I look at the young’uns today and see that they cannot get the story of the game from a box score anymore, they need the endless media at their fingertips. So for all you young’uns out there I am going to teach you the correct way to read a box score.
You don't have to watch the game to know exactly what happened in April 8th's Royals-Angels Game.
The box score I will use was from Sunday’s 7-3 win by the visiting Royals over the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Which is here.
First things first, there is a “line score,” and a “box score.” These are so named because the line score is in a line formation and the box score is in a box formation. I know, it doesn’t seem to make sense but that’s how it works. Additionally the line score is part of the box score and sits atop the rest of the box. Now that we have the layout, how do we read it in a way that tells a story?
The first place somebody should look is at the bottom, and the pitching statistics. Look at the starting pitchers and their IP(innings pitched) Usually you can tell whether the pitcher pitched well based on how many innings they pitched, the longer in the game you pitch the less you screwed up. This is not always the case, however, as in our game the pitcher with the L(loss) next to their name (Santana), went longer in the game than the pitcher with the W(win) next to his (Sanchez). What this tells us is that by the time Sanchez left the game at the end of the fifth inning the Royals were winning and that they never lost their lead. Next look at the R column next to the pitchers. Santana has a 6 there, which means he gave up 6 runs, and a 5 in the ER column, which means somebody screwed up and one of the 6 wasn’t Santana’s fault. Sanchez has a 2 in both, which means he did well. Next, look at the H and BB columns, tally them up and compare to the R column. If the gap between is relatively high, it means the pitcher did a good job of pitching with runners on but didn’t pitch well over all. If the total is about even it means the pitcher game up a lot of extra base hits and most likely some home runs. If the total is less than the R column, the loss should go on his fielders because they screwed him hard. After looking at the starters, look at the relievers, if there are big numbers in any of their columns, or an L or W next to their name pay attention, if not the end part of the game nothing really important happened so you can skip it.
Next we look at the hitters. Look for RBI (Runs batted in) first, they tell you the big at bats. We see here that Hosmer and Butler both have 3 RBI. Now we try to figure out how they did it. We count the runs scored ahead of them in the lineup. For Hosmer, we see that in the possible people that could have been on base while he was up, only two runs were scored, that means Hosmer hit a home run. And that he drove in both of the runs attributed to Escobar and Getz. We also see he scored three times but only had two hits and no walks. Which must mean Hosmer reached on an error or a dropped third strike. It unlikely he reached on a dropped third strike and from the pitcher’s stats we know one of Santana’s runs was unearned so it is fair to assume he reached on an error. Looking at Butler we can see he scored once, and was on base three times in addition to driving in three runs. Knowing what we do about Hosmer’s RBI, we can see that Butler drove in Hosmer twice, but could’ve driven in anyone else other than himself, so we know he hit a home run. Since we also know that Hosmer is a slow runner and Butler is immediately after him in the lineup, that one of the two of them had to hit an extra base hit otherwise, Hosmer wouldn’t have scored. This in turn tells us more about Santana’s pitching performance. He got hit hard and gave up big hits to power guys. Looking at the Angels now we see that the top of the order hit well but didn’t have anyone to drive them in. Also we see a 1,1,1 next to Wells’ name. This is usually an indicator of a home run. But be careful it is not always. But we can see that nobody after Wells has an RBI next to their name and from the pitching we know all run were earned so we know Wells hit a home run.
Lastly we look at the line score at the top of the box and see the Angels scored sparingly throughout the game and that the Royals scored early and then when Santana was tiring out right before he got pulled from the game. Seeing the 3 in the first inning, and knowing that Hosmer is responsible for both Getz and Escobar’s runs we know that Butler hit his home run in the first and that Hosmer had already driven in Escobar, by that point. This also tells us that Hosmer’s home run was what really put the game away for the Angels.
We can now tell the story of the game. Royals scored big early with a Butler home run. Angels put a run on the board but couldn’t get the big inning when the bottom of the order couldn’t come through. They again put up a run in the third but couldn’t break open a big inning. Then in the fifth Hosmer hit a dinger but Santana stayed in the game because the Angels were still within striking distance. He then got out of the inning. After the Royals put another on in the 6th the Angels had to take out Santana in order to not let things get out of hand. The Royals decided that with a big lead they can staff out the rest of the game so they took out Sanchez and that is really the end of the story.
Things from the Opening Weekend we didn’t learn:
The Orioles and the Rays are going to compete for the AL East J
The Mets are going to win the NL EastJ
Tim Lincecum has lost all his ability L
Chone Figgins is back!
Pujols can’t hit American League Pitching
Things from Opening Weekend we did learn:
Yoenis Cespedes can hit the crap out of a ball.
The Marlins’ new stadium is there to distract the fans from the fact that the Marlins are playing on the field.
David Freese is more than a one trick pony.
Things from opening weekend we already knew about:
Cabrera and Fielder in the middle of the order are going to produce a multitude of runs and excitement.
Bringing in the Citi Field fence is going to increase the Home runs for the Mets.
The Oakland A’s are NOT GOOD at baseball.
The Cubs are not going to win the World Series
The country enjoys when the Yankees and Red Sox do poorly.
Stephen Strasburg is the savior for the Nats
-David Ringold
