Crazy stat, Brewers/Pirates

[obobo55new]

Just was looking at vs division standings. Crew us 21-10 vs NL West, Pirates are 12-21. If they had done what we have against that division, they would be ahead of us in the standings.

 

Kind of crazy to think about.

[dlk9s]

And if the Brewers would have won a few more games against some other teams, they'd be in first place.

[obobo55new]

Just kind of interesting. Don't know when their games were or why they struggled so much. Given the other 110 games, they are equal. With the Crew dominating and the Pirates awful against those teams, they are completely out of the race and the Brewers are leading the WC.

[MrTPlush]

That’s what you get when you can’t beat teams in a competitive division. The NL West has three postseason worthy squads. Not necessarily surprising that is the difference maker.

 

They were swept by the Dodgers in 3 and swept by the D Backs in 4. They flat out couldn’t beat contending teams...so they aren’t contending.

[obobo55new]

Yet they are 23-21 against the top 3 NL teams (ChC, Mil, StL). Who knows why they struggled in those Diamondback and Dodger series? Maybe they faced Kershaw both series or they faced them with some of their key guys out. Maybe the Crew got the D-backs before Goldschmidt started hitting. Kind of weird to think about though.

 

The Crew lost those 5 games against them when they were on fire. If they play them at a different point in the season maybe they go 3-2 instead and the Cubs lead is that much smaller. I love the 162 game season as it allows for teams to suffer down periods and recover, but it can be cruel too. Playing a struggling team only in May while your rival plays them in July can be pivotal.

[Thurston Fluff]

Yet they are 23-21 against the top 3 NL teams (ChC, Mil, StL). Who knows why they struggled in those Diamondback and Dodger series? Maybe they faced Kershaw both series or they faced them with some of their key guys out. Maybe the Crew got the D-backs before Goldschmidt started hitting. Kind of weird to think about though.

 

The Crew lost those 5 games against them when they were on fire. If they play them at a different point in the season maybe they go 3-2 instead and the Cubs lead is that much smaller. I love the 162 game season as it allows for teams to suffer down periods and recover, but it can be cruel too. Playing a struggling team only in May while your rival plays them in July can be pivotal.

 

That is quite perceptive. It usually even out but it never feels like it when that bad luck happens to your team.

[DHonks]

How about the Brewers luck with replay challenges. Counsell challenges plays that seem simple and loses consistently. Opponents seem to take replays that look like obvious brewers wins and turn them against the Brewers nightly. We must be 10-30 on challenges, while opponents must be 40-5 against us. How come that doesn’t even out?

[obobo55new]

Just thought I'd revisit this. For those fans that think the Pirates are a crappy team that the Brewers should dominate...

 

In 33 games played vs the NL West, the Crew was an amazing 23-10. For whatever reason, the Pirates played those same teams to a 12-21 record. On the season, the buccaneers stand 9 games behind our beloved team. Had they been able to replicate the stellar record that the Brewers have done they would be 2 games higher in the standings.

 

My guess is that the Pirates less than stellar offense gets even further dampened playing in those tough pitcher's parks and their good pitching can't help enough.

 

edit: Totally wrong on my guess. They went 7-9 on the road, scoring 83 runs(5.2/gm) They went 5-12 at home (just 67 runs, <4/gm).

[tmwiese55]

I don't think anyone thinks the Pirates are a crappy team. They're an above .500 solid mid level, ok, average good team. They can easily beat anyone on any day and win any 3 game series they play. Terms like crappy are reserved the SD, Royals, White Sox, etc.

[FVBrewerFan]

Pirates are a "solid" club, whatever that means. Yes, if the Brewers lost 14 of 16 to the White Sox that would be a problem. I chalk this up to randomness more than anything else, I don't put much stock in opponent records for a season.

[obobo55new]

They are 6-27 against 5 teams (AZ, LAD, Philly, Wash, Atl). 71-47 against everyone else.

[tmwiese55]

Well that is an interesting quirk to them. You can probably weird things like this in a lot of teams, but this is probably a bit more extreme. As FVD said, it's just randomness in small samples. Early this season the CUbs had our number according to everyone here, since then we've won every series vs them. A few years back we used to tattoo the Pirates, now it's flipped. It's just baseball to me.

 

If I recall, our record in 2011 had some quirks like this with us massively beating up the crappy bottom of our division, tanking Hous, Cubs, and Pirates but a blah record vs everyone else.

[obobo55new]

I just found it an interesting data point.

 

I do think they have a pretty good team, particularly the rotation and bullpen. They lack stars on offense and play in a pretty fair park so they don't score as much as a team like Cincy, but I get frustrated when some here act like losing to Pittsburgh is crazy.

[Outlander]

I also read the other day that the Pirates have the best interleague record this year. Sure it came against the mediocre AL Central but the Brewers had their struggles against teams like the White Sox.

[tmwiese55]

I agree with your main point there about how folks overreact to losing against them, they're not a bad team at all.

 

Quirk for us: We're 14-25 vs CHC, CLE, Pit and 73-41 vs everyone else.

[pacopete4]

Sometimes you just don't match up. That is apart of baseball.

[tmwiese55]

Could see the Pirates as a sleeper team next year big time. The stats he put up here, but just overall their rotations is darn solid. Can make an argument for best in the division. They have to find one more good hitter somehow though and/or have Josh Bell get back to what he could be. I don't know where they'll get that hitter though. Put the Pirates pitchers and Reds hitters together and you have a WS contender.