STILL IN FIRST PLACE

***YANKS SQUEAK OUT A WIN***
Didn't it seem like it should have been easier? Were you like Picasner, who watched the whole game thinking, the final score will be 12-2, or something like that? Instead, we ended up with the tying run on third, the winning run on second and Mariano unavailable. It was a win, but it's supposed to be easier.

***FROM GORDON EDES, ESPN***
"You know it's a bad day when the best thing you can say about your closer is that he wasn't arrested." He's talking, of course, about Jonathan Paplebon, the beleaguered closer for the Boston Red Sox. A guy who has been lights out as a closer, almost as good as Mariano (that's still 'almost', Jonathan) has been a real enigma all season. Sure, he has 29 saves, but he also has 6 blown saves, 5 losses and an ERA of 3.26. Not the kind of stats you want out of your closer. This has got to be hard on Terry Francona and we all know how patient the Red Sox Nation is. I feel sorry for them (No I don't).

***ONE OF THE REASONS I DON'T LIKE THEM***
Surprise, it's not umpires this time. Defensive statistics irritate me. I should say 'Defensive Metrics,' those odd numbers statisticians come up with to quantify defensive abilities. Numbers are pure, the method you use to come up with them, are not always so pure. These people use made-up phrases like "park adjustment" and "zone ratings," that they claim can actually give a fielder a true numerical rating. When you study the formulas, however, somewhere in there, is a subjective rating that has no mathematical basis. That's always been my main objection. Tim Marchand, of Inside Baseball, brings out another excellent point:
"The other issue is this: As a rule of thumb, researchers figure that three years' worth of defensive data is equivalent to one year of offensive data. Practically, this means that a single years' rating in any advanced defensive metric is next to useless,...
It also means that we're trying to measure a moving target. By the time those three years' worth of data are in the books, the actual talent of the player in question will have changed."
Hard to argue with that.

CP-