We first took a look at this situation as the Bulls were heading out on the road trip. Our reasoning behind picking .500 as a reasonable goal for the 2012 Bulls is here.
To update the math:
For the Bulls to hit .500 by the end of the season they have to win 46 of their remaining 85 games. Said another way, they have to play .540 ball to get to .500 by September. That’s an improvement over the situation 10 days ago, and they’ve been on the road all that time.
Here’s an update of my chart from that same post.
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| click chart for larger image |
As of now, the Bulls are on track to reach the .500 goal.
Posts
It's amazing, but this team might not be as done as I had thought it was. Somehow we're only 7.5 behind the Braves with what I believe to be 13 left to play against them (somehow not at all in June).
ReplyDeleteJennings is gone, but Rich Thompson is potentially headed our way. Consider we might also get rehab stints from Longoria, Niemann, Keppinger, and the other assorted broken Rays and then the players optioned down because of their return and maybe things are looking up.
Boy, I'd like to think we have a chance and that's where my heart is. You can see how easy looks like it would be to just reverse the first part of this chart. But the Bulls are dead last in team ERA and 13 of 14 in team OPS. I'm thinking its a long hard row just to hit .500.
ReplyDeleteWould I ever like to be wrong.
"It ain't over 'til it's over." Who would have thought the Amazin' Mets could do what they did?
ReplyDeleteBaseball's a funny game....
Dave
On the other hand if we have to rely on fill in starters like Nunez maybe this isn't going to work...
ReplyDeleteYes I realize it was a team affair in the pitching department last night. But it was a bad tone to star the game.
At least Albernaz is still pitching well.
Saw last couple of innings and it was fun and distressing at the same time to see Albernaz pitching. He was having trouble not laughing after the first out and the double play was nice.
DeleteOn TV, that is, so I could see closeups of Albernaz.
DeleteBy my count the Bulls have 37 division games left. 20 of those are on the road, a whopping 15 in July including 7 at Gwinnett. The Bulls are 11-21 on the road to date. The flip side is in August.
ReplyDeleteAs to interdivision play, first place teams Pawtucket and Indy are out of the way, but also done are Louisville (worst in IL) and sub-.500 Syracuse. After the remaining three SWB home games there are five home and home series left - 16 games vs. 500+ Buffalo and Lehigh Valley, 24 games vs. sub-.500 Rochester, Toledo, and Columbus.
Also worth noting that Charlotte moved into first place, half a game up on the Braves.
When the best pitcher on our team is a recent refugee from indie ball (Pendleton) then even with more favorable matchups we are not going get there. Now, if the Rays had taken my advice and given Matt Moore four more months AAA seasoning, then we'd be in a whole lot better shape (and I think the Rays would be too). Funny, they don't listen to old farts whose only credential is access to the internet (and, sometimes, a sense of humor).
ReplyDeleteEven if the Rays had started with Moore down and I guess Davis in the rotation, if Niemann still gets injured then Moore's still gone. Though I suppose in this scenario everything's different.
ReplyDeleteIn reality Moore has been ok in the bigs. He just needs to get his pitches down.
It is a bit annoying as a Bulls fan that a team that looked to have amazing starting pitching for AAA has ended up with Archer, Pendleton, and 3 other guys as the rotation. But I guess that's AAA.