Series Preview: Braves vs. Phillies for the Division Lead

My how things have changed since last we saw the Phillies. After Cole Hamels beat Kenshin Kawakami on May 9th, the Braves were 13-18, in last place, and 6 games behind the Phillies.

Since then, it's been a different story. The Braves have gone 15-4, including a current 5-game winning streak. They've been hitting like crazy--118 runs in 19 games, good for 6.2 runs / game, the best in baseball in that time. The've continued their good pitching, too. And now they've got a chance to take over first place in the division just by winning this series.

So what's been happening for the Phillies over these past 3 weeks? Uh, well... Roy Halladay threw a perfect game! And nobody's been tased or arrested for intentional vomiting... Aside from that, not much good has happened, especially in the last week or so. In their last 8 games, Philadelphia is 2-6 and has scored 7 runs. Total. They've been shut out 5 times in those 8 games. Their offense is obviously not this bad, even with the recent injuries... but I think it can stink for another 3 games, don't you?

Pitching Matchups

Monday, 1:00-- Joe Blanton (1-3, 5.63 ERA, 5.42 FIP) vs. Tommy Hanson (4-3, 4.06 ERA, 3.61 FIP)

Blanton has yet to find any consistency in his 5 starts since coming off the DL (he had an oblique injury to start the year). He's given up at least 3 runs in each start, and has particularly struggled in the later innings. Blanton has given up 17 of his 20 runs in the fifth inning or later. If the Braves can be patient and wait him out, they should be able to score some runs. I like our chances today, especially given that Big Red is on the mound for the Braves. Plus, it's Memorial Day and there will be all kinds of good vibrations at the Ted. Wouldn't it be nice to win one for the troops? God only knows how much fun, fun, fun it would be to see the Braves in first place again!

Tuesday, 7:00-- Cole Hamels (5-3, 3.82 ERA, 4.25 FIP) vs. Tim Hudson (5-1, 2.24 ERA, 4.38 FIP)

If you just looked at ERA, this would seem to be a mismatch. If you just looked at FIP, this would seem to be a toss-up. The truth is probably somewhere in between, as Hudson's FIP is hurt by his weirdly low strikeout rate and weirdly high walk rate. I expect we'll see Tim's ERA rise by a run or so by the end of the year, but I also expect his K and BB rates to improve to the point that his FIP won't be out of line with his ERA.

Hamels has been pretty good this year, but not spectacular. His last start was representative of his year--6.1 IP, 3 R (2 ER), 9 H, 1 BB, and 3 K. Overall, Hamels' strikeout to walk ratio is good, but he's been fairly hittable and has been susceptible to the long-ball. Hopefully we can rough him up at least a little and Huddy can do the rest.

Wednesday, 1:00-- Kyle Kendrick  (3-2, 5.04 ERA, 4.89 FIP) vs. Derek Lowe (7-4, 4.86 ERA, 4.45 FIP)

Both Kendrick and Lowe got off to terrible starts (despite their records) but both have been solid in May. Kendrick has a 3.13 ERA and 3.48 FIP in May, and Lowe has a 4.11 ERA and 3.71 FIP. Hopefully Lowe can keep up his good work as the Braves break Kendrick's hot streak.

After the jump: an illustration of the Braves' improvement in May.

Question of the Series: Will the real Braves team please stand up?

As you no doubt remember (unless you've repressed the memory), the Braves were terrible in April, particularly the offense. They scored only 85 runs in the month (3.7 / game, 14th in the NL) and went 9-14. The pitching was pretty good, though not as good as many of us had hoped--the Braves allowed 103 runs in April (4.5 / game, 8th in the NL).

May has seen what seems like a completely different team, however. The offense has improved by leaps and bounds (or as I would argue, regressed to its natural abilities by leaps and bounds), with the notable exceptions of Yunel Escobar and Nate McLouth. So far in May, the Braves have scored 154 runs (5.7 / game, 2nd best in the NL) and put up a 19-8 record. The pitching has done its part too, giving up only 97 runs (3.6 / game, 3rd best in the NL).

So where did these improvements come from? Below, I use some spider charts to identify the Braves' areas of improvement (and decline) from April to May. First up are the hitters. I broke them down in 5 categories: batting average (AVG), isolated power (ISO), walk rate (BB%), strikeout rate (K%), and groundball rate (GB%). I included GB% because that has often seemed to be the Braves' bugaboo on offense. In these graphs, further from the center is better and each dashed gray line represents 10% (relative to the NL average).

As you can see, the Braves in April were a team that took a TON of walks but was below average in everything else and had virtually no power. In May, they've taken fewer walks (still 23% more than the league average) but have improved by leaps and bounds in the other categories. They no longer hit so many grounders, they've cut down on their strikeouts quite a bit, and their average and power have skyrocketed. It looks like as a group, they decided to be just a bit less patient at the plate, and it has paid off wildly.

Here's a spider graph for the Braves' starting rotation. I've graphed them in innings pitched per start (IP/S), strikeout rate (SO/9), walk rate (BB/9), hit rate (H/9), homer rate (HR/9), and groundball rate (GB%).

This graph is a bit noisier, but we can take 4 things from it:

1. Braves starters are going deeper into games than in April
2. They've improved their walk rate from terrible to excellent
3. They are pretty hittable (in April, their hit and homer rates were OK, but that was partly due to low BABIPs)
4. They don't strike out many batters, but their excellent groundball rate does quite a bit to compensate.

Finally, here is a spider graph for the relievers, with all of the above categories except IP/S.

Holy crap. Look at the size of those... graphs! Our bullpen is freaking awesome. They were great in April, and if anything they've gotten better in May. The Braves' bullpen in May struck out 32% more batters than NL relievers on average. Their hit, homer, and ground ball rates have been above average in both months, and their walk rate edged a bit above average in May as well. That'll do.

Perhaps the Braves are not as good as they have played in May... but they are certainly better than they played in April. If they can play more like the May Braves going forward, they'll have a great chance at making the postseason. Now let's take this series and with it, the division lead... and let's not let go of it for oh, I don't know, 15 seasons.