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August 4, 2020 [LINK / comment]

Pandemic strikes Cardinals

The St. Louis Cardinals were forced to postpone their weekend series in Milwaukee after seven of their players and six staff members tested positive for the covid-19 virus. Among those affected are veteran catcher Yadier Molina and shorstop Paul DeJong. The Cardinals' games in Detroit this week have also been postponed, but they hope to resume play at home on Friday.

The disruptions to MLB schedule have been very stressful for the players, taxing the sport to the limit. The effects have been felt unevenly, which will inevitably raise questions about whether the curtailed 2020 season can really be considered fair or balanced. The Miami Marlins missed seven games over the past eight days, and after winning against Baltimore tonight, they now have a 3-1 record; that's only four games, whereas most teams have played 11 or 12 games already. The Philadelphia Phillies are the other team with just four games, and the Cardinals have played just five. The Nationals are one of three teams that have played eight games. To add to the weirdness, all the Nationals games thus far have been played at home, although two of them were technically "road" games; see below.

Nats win three in a row (?)

After taking the weekend off due to the coronavirus and getting an extra (unneeded) day of rest on Monday, the Nationals beat the New York Mets tonight, 5-3. Howie Kendrick and Josh Harrison (a veteran outfielder recently-signed to replace Juan Soto) both homered in the early innings, and Patrick Corbin had another solid outing to get the win, with eight strikeouts.

The Mets are without the services of Yoenis Cespedes, who decided (rather belatedly) to opt out of playing this year for health reasons. He was out of touch with his team for a few days and seems disgruntled. He missed almost two years due to injuries, and the Mets did not exactly get their money's worth from his four-year $110 million contract.

Tonight's win came after the Nationals bounced back from two lackluster defeats at the hands of the Blue Jays last week with two "road" victories against the same team played in Nationals Park. Huh??? As mentioned last week, the Blue Jays are not allowed to play games in Toronto this year, and because they were unable to get a replacement venue ready in time, they simply played the games in Washington instead. With no fans present, the psychological aspect of home field advantage is nullified. In the Wednesday game, neither team scored for the first nine innings, which triggered the new rule that each team starts with a runner on second in extra innings. I dislike such deviations from normal play, but it worked to the Nats' advantage, as they quickly had the bases loaded with nobody out. The next two batters failed to reach base, leaving it up to Adam Eaton. He smacked a high bouncing ball to the second baseman, who couldn't quite tag Andrew Stevenson who slid into second base as the first run of the game scored. Then Asdrubal Cabrera hit a bases-clearing triple, and that's how the Nats won, 4-0. Max Scherzer threw ten strikeouts over seven-plus innings but did not get credit for the win. The Nats also won on Thursday, as Michael A. Taylor had his second home run of the year. (It was also his second hit of the year; he has a .143 batting average.) Starlin Castro went 4 for 5 at the plate for the Nats, and the bullpen made up for the unavailability of Stephen Strasburg. Final score: Nats 6, Blue Jays 4.

The Nationals can be cheered by the hitting of new infielders Starlin Castro (batting .379) and Carter Kieboom (.417), and by the return of outfielder Juan Soto to the active roster. He claims that his covid-19 tests gave a false positive, and the fact that he suffered no symptoms and returned so quickly lend credence to the assertion. But it is well known that a large percentage of those infected are asymptomatic, which is one reason why the virus is so dangerous.

Soroka out for the year

The Atlanta Braves received some bad news yesterday: star pitcher Mike Soroka somehow got hurt the other night, and it turns out he suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon. That means he'll be out for the rest of the year. The Braves are dominating the NL East this season with an 8-4 record (technically they're in second place behind the 3-1 Marlins), and if this baseball season makes it through the end of September, the Braves will almost certainly be in the postseason.

Field of Dreams game nixed

The Chicago White Sox announced that they won't play their August 13 game at the Field of Dreams near Dyersville, Iowa as had been planned; they'll play there next year instead. It was originally supposed to be a game against the Yankees, but the covid-19 forced the schedule to be redrawn from scratch, with no games outside each team's "region." I'm not surprised by the decision, as there really wasn't a point to holding such a game without any fans. The game won't be at the actual diamond where the movie was filmed (and which remains a destination for tourists), but is a couple hundred yards to the northwest. Obviously, I'll have to redo the badly-outdated Field of Dreams page later this year or perhaps next year. Hat tip to Mark London.

Candlestick Park update!

After a busy month taking care of Globe Life Field and a few odds and ends in July, I finally got back to my planned sequence of diagram revisions, with an update of Candlestick Park, former home of the San Francisco Giants. The last major revision of those diagrams was in early 2012. (I did a minor update of those diagrams in December of that year.) How big was this revision? How big was Candlestick Park?? Well, many of the changes involved small details, so some people might not notice. I added "ribs" to the roof, as I have done previously for such stadiums as Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium and Angel Stadium. Those structural elements help to calibrate various details, enabling me to render them more precisely. I also added the support columns in the lower deck diagram, and the rebuilt press boxes and mezzanine seating levels. I noticed that in photos taken in the latter years (1980s) those sections protrude about three feet in front of the front edge of the upper deck. Kansas City's Municipal Stadium had a similar feature. Other new details include the bullpen mounds and plates, exit ramp slope directions (in the lower-deck diagram), and variations in the profiles to account for the fact that in much of Candlestick Park, the lower deck was built directly on top of excavated dirt, with no rooms beneath it. If you look closely and click on the diagram to compare the new version to the old version, you'll probably notice a number of other small changes. Enjoy!

July 27, 2020 [LINK / comment]

Baseball 2020: the first weekend

For the first time in several decades (I think the headline said 66 years, but I couldn't find it), no major league baseball team has won their first three games of the season. On Saturday, nearly every team that had lost of Friday won, including the Nationals, who had lost on Thursday.

Among the surprises from the first weekend series, the Marlins prevailed over the Phillies, the Orioles bested the Red Sox, and the Giants pulled even with the Dodgers after losing the first two games. Two big-name pitchers were placed on the Injured List: Corey Kluber, now with the Texas Rangers, and Justin Verlander of the Houston Astros.

In Washington, Stephen Strasburg was supposed to pitch, but had a pinched nerve in his right hand, and Erick Fedde took his place. He exited the game with a 3-2 lead after four innings, so Tanner Rainey got credit for the win even though he only pitched one inning. Victor Robles had a huge day, with a two-run double in the second inning, and a two-run homer in the 4th inning. Asdrubal Cabrera and Michael A. Taylor also hit home runs later in the game, as the Nats won it easily, 9-2.

On Sunday, the Nats had a 2-0 lead going into the seventh inning, as Patrick Corbin was having a superb day with eight strikeouts and only two hits allowed. But Davey Martinez immediately yanked him after Gleyber Torres hit a solo home run even though Corbin had only thrown 75 pitches. Why such a short leash? The reliever, Will Harris, soon gave up a home run to Luke Voit, and the game was tied. An inning later Torres hit a bases-loaded RBI single to give the Yankees the lead, and the visitors held on to win, 3-2. It wasn't Sean Doolittle's best day on the mound, as the Nationals' bullpen crumpled in their first big test of the year. But the Nats could have done better offensively, wasting run-scoring opportunities in the final two innings.

Tonight the Nationals begin a four-game series against the visiting Toronto Blue Jays, but the visitors will bat last as the "home team" in the latter two games, since Canada refused to allow American players across their border, forcing the Blue Jays to scramble to find an alternate venue. As mentioned last week, they will play most or all of the rest of their home games at Sahlen Field in Buffalo, New York this year. Time is needed to upgrade the lights and facilities there, so the first "home-away-from-home" game is set for August 11.

Marlins, Phillies postpone games

After several of their players tested positive for covid-19, the Miami Marlins were forced to postpone their game at home against the Baltimore Orioles today, pending further tests. Because those players were in Citizens Bank Park over the weekend, tonight's Philadelphia Phillies - New York Yankees game has been postponed as well. With a razor tight schedule, the possibility of playing at a later date cannot be guaranteed. MLB officials are having to constantly reassess the situation, and if more teams find themselves in such a situation, the 2020 baseball season may once again be put in jeopardy.

Postseason format: wi-i-ide open!

Last Thursday MLB announced the the format of the 2020 postseason, and as expected, it's a thinly-veiled attempt to make up for some of the revenue loss from canceling the first 102 games of the regular season. It begins with a first round series from September 29 through October 2, including the six division leaders, the second-place teams in each division, and four additional wild card teams. In other words, a majority of MLB teams (16 out of 30) will qualify for the postseason. It took me a while to figure out exactly how the matchups will be structured, but I think I've got it now. The higher-seeded team will host all three games of the first-round series, which means that four teams in each league will be guaranteed at least one postseason game at home, the same as has been the case since the postseason first included three division winners plus a wild card team in 1995. Division winners don't get a "bye," and it's entirely possible that a heavily-favored team could get eliminated by losing two of the first three games. That would suck. I sure hope MLB isn't plotting to continue such an expanded playoff format in the years to come. I despise the way other pro sports (especially the NBA and NHL) allow so many teams into their playoffs, causing their seasons to stretch well into the summer. (Both those leagues are about to begin their 2020 playoff seasons under tightly-restricted "bubble" arrangements.) Anyone who needs help understanding what's ahead (hopefully) for October baseball this year can see brackets for 2020 on the Postseason scores page. (I usually wait until the playoffs are about to begin before updating that page, but I figured that doing so early would serve a useful purpose this year.)

July 24, 2020 [LINK / comment]

Globe Life Field tweak

As so often happens early in the rendering process, I noticed a few small discrepancies between my diagrams for Globe Life Field and photographs, so I made the necessary corrections which can now be found on the Globe Life Field page. What changed? Glad you asked! There is now more overhang between the first and second decks in left field, and the rear rows of both of them are now vertically aligned. I realized that there are a few rows of seats behind the visitors bullpen in left center field, and the far extremities of that bullpen and the adjoining seating sections are angled, i.e. not perpendicular to the outfield fence. There is a small gap (about six feet) between the fence and the seats to the left of the bullpen in left field, and a tiny gap (about two feet) in the right side of right field. Finally, the upper level of seats in left field is about five feet higher than I estimated before. How did I deduce this? Photos clearly indicate that the concourse in back of those seats is on the same level as the upper concourse in the main grandstand, and the upper concourse in right field. No doubt there will be further corrections in the weeks and months to come, but I'm going to prioritize finishing the remaining stadium diagrams on my "to-do" list first.

As with my Dodger Stadium diagram update yesterday, I made those changes just in time for the grand opening of Globe Life Field this evening. The Texas Rangers will host the Colorado Rockies, and in fact they met the same team in an exhibition game at home earlier this month. I should give credit to Daniel Murphy, who hit a long home run to right field, and as I was watching the video of that blast, I noticed a few details (such as the tiny gap behind the right field fence) that helped me with the diagrams. So hats off to one of my favorite former Washington Nationals stars:

Thanks, Daniel!

Blue Jays must migrate* south!

After the Canadian government declared that American baseball teams would not be allowed across the border to play games in Toronto, the Blue Jays organization spent several days frantically searching for an alternative site for home games. PNC Park in Pittsburgh? Nope. Their spring training field in Dunedin, Florida? Nope. Thankfully, they chose a much better site, Sahlen Field in Buffalo, New York, which is only about 50 miles southeast of Toronto as the crow flies. (Did you know that crows are related to blue jays?) Anyway, that means I've got another MLB stadium diagram to do! Arghhh!! I stopped at that ballpark while en route to Toronto in 2015, when it was called "Coca Cola Field."

* Actually, Blue Jays are not a migratory species, but it seemed like a fitting theme for this news item.

Coca-Cola Field, now called "Sahlen Field," in July 2016. It will serve as the home of the Toronto Blue Jays for much or all of this baseball season.

Coping with covid-19

Yesterday's bleak news that Juan Soto has the coronavirus reminds us how hazardous sports or indeed any kind of work is these days. I heard that Braves slugger Freddie Freeman had an encouraging message to the fans that was shown at the beginning of the Dodgers-Giants game last night. I imagine that if there had been a live crowd at the Nats-Yankees game last night, Dr. Anthony Fauci would have received a huge standing ovation. As bleak as these times are, with many folks hanging on by their fingernails in keeping up with expenses, we really need something to be glad about. Baseball could play an enormous role in restoring this country's morale and perhaps even smoothing over the rough edges in the bitter political divisions among us. I don't begrudge those players who have "opted out" of the 2020 season, but those who do play deserve enormous credit to this nation. Speaking of which, Nats veteran Ryan Zimmerman said he is very eager to play in the 2021 season, which is good news for us long-time fans of his.

MLB supports BLM

Until I noticed the black letters "BLM" on the back of the pitchers mound in Nationals Park while watching the game last night, I didn't realize that "MLB" turned backwards makes "BLM," as in Black Lives Matter. All the players took a knee during the pre-game ceremonies, expressing support for the social justice movement. I'm sure it made Colin Kaepernick smile. Since so many baseball players are African-American, it's an appropriate gesture, and in light of the fact that baseball has been losing younger black fans over the past 20 or 30 years, it's probably long overdue. (I happen to think that one can support the ideals of racial equality without endorsing every part of the Black Lives Matter agenda.) Years ago, Major League Baseball went to great lengths to recognize the historical role of Jackie Robinson (#42!) in helping to integrate Our National Pastime, but more needs to be done to restore the place that baseball once had in urban communities across the country. The Washington Nationals have done a fine job with their baseball academy for young players in D.C., and I hope that other teams do similar things -- especially those in cities with a high proportion of African-American residents.

Credit, mail bag, etc.

Since I gave "credit" to Daniel Murphy above, I should also thank (on a more sincere note) Terry Wallace, Mike Zurawski, and my sister Connie for each bringing to my attention that my baseball diagram work was mentioned on the fivethirtyeight.com blog last week. (I noted that in passing on July 18.) Mike also sent me a link about the L.A. Angels plans for a massive commercial development around Angels Stadium (ballparkdigest.com) [possibly including a brand-new stadium], as well as a statement from the Oakland A's that they remain committed to the Howard Terminal site in downtown Oakland (sportico.com), notwithstanding uncertainties due to the coronavirus. I have been horribly negligent about keeping up with ballpark news that Mike has sent me over the last several months. But I'll do better!

In addition, Larry Freitas recently sent me a photo of Candlestick Park when the "Oakland" Raiders were playing there in either late 1960 or sometime in the fall of 1961. That is one of my high-priority projects. Finally, Patrick Quarry wrote to say how much he enjoys my website, which "is one of the reasons I became a civil engineer." Wow!

[Oops! I almost forgot, Bruce Orser wrote to ask if Giancarlo Stanton's home run into the Red Porch at Nationals Park last night really went 459 feet, as Statcast indicated. Bruce estimates it went 426 feet before landing on a table, and given that it was about 22-25 feet high at the time, it probably would have traveled another 20-30 feet or so. We both think Statcast probably overestimated just a tad.]

Thanks very much to all who took the time to write me. That's just a small sampling of the e-mail I've been meaning to answer, and there'll be more such acknowledgments soon. Thanks as always for your patience.

July 23, 2020 [LINK / comment]

Opening Day (Night) 2020 -- at last!

It was a rather surreal scene in Our Nation's Capital this evening, as the Washington Nationals hosted the New York Yankees in the first Major League Baseball game of the year before an unpacked (that is, empty) house. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the Center for Allergies and Infectious Diseases threw out the first pitch in what can only be described as pitiful style. For only the second time in history, the two starting pitchers on Opening "Day" had also faced each other in the previous year's World Series: Max Scherzer against Gerrit Cole, who pitched for the Houston Astros last year. As so often happens, Scherzer gave up a home run early in the game; this time Giancarlo Stanton smashed a ball way up into the Red Porch section, and the ball went an estimated 460 feet. In the bottom of the first, the Nats' Adam Eaton narrowed the gap with a solo home run to right field, but that was the Nationals' only hit in the rain-shortened game. Scherzer struck out 11 batters, showing he's the same fierce competitor he was last year. Final score: Yankees 4, Nats 1 after five innings of play. Attendance: zero.

Talk about a dispiriting note on which to begin the baseball season! About an hour before the first pitch, it was announced that the Nationals' young slugger Juan Soto had tested positive for covid-19. He shows no symptoms, however, and it is entirely possible that he will recover in time to play next month or September. Soto was replaced in the lineup by the young Andrew Stevenson. If the Nats can't get a top performer to fill that vacancy, they've got a tough road ahead of them. To qualify for active duty, MLB players must get two negative test results within a certain period of time.

Across the continent, the L.A. Dodgers are hosting the San Francisco Giants at this very moment. And that is what prompted me to do another series of diagram updates:

Dodger Stadium update

During the off-season, Dodger Stadium underwent yet another big renovation, this time involving the bleachers. The stairs in front of the bleachers were removed, and a table seating area was put into the gap between the fence and the bleachers. (After watching video replays of home runs by Anthony Rendon and Howie Kendrick when the Nationals played in Los Angeles during last year's NLDS, I could see that the gap is about ten feet wide, rather than seven or so feet wide as I had estimated before.) In the center of both the right- and left-side bleachers there are new open areas for mingling, and in back of the bleachers is a broad new plaza that provides access to the seats. It is similar to what the Royals did with Kaufmann Stadium in 2009. The last major renovation at Dodger Stadium took place in 2014, and I did a diagram update that December.

And so, I updated the Dodger Stadium page with a new diagram, along with a number of small tweaks. As usual, you can compare the new version to the preceding version by clicking on the image on that page.

Dodger Stadium was prominently featured in Naked Gun (1988), starring Leslie Nielson.

More web page updates

Since the Five Thirty Eight blog called attention to my Stadium profiles page, I figured I'd better bring it up to date with the Texas Rangers' new Globe Life Field, which formally opens for business tomorrow.

July 22, 2020 [LINK / comment]

The 2010s: a decade of baseball in review

Since fate has robbed baseball fans of almost four months of expected enjoyment this year, it is perhaps fitting, on the eve of Opening Day 2020, to take a look backward. Soon we will be all caught up in the frenetic division races in this severely abbreviated season, and the recent past will fade from our eyes. And so, based on a compilation of records for the past ten years, I offer this review of the baseball during the decade that just finished, 2010-2019.

One can measure success in baseball (or almost any sport) by the winning record during the regular season, and then by how well the teams due in the postseason championship series. Usually teams that do well by one measure do well by the other measure as well, but the table below shows that there are many exceptions. The San Francisco Giants won three World Series during the decade (2010, 2012, and 2014), but their regular season record was barely above .500 overall. The New York Yankees (and until 2019, the Washington Nationals) were a lot like the Atlanta Braves of the early 2000s, routinely winning their division or at least a wild card spot, but not making it to the World Series. In contrast, the Kansas City Royals were well below .500 for the decade as a whole, and yet they won the American League pennant both times they qualified for the postseason: 2014 and 2015. Perhaps the most consistently good team was the Boston Red Sox, who won two World Series, and ranked #5 in regular season wins from 2010 to 2019.

Indeed, it may come as a surprise to some people that the Washington Nationals rank fourth among all major league teams in terms of total regular season game wins (879) during the 2010s. It would probably come as an even bigger surprise that, excluding the first two years (2010 and 2011), the Nationals won more regular season games (730) than any other major league team! From that perspective, the Nats' World Series victory in 2019 was long overdue. The Yankees came in second with 729 games over those eight years, 2012-2019. See the Washington Nationals page for more details, year by year.

SOURCE: Regular season wins (first column) from baseball-reference.com; other three columns are from the Postseason scores page on this website.

Setting aside all those numbers, which World Series of the past decade was most dramatic and/or memorable? I'm biased, of course, but I think most people would agree that the 2019 Washington Nationals vs. Houston Astros contest would rank high in that regard. All seven games were won by the visiting team, and in three of the Nationals' four victories they came from behind. In part for historical reasons, most people would say that the Chicago Cubs vs. Cleveland Indians series of 2016 was the biggest. The Cubs had to win the last three games, two of them on the road, and the final one in extra innings on a freak rain delay that probably tipped the balance in their favor. It's a shame that one of those two long-suffering teams had to lose, just as it was a shame that the Houston Astros' 2017 victory will be forever tainted by that cheating scandal. Perhaps the biggest World Series disappointment was in 2011 when the Texas Rangers came within a hair's breadth of winning it all in Game 6 (in St. Louis), only to lose to the Cardinals in extra innings, and then losing Game 7 the next day. This was a year after the Rangers lost to the San Francisco Giants; back-to-back World Series losses are hard to take for teams that had never made it that far before.

As mentioned above, even though the Yankees had the winningest regular season record and reached the postseason more often than any other team from 2010 to 2019, they failed to win the American League pennant even once. Quite bizarrely, this was the first decade in almost a century that the Yankees failed to reach the World Series at all!

SOURCE: The Annual baseball chronology page on this website.

Ballpark changes in the 2010s

After a veritable explosion of new ballpark construction in the 1990s (10) and 2000s (12), it is no surprise that only three new MLB stadiums were built during the 2010s: Target Field (2010), Marlins Park (2012), and Truist Park, originally called SunTrust Park (2017). We already have one new stadium this decade (Globe Life Field), and one would think that both the Oakland Athletics and the Tampa Bay Rays will get new stadiums by the year 2029. Maybe the L.A. Angels will get a new one as well.

In addition, the following ballparks underwent significant renovations or modifications during the 2010s: Dodger Stadium and Coors Field* (2014); Progressive Field* (2015); Wrigley Field (2015 and 2018); and Tropicana Field* (2019). These are listed on the Stadium chronology (annual) page. Those marked with asterisks (*) underwent major reducations in seating capacity, but only at Coors Field and Progressive Field did this entail upgrades in the facilities -- fancy social gathering places, etc. At Tropicana Field they just closed the upper deck in 2019, much like the upper deck of Oakland Coliseum was closed from 2006 through 2016.

Six MLB stadiums had their names change over the course of the decade, not counting the quick reversion of "O.co Coliseum" (2011 only) to its old name (Oakland Coliseum) in 2012. In 2010 Dolphin Stadium / Landshark Stadium became Sun Life Stadium; it was later renamed "Hard Rock Stadium" in 2016, but that was after the Marlins had departed. Rangers Ballpark in Arlington became Globe Life Park in 2014, U.S. Cellular Field became Guaranteed Rate Field in 2017, and Safeco Field and AT&T Park became (respectively) T-Mobile Park and Oracle Park in 2019. (SunTrust Park became Truist Park in January of this year, but that's not part of the last decade.)

Finally, three MLB stadiums were demolished during the past decade: Yankee Stadium (2010), Metrodome (2014), and Candlestick Park (2015). We are currently in the longest period (five years and counting) without any MLB stadiums being demolished since the late 1980s/early 1990s. The most likely next stadium to be demolished is RFK Stadium, perhaps as soon as next year.

T-Mobile Park tiny tweak

I recently saw an overhead aerial photo of a baseball diamond and empty seats in the Washington Post, and I assumed it was Nationals Park. But then I noticed some big differences and realized it had to be somewhere else. Eventually I deduced that it was T-Mobile Park (formerly Safeco Field) in Seattle, but the curvature of the backstop did not conform to my Safeco Field diagrams, which were last updated in 2015. So, I did some photographic sleuthing, and soon determined that the distance behind home plate is about 52 feet, rather than the 56 feet that I had previously estimated. Is that a big deal? Yes!!! And so, I updated the diagrams on the Safeco Field / T-Mobile Park page, also rendering the dugouts a bit thinner than before and adding an entry portal; there were no other changes of note. (You can compare to the previous version by clicking on the diagram on that page, and for the time being you can can see the change in the backstop configuration by rolling over the thumbnail image above.) My estimate of foul territory at T-Mobile Park was reduced from 24,300 square feet to 23,900 square feet, a decrease of 400.