After a terrible beginning of the year, Ross Detwiler was sent down to AAA (his first stint there ever) and recovered nicely. Nicely enough to be called back to the majors this September. In his first outing back, he looked quite good against the Phillies. Just 1 ER in 5 IP, with 6 Ks and only 1 BB on top of that. He has actually pitched so little in the majors this year that this one outing brought his season ERA down 0.37.

If he does it again – that is to say 5 IP and 1 ER – he’ll go down to 5.48. Still not exactly impressive, but better than how it looked a few weeks ago. If he gives up NO runs and goes 6 innings (which is probably as far as he’d go given management’s eagerness to limit pitches), he’ll finish with a 5.26 ERA. Then again, in the other direction, he could get over 6.00 with any combination of an ER per inning or more above 3 innings. Such is the fun you can have with numbers.

Dunn Numbers Fun

Also of note, Adam Dunn hit his 38th home run yesterday, plating the only 2 runs for the Nationals in the game. He is on pace to beat his career numbers in AVG and OBP, although he’s behind his career high in SLG. So let’s look at how he can maintain those career highs in the remaining 12 games the Nats have. First, a few things to remember:

  1. He is currently hitting .279/.408/.556
  2. He has 623 PA, 509 AB, 142 H, 283 TB, 38 HR, 108 BB, 4 HBP
  3. His career highs (not at the same time) – .266/.400/.569*
  4. The Nats have 12 games left, I’m going to assume he has 4 PAs per game. This hopefully takes into account the fact that in some games he’ll have more than 4, but in some games he’ll get lifted early.

In 18% of his PAs this year he has walked or been hit by a pitch. This is a bit high, for his career his number is 16.8%. I’m going to start by assuming he’ll walk in 17% of his remaining PAs. Yes, it’s an assumption again, but we’ve gotta start somewhere. So if he does all that we’ve assumed, he’ll have 48 more PAs and 8 BBs.

If he doesn’t get a hit in that span and goes 0 for 40, he’ll finish batting .259/.390/.515. That would be his third highest AVG and second highest OBP! As for SLG, that would drop him to his 4th best ever. If he were to get 10 hits in that span, batting .250, and all of them were singles, he’d finish at .277/.405/.534. These are now back to career highs in AVG and OBP, while his SLG is still at 4th.

On top of that, however, I’d like to make 2 of those hits HRs. That would put his HR total to 40 just like every other year. So he’ll still bat .250 and go 10 for 40, but he’ll have 8 singles and 2 HRs. Now he’s batting .277/.405/.545. This puts him 3rd for his all time slugging. So how does he get to career highs in all 3 categories?

Well, he’d need to go 5 for 40 to exceed his AVG high, and in order to exceed his OBP high (assuming he walks 8 times) he’d need 7 hits in those 40 ABs. In other words, there is a very good chance that he will hit career highs in each spot. As for SLG, the chances are on the other end. He’d need 30 TB in his 40 ABs. There are any number of ways he could do this. 7 HRs and 2 singles. 3 HRs, 4 doubles and 6 singles. 30 singles. You get the point.The conclusion here is that it looks like Dunn is on his way to career highs in AVG and OBP, but he won’t quite make it in SLG.

Added a Link

It’s a great website, it’s not a huge secret (Rob Neyer has been touting it this year) but you gotta check out Flip Flop Flyball. Absolutely incredible. I’ve added a link on the side so you can check it out occasionally.

* Dunn actually had a career high slugging his rookie season, with .578, but he only appeared in about 1/3 of the season, so I’m not counting it.

By Charlie