5/29/09

The difference between night and day - part II

Yesterday, I pointed out the differences of the Twins' performance in day games vs. in night games and showed the following:

  • The pitching has been very similar during day games and night games

  • The hitters are hitting .163 OPS points lower at day games vs. night games

  • This is not a fluke phenomenon, but the Twins have had worse records in day games vs in night games, throughout Gardenhire's tenure, except in the 2007 season



A very astute comment in that post (unfortunately anonymous, so I cannot attribute credit) indicated that there might be another potential explanation, that the Twins are facing better pitchers, and suggested that I look at the OPS of the pitchers in general vs. the OPS of the Twins in those particular day games. Brilliant suggestion.

Here is what I did: I looked at every single day game the Twins played this season and calculated 3 things:

  1. The Twins' hitters OPS in that game

  2. The year to day Opponents' OPS of the opposing starter for that game excluding that particular game (so not to cause a circular argument)

  3. The ratio of the 2 (if the ratio is higher than 1, that means that the Twins were hitter better in that game against that particular starter vs. all his other opponents and if it lesser than 1, it means that the Twins were hitting that pitcher worse than others in other games


Here is a list of every day game the Twins played this year, with the results of the game, the opposing starter and the aforementioned three things:


April 9th, vs Mariners, L 0-2

Twins' hitters OPS: .373
Washburn's YTD OPP OPS in other games: .731
ratio: .511

April 11th @ White Sox, L 0-8

Twins' hitters OPS: .485
Colon's YTD OPP OPS in other games: .866
ratio: .561

April 12th @ White Sox, L 1-6

Twins' hitters OPS: .470
Buehrle's YTD OPP OPS in other games: .638
ratio: .737

April 19th vs Angels, W 3-1

Twins' hitters OPS: .677
Loux' YTD OPP OPS in other games: .877
ratio: .772


April 19th @ Boston, L 1-10

Twins' hitters OPS: .563
Wakefield's YTD OPP OPS in other games: .691
ratio: .814

April 26th @ Indians, L 2-4

Twins' hitters OPS: .592
Laffey's YTD OPP OPS in other games: .692
ratio: .856

May 3rd vs Royals, L 5-7

Twins' hitters OPS: .686
Meche's YTD OPP OPS in other games: .715
ratio: .960

May 10th vs Mariners, L 3-5

Twins' hitters OPS: .654
Bedard's YTD OPP OPS in other games: .655
ratio: .998


May 14th vs Tigers, W 6-5

Twins' hitters OPS: .702
Verlander's YTD OPP OPS in other games: .577
ratio: 1.218


May 16th @ Yankees, L 4-6

Twins' hitters OPS: .721
Chamberlain's YTD OPP OPS in other games: .855
ratio: 0.843

May 17th @ Yankees, L 2-3

Twins' hitters OPS: .572
Burnett's YTD OPP OPS in other games: .822
ratio: 0.695

May 21st @ White Sox, W 20-1

Twins' hitters OPS: 1.273
Colon's YTD OPP OPS in other games: .729
ratio: 1.747


May 25th vs Red Sox, L 6-5

Twins' hitters OPS: .714
Penny's YTD OPP OPS in other games: .926
ratio: 0.771



May 28th vs Red Sox, L 1-3

Twins' hitters OPS: 561
Beckett's YTD OPP OPS in other games: .756
ratio: 0.746


The average ratio of the Twins OPS against a particular pitcher in a day game over that of his opponents in all other games this season is .873 (and somewhat skewed to the Twins' favor by the 20-1 game against Colon.)

My conclusion is that they are not facing better pitchers during the day games, they are just not hitting as well...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well that's some pretty strong evidence, but I'm having trouble imagining the cause.

Are they all heavy drinkers, still hungover from the past night? Are they just not "morning" people? Is it harder to see the ball in the day? In my experience, it's the opposite.