Beat the Streak Report: Wednesday, May 11
Challenge: If Stephen Colbert can make more correct Beat the Streak picks than the BTS Report in a Monday-Sunday period, he gets to run the official Twitter account of Major League Baseball — @MLB — for 24 hours.
Someone call stadium security, because we’ve got a streaker on the loose.
Oh, and that streaker is us. Yeah, kiddies, Albert Pujols banged out four hits yesterday against the Cubs, meaning that the Report is officially 2-0 in the Colbert Challenge.
Did we drop trou and go for a celebratory au naturel jaunt around the neighborhood after Big Al’s first-inning single off Carlos Zambrano? Well, that’s for us to know, and you to find out … possibly from the crime notes of our local newspaper.
As for Mr. Colbert, he continues to sit idle. Like many a college student on summer vacation, he impassively surveys the fun and games below from his perch atop the lifeguard chair. Only the occasional whistle twirl signals any life at all behind the aviators. Is he just bored, or does he think he actually belongs up there above the fray? Take the plunge, Stephen — the water couldn’t be nicer.
Well, we guess it could be if you weren’t already down 2-0.
BTS Report Wednesday pick: Ichiro Suzuki
BTS Report record: 2-0
Stephen Colbert record: 0-0
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Wednesday’s picks:
(Make a BTS pick)
Oh, hello there …
Nick Markakis: .464 (13-for-28) since ’06 vs. Mariners starter Felix Hernandez
Mark Teixeira: .545 (6-for-11) since ’06 vs. Royals starter Bruce Chen
Adrian Beltre: .438 (7-for-16) since ’06 vs. A’s starter Gio Gonzalez
Adam Lind: .556 (10-for-18) since ’06 vs. Red Sox starter John Lackey
Kelly Johnson: .571 (8-for-14) since ’06 vs. Giants starter Jonathan Sanchez
Todd Helton: .462 (6-for-13) since ’06 vs. Mets starter Jon Niese
Yunel Escobar: .571 (4-for-7) since ’06 vs. Red Sox starter John Lackey
Feeling kinda spicy?
Alex Gonzalez: .600 (6-for-10) since ’06 vs. Nationals starter John Lannan
John Buck: .421 (8-for-19) since ’06 vs. Phillies starter Cliff Lee
You’ll thank me later …
Kevin Youkilis: .154 (2-for-13) since ’06 vs. Blue Jays starter Jesse Litsch
Jay Bruce: .050 (1-for-20) since ’06 vs. Astros starter Wandy Rodriguez
Hunter Pence: .176 (3-for-17) since ’06 vs. Reds starter Edinson Volquez
Alex Gordon: .133 (2-for-15) since ’06 vs. Yankees starter A.J. Burnett
Shane Victorino: .174 (4-for-23) since ’06 vs. Marlins starter Ricky Nolasco
Leaderboard time!
Ethier, Ethier, Ethier. We’re a little tired of Andre the Giant, but Streakland apparently is not. More than 16 percent of you — and six of the leaderboard’s top eight — rolled with him last night and were rewarded with a 2-for-5. Current leaders emmanuel and thesantos26 sit at 26 games a.k.a. 46.6 percent of the way to $5.6 million. It’s like you already have $2.6 in your pocket already, except not at all.
Top MLB streakers
Jacoby Ellsbury: 19 games
Hunter Pence: 14 games
Shane Victorino: 13 games
Marlon Byrd: 11 games
(Make a BTS pick)
Beat the Streak Report 
Dave, too bad Colbert didn’t take you on. These past 2 days have been easy pickings & he might have thought this contest is one for children. One would have had to try hard to not find a good hitter that didn’t get a hit.
Will today be as easy as the last two? Tomorrow could be interesting with only 7 games, but many of Streakland’s favorites are playing: LAD, NYY, STL & Ichiro
Lind is out with a bad back. I had Ichiro pencilled in but am considering Ellsbury.
RotoWorld said Lind is probably heading to the DL soon, but they are waiting for his MRI results before making an official decision.
This is a great time to stock up on Adam Lind picks if you have a long streak going.
Well I guess Lind’s outlook has improved dramatically.
Now RotoWorld has him back in the lineup on Friday.
Very few options today. I almost went with Helton, but Denver is a wintry mess today. I’m going with Ellsbury for the first time this season.
Game is now postponed. Change your pick, as needed, if you want to play today
The NYM/COL game that is now PPD was moved to tomorrow. So we have 8 games tomorrow instead of 7, so far.
Weather doesn’t look much better in Denver tomorrow!
I went with Derek Jeter to get to 16. Yesterday was a SUSGD.
Highest no selection is on page 4 with a streak of 17, now going back to 0.
Hopefully you did a bit of research? Jeter will face Mazzaro who is pitching 1st time this year. Last year righties hit just 246 off of him and Jeter is 2-for-7 lifetime against him. If you weren’t aware of the above, you may get lucky tonight. If you were aware, a bit gutsy.
Chen is pitching against the Yanks tonight either. Mazzaro is making the start from off the DL. I hope you all have good days today.
Chen isn’t pitching I meant to say. Sorry about that.
I noticed that I took Jeter based on his 3 game multi-hit streak.
Just to add some clarity, Mazzaro did not come off the DL to make this start.
He had 5 starts I think in AAA before tonight.
Can someone shed some light as to why Ichiro is so heavily picked today, even by our blog master Dave? Is it just a gut feeling, blind faith, or something else? Otherwise, I want what they are having 😉
Some stats that caught my curiosity…
Ichiro vs Tillman – no ABs lifetime. Vs Righties – 280 for season. AVG this month: 222
Tillman – granted not a great pitcher, but holding lefties to a 269 AVG
Not many other good picks today? Lots of jump-start picks? I doubt the majority of streakers put as much thought into their picks as we do.
Obviously I’m not the leader, so my logic doesn’t always pan out either. But I like to look at the numbers vs. the “pick good hitter against bad team/pitcher” method. From the stats below, you can see Wandy has good #s vs. lefties, but Votto’s #s vs. lefties & his other #s, I felt, neutralized Wandy’s #s; Votto is my pick for today.
Votto – vs Lefties: 464, away: 357, day: 383, vs W.Rodriguez: 333
Wandy – vs Lefties: 237, home: 304, day: 323, avgs 1 hit per inning
Oh, right–Tillman. He stopped my longest streak this season and it looks like he might kill my second longest. Oh well, if I go down I’m taking a bunch of folks with me.
LaV’s List
Wednesday’s Top Picks of the current Top2500,
161 Batters picked overall
Batter, Times Picked, Percentage
Ichiro Suzuki 391 15.8 (3RD)
Mark Teixeira 295 11.92
Adam Lind 151 6.1
Jacoby Ellsbury 105 4.24
Joey Votto 102 4.12
Andre Ethier 84 3.39 (3RD)
Adrian Gonzalez 82 3.31
Troy Tulowitzki 68 2.75
Robinson Cano 57 2.3
Derek Jeter 56 2.26 (1RST)
Matt Kemp 46 1.86
Miguel Cabrera 46 1.86
Carl Crawford 44 1.78
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Highest “No Selection” 😛 pg# 4 with streak of 17 back to zero.
Yesterday’s Top2500 Reset rate was % with Curtis Granderson reseting the most.
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I’m at a trainging course today so I’ll do the pinched and reset rate when I’m done here. And I missed NO SELECTIONS.
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Bloggers Group Top2500
UserName, Streak, Page#, Rank, Pick
yanksgiantsdevils33, 15, pg 6, 138, Derek Jeter (PICKED 56X)
gurpsing, 14, pg 11, 201, Ichiro (PICKED 391X)
tolvar, 13, pg 14, 315, Derek Jeter (PICKED 56X)
forcook, 13, pg 15, 315, Joey Votto (PICKED 102X)
BLACKHAWKS, 9, pg 46, 1082, Starlin Castro (PICKED 22X)
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Bloggers Reset Yesterday
NONE
GL to all
M
Mark, yesterday’s reset rate was 0%? Wow 🙂
Oh, I see you will update that later. Oops.
Yesterday’s Top2500 Reset rate was 11.36% with Curtis Granderson reseting the most.
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Got Pinched OR 1 AB Wonders
TOP2500 saved or reset by PHA (going to include any pinch hitters and/or double switch, 1 AB or More)
J Damon TB, 10, BB
J Varitek BOS, RESET 4,
K Shoppach TB, SAVED 4, (came in def, 2AB)
P Alvarez PIT, RESET 1, (came in def, 2AB)
H Kendrick LAA, 6 Pinch Runner for Posey
what type of training were you getting?
Shit, that should be Darren Ford, not Howie Kendrick. OOPS
lol, the chat filter lets that s word goes through, but blocks w-h-o-p-p-i-n-g?
What the hell?
For those that had players in the OAK/TEX game, you will remain idle. The game was not suspended, but postponed to some future date.
how far did they get before cancelling?
I think they were in bottom of 4th but not 100% positive
Is anyone else having trouble with MLB.com Gameday?
I am noticing that the scores/innings displayed on the top are 1-2 innings behind what is actually happening.
Yeah, really annoying too. Like everything is delayed by minutes!
ESPN’s Gamecast is running normally.
You might want to check that out.
I’m switching over to ESPN’s GameCast. It appears to be ‘live’.
Ichiro just singled in the 5th
Yep, too bad :). Ethier hit also. Jeter & Teixeira still reset potential.
So close, Teixeira pickers lucked out. Royals with just 2 hits in the game tie game in the 8th and Tex gets his hit in extras.
Bottom of the 9th is not really extras!
You are correct. Guess I was so frustrated at the luck. Looked ahead and wrote extras.
Raul Ibanez just doubled for me in the 7th to push my streak to 4 games.
Though it looked like a foul ball based on ESPN’s Gamecast!
I was getting worried when it was taking a little bit of time for a pitch to be thrown to the next batter.
I thought they might overturn the call.
Phew. Zobrist just homered to move me to my season high of 4. Wooooo.
@champ, I had confined space yesterday and then H2S today. Both are refresher courses as my tickets are only good for 3 yrs. Watse of 2 days but I cant complain since I was scheduled to work so I get paid for my reg hours.
Confined space and H2S sound like flying courses.
Is that correct?
Nope. I’m a wastewater treatment operator. They’re both industry standard safety training courses.
Anyone know what is going on in Cleveland?
They have been in an “injury delay” for 10 minutes now.
No sports sites are updating for me at the moment. Not ESPN, MLB, Yahoo, NBC Sports, nothing. This is making me angry.
ESPN seems to be working now
Usually what happens is there are some outages which prevent the signals from getting to all the online sources.
ESPN was actually working fine for most of MLB.com’s delay, outside of the Rays game.
That type of delay for one source, but fine for the other, is actually quite rare.
It does. Now if Ellsbury can work and get me a hit. That would be great!
OK, I guess it’s not gonna happen. I had Ellsbury, quickly switched to Adrian Gonzalez and then back to Ellsbury. See? It backfired on me this time. Should have stuck with Gonzalez.
Well as long as Swish doesn’t do anythin here Jeter will be due up 4 next I inning. Fingers crossed for you Yanks.
You’re too nice. I want Jeter 0-fer. If that happens, one of the leaders fall. I always pull for the leader’s pick to fall. Sometimes even when the leader and I pick the same hitter!
Even if Jeter gets a hit. Holliday removed from the game and takes down 2 towards the top of the leader board
No hit. He just grounded out. Unless a run comes across and they bat around again Jeter is done.
May not have reset a ton today, but some quality resets did happen. Ellsbury took out a 20 & 23-gamer, Holliday took out two 23-gamers and Jeter took out one of the 26-game leaders
About time the Cubbies had a good breakout game. 2 triples in the 5th and slamming the Cards. Almost afraid to feel good thinking the unthinkable may happen — a loss.
Makes me feel alot more comfortable about taking someone from STL tomorrow. And I have Castro in fantasy so it’s nice to see him hitting again.
Tomorrow? Me and ’bout a ton of others will be taking Andre the Giant (Dave’s nickname for him, not mine)
Granderson just retied the game at 3.
Onto the 11th.
And KC just scored in the top half. Think game is over this inning, but who will win I’ll wait and see
Royals win 4-3 in 11 innings Jeter went O fer 6 taking me back to 0. You wouldn’t believe that Jeter had a 7 game hit streak and a 3 game 2+ hits streak. None of his outs in this game were hard hit balls (3 groundouts, a strikeout, soft flyout and a bunt popout) and he is the only Yankee player to lead to a reset. I will not forget this loss if Jeter gets on another hit streak. Jeter was my favorite Yankee for many years growing up before I started to like A-Rod and Cano and Teixeira came along. But the days to rely on Jeter as one of my BTS picks is unfortunately in the past. 😦
if it makes you feel any better, Alexei Ramirez pickers were all but lost with an 0 for 5 and a 2-run deficit in the 9th inning.
The White Sox rallied to tie and Ramirez singled in the 10th to go 1 for 6!
Lol. How would that make him feel any better? Alexei hit, Jeter didn’t.