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2018 Final Pitching Leaders

baseballs3Yesterday, we looked at the leaders in the 29 games I attended this year on the offensive side of the ball.  With the Division Series in full swing today, it’s time to wrap up our look back at the 2018 season with the pitching leaders, starting with everyone’s favorite pitching statistic:

Wins

Name Total
Lucas Giolito 2
Jon Lester 2
25 tied with  1

Losses

Name Total
James Shields 4
Kyle Hendricks 3
Carlos Rodon 2
20 tied with  1

ERA (> 6 IP)

Name Total
Danny Duffy 0.00
Kyle Freeland 0.00
Michael Fulmer 0.82
Jon Lester 0.96
Jon Gray 1.29

Strikeouts

Name Total
James Shields 24
Lucas Giolito 22
Reynaldo Lopez 20
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2018 Final Batting Leaders

MLB: Cincinnati Reds at Los Angeles DodgersAnother baseball season has come to an end, with the Cubs shocking late season collapse ending with a Wild Card game loss to the Rockies and year two of the rebuild for the White Sox hitting some bumps along the way.  Let’s take a look back at the offensive leaders for the 29 games, including the post-season, that I attended this season:

Home Runs

Name Total
Tim Anderson 4
Matt Davidson 3
Anthony Rizzo 3
Yoan Moncada 3
Nicky Delmonico 3

Hits

Name Total
Jose Abreu 23
Yolmer Sanchez 23
Tim Anderson 19
Matt Davidson 18
Adam Engel 18

Runs

Name Total
Tim Anderson 15
Jose Abreu 10
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2018 Final Standings

Despite holding a 5 game lead in the NL Central on Labor Day, the Cubs lost the tie-breaking game 163 on Monday to give the division title to the Brewers and then fell in the Wild Card game yesterday to the Rockies, prematurely ending their season and bringing my game-attending portion of 2018 to an end.  I made it to only 29 games this season, tied for my lowest total since acquiring season tickets in 2002.  I didn’t even manage to attend any games outside of the 2 Chicago stadiums.  Here are the final standings for those games and the 18 different teams I saw in person, through both the regular season and the Wild Card.

2018 Team Records
Team Name Won Loss Winning Pctg
Houston Astros 2 0 1.000
Colorado Rockies 2 0 1.000
Boston Red Sox 1 0 1.000
Cleveland Indians 1 0 1.000
Los Angeles Angels 1 0 1.000
Oakland Athletics 1 0 1.000
Detroit Tigers 3 1 0.750
Minnesota Twins 2 1 0.667
Chicago Cubs 4 3 0.571
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2018 Predictions Revisited

Six months ago, at the dawn of the 2018 baseball season, I made my annual predictions as to who would win what.  Now that the regular season has come to an end, it is time revisit those predictions and see what, if anything, I got right.

American League

East: Yankees

The Red Sox set a franchise record in wins and have pretty much held a commanding lead for the entire season, so I was a little off here.

Central: Indians

Getting this right shouldn’t really count, as the Indians are the only team in the Central to finish with a winning record.

West: Astros

The Astros have surpassed 100 wins and are ready to defend their title.

Wild Cards: Red Sox, Angels

Well, if you swap out the Red Sox and the Yankees, this doesn’t look too bad.  The Angels, however, did not pan out and instead the A’s took the second Wild Card slot.

AL Champion: Yankees

Well, they are still alive, so I guess it can still be a good pick.

Cy Young: Chris Sale

This seemed like a good pick through much of the season, but a late year injury may hold him back.

MVP: Giancarlo Stanton

Not going to happen.  Either Mookie Betts or Mike Trout will take home this award.

National League

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Book 19 (of 52) – Talking as Fast as I Can

Talking As Fast As I Can: From Gilmore Girls To Gilmore Girls (And Everything In Between) – Lauren Graham

With the Netflix revival of Gilmore Girls dropping on Thanksgiving in 2016, this memoir from series star Lauren Graham hit the streets the following week.  In it, she details some of her early life, her road to stardom, experiencing the hit that was Gilmore Girls, revisiting the series (and the character) 9 years later, and a smattering of Parenthood and its impacts on her personal life.

Graham has a breezy style that matches the comedy of the characters she has played over the years.  She provides an interesting look behind the scenes of one of my favorite shows and shares the same giddy anticipation at returning to Stars Hollow that viewers felt leading up to the release of the revival.

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Book 18 (of 52) – Origin

Origin – Dan Brown

Dan Brown returns with the latest adventure of Professor Robert Langdon in Origin.  In this tale, the assassination of one of Langdon’s former students during a presentation leads him and the future queen of Spain try to evade capture while trying to release the expected scientific breakthrough that promised to devastate the foundation of the world’s religions.

Brown burst into the national consciousness in 2003 when The Da Vinci Code, his second Robert Langdon novel, became a runaway best seller.  Origin, released just about a year ago, is the fifth Langdon book, and the fourth that I’ve read.  His tales are always a unique intertwining of mystery, intrigue, and history.  One of these days, I will get my hands on that fifth novel and will finish off the set.  Of course, that’s what I said last time too.

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FB4: Week 34

The start of my vacation leads to my third highest step total of the year so far.  Things got off to a slowish start on Sunday, where a Black Cab tour in Belfast followed by a night of drinking and talking led to only 5700 steps.  Monday was a little better, thanks to a bus ride to Dublin followed by a flight to Rome, which left me with 6400 steps.  Tuesday’s trip to the Colosseum for a tour enabled me to just get over 10,000 steps.  Wednesday is when I learned about the local subway, which I took to my bus tour and helped me to 10,400 steps.  Walking to Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon on Thursday put me just shy of 15,200 steps.  Friday used a trip to the Spanish Steps and the Vatican to finish at nearly 14,700 steps.  Saturday was a low key day, but I still came in just under 11,200 steps.

Total steps: 73,712

Daily average: 10,530.3

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Book 17 (of 52) – Sunburn

Sunburn – Laura Lippman

Bestselling author Laura Lippman crosses my path for the first time with Sunburn.  A mysterious woman arrives in the small town of Belleville, Delaware, having just abandoned her family.  When she falls for the private investigator sent to learn her secrets (and he falls just as hard for her), the web of deceit starts to unravel just as her plans to finally be free of her past start to come to fruition.

Aside from being on sale at the Kindle store, I’m not sure what made me decide to buy this book, but I’m glad I did.  Lippman produced an engaging, quick read and, if this is indicative of her usual style, then I’m definitely down for more.

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Book 16 (of 52) – The Cuckoo’s Calling

The Cuckoo’s Calling – Robert Galbraith

When a supermodel’s death is ruled a suicide, her distraught brother hires a down-on-his-luck private investigator to dig deeper and learn what really happened.  Unfortunately for the brother, that’s just what he does in The Cuckoo’s Calling, the debut novel from author Robert Galbraith.

Of course, Robert Galbraith doesn’t really exist.  About 3 months after the book’s initial release, it was discovered that Galbraith was a pen name for J.K. Rowling.  This was an interesting, if somewhat laboring, tale, which introduced Cormoran Strike and his world, the first in what became a series of novels, with the fourth released 2 weeks ago.  I’m not sure if I will follow up on the next 3, but, if I happen to come across them cheaply, I certainly may.