS+ under 15, while Scutaro, Ellsbury, and Drew are between 54 and 78. Gonzalez is at 107, with a line of .244/.346/.400--about league average, but you'd hope for better production than that. Off the bench, Lowrie is at 209 for OPS+ (.471/.526/.588 in 19 PA), but McDonald is at league average and Cameron and Varitek are below zero.

Lester and Beckett are pitching well, especially Beckett. Buchholz, Lackey, and Matsuzaka are terrible. Papelbon and Aceves are pitching well in relief, but in only 10.2 innincpts. Wakefield is the best of the rest, but when a 44 year old knuckleballer is your best relief pitcher and his ERA+ is 76, there's trouble. Jenks was a flier; his control has been getting worse since 2007, and any hopes he can get his walk rate back down are getting slimmer. Wheeler is coming off a couple of good years at Tampa Bay; he might be able to straighten things out. Bard is the tricky one--strikeouts are way down, hits way up, but only in 4.2 IP. The bullpen might straighten out, but the three bad starting pitchers might be the biggest problem.

At this point, the Red Sox have played 4 complete series

1. 0-3 vs Texas and Cleveland
   
2. 0-2 vs Tampa Bay
   
3. 2-1 vs New York
   

Over the season, I will try to keep track of how many series each team has won and lost. Dropping a series to Cleveland doesn't look good.

Twins Report: April 8 2011

The Twins last year won the Central Division, at 94-68, with great years from Mauer and Morneau (although Morneau played only 81 games), and good years at the bat from Thome and Young. Valencia and Hudson weren't great at bat, but provided enough defence to get their bWAR over 2.0; Young his defence was bad enough to drag his bWAR under 2.0. Span, Kubel, Cuddyer all were basically at replacement level, or a little above.

As for pitching, Liriano, Pavano, and Duensing were good, although Duensing only got in 130.2 innings. Baker, Slowey, and Blackburn were the other main starters. The first two were replacement, while Blackburn basically sucked. Essentially, the 2010 Twins had two excellent and two solid players on offence, and three solid starters.

How will this carry over to 2011? Well, we are 6 games into the season, and the Twins are 2-4. At .500 ball for the rest of the season, they'll end up at 79-81. Over these six games, they've scored 19 runs, and given up 34. This is a rate of 3.17runs scored a game, and 5.67 runs allowed a game. This is a Pythagorean winning percentage of .238, predicting a year's won-lost record of 39-123. They won't be that bad, but still, it's not a good start.

For batters, only Denard Span (.304/.385/.478 in 26 PA) is playing well. Thome is about average (.200/.333/.400 in 12 PA), but he's not playing too much, which is good, for there are fears about his age. Everyone else is off to a terrible start, especially Cuddyer (.105/.150/.105 in 20 PA) and Young (.136/.136/.182 in 22 PA). Only Mauer, Span, and Thome have OBP above the league average of .325, and only Span and Thome have SLG at or above league average of .400. On the bench, Kubel is doing okay, but not providing much punch, at .333/.365/.381 in 22 PA as DH and corner outfielder. They also just lost Nishioka to a broken leg.

For pitchers, Blackburn had a good start, and everybody else (Liriano, Duensing, Baker, and Pavano) sucked. Duensing at least has good peripherals, with a 2.6 BB/9 and a 9.0 SO/9, but that's only one game. The starters are a collective 1-4, with Blackburn's win over the Blue Jays the only win. The bullpen seems okay--Nathan has 2 saves in 2 games, and Capps and Slowey their ERA+ is over 190. Hughes, Mijares, Perkins, and Manship have been terrible.

On the other hand, they've only played two teams, the Blue Jays and the Yankees, both away, and 1-2 in each series. Nothing to panic over; the season is long.

One Line Reviews.

Life of Black Hawk, by Black Hawk. This is the essence of American culture.

A Heart-Breaking Work of Staggering Genius, by Dave Eggers. Privileged boy is (endlessly, tiresomely) privileged.

Rat Girl, by Kristin Hersh. About half-way through, an understanding of 'manic' was blossomed in my mind.

William Oughtred, by Florian Cajori. Things were better back then (1630).

The Sinking of the Titanic, by Marshall Logan. To a 21st century reader, accounts from 1912 are, by a terrible irony, overshadowed by World War I.

Dinner: Jan 1

I'm starting a project of sorts: taking pictures of my dinner, (almost) every day for a year. As I get better at this, I should be able to cover a couple of days in one post.

January 1: Salmon, Potatoes & Mushroom

The salmon was left over from New Year's Eve, when we had salmon and champagne. Sauteed mushrooms and baked potatoes rounded out the meal.

That's the table and the serving dish.

Our local wine store apparently overstocked this wine that is really good; 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 35% Merlot and 5% Cabernet Franc. Since they overstocked, they sell it cheap.

Finally, of course, we had to have dessert: cheese, M&M's, crackers and fig jam, and a hopalicious from Ale Asylum in Madison; Kate's nephew gifted us with lots of good Wisconsin beer when we went to Sheboygan before New Year's--I'll have to get him some local Minnesota beers!

Only a test.

Let me see how pictures work.