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Game Thread: Twins @ Royals; 6:15 CDT, 9/9/17

IndianaTwin

By IndianaTwin
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IndianaTwin Wichita Wind Surge

IndianaTwin

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Warning: There’s math.

 

I decided to put my 1.000 winning percentage on the line by signing up for today’s Game Thread. Okay, I’m only 1-0, but still, 1.000 is 1.000. We were 1-0 on April 3, and look where that's gotten us. It's a lot better than last year's 0-1. 

And when I signed up for the 9/9/17 game, I realized that that’s a square number followed by another square number, followed by a prime number.

 

I’m kind of a nerd, so it made me wonder how often that pattern happens. Turns out, it’s not as rare as I thought it might be, given that there are three months that are squares (1, 4, 9), five days of the month that are squares (those, plus 16 and 25), and 25 years in a century that are prime (you don’t want me to list them.). That gives us 3 x 5 x 25 = 375 permutations of square-square-prime over the course of the century. The next one will be on 1/1/19.

 

On the other hand, I drove by a school a few weeks ago that had a sign outside naming the date – 8/15/17 – as a Pythagorean date. That’s because (8x8) + (15x15) = (17 x 17), which is of course represented by the famous a2 + b2 = c2.

 

Turns out that Pythagorean triplet dates are considerably more rare than square-square-prime dates. There are four “base” right triangles where one leg is 12 or less (which can be the month, day, or year), the other leg 31 or less (which can be the day or year), and the hypotenuse is 99 or less (the year). Those are 3-4-5, 5-12-13, 7-24-25, and 8-15-17. And of course, a right triangle can be scaled up. That is, you can take each leg times 2, making 6-8-10 from the original 3-4-5, continuing along to 9-12-15 and 12-15-20. We could keep going, but there’s no 16th month, so it’s pointless for our purpose. Of the original four, only 5-12-13 can also be doubled and fit within both the month and date range. (If I said “original six,” I’d not only be incorrect, but I’d start thinking about hockey, but I digress.)

 

And then, we must remember that the popular 3-4-5 right triangle gives four date permutations in a century (3/4/05, 4/3/05, 5/3/04, and 5/4/03). (I’m considering it okay to also allow c2 = a2 + b2, but of course we can’t put the hypotenuse in the middle. I'm not going to allow b2 = c2 - a2, for example. It's my game, so we play by my rules.)

 

So, by my math (see what I did there?), here’s your list of Pythagorean triplets that fit the limitations, along with the number of available permutations for each:

 

      3- 4- 5:   4 permutations (3/4/05, 4/3/05, 5/4/03, 4/5/03)
      6- 8-10:   4 (6/8/10, 8/6/10, 10/6/08, 10/8/06)
      9-12-15:  2 (9/12/15, 12/9/15)
    12-16-20:  1
      5-12-13:  2 (5/12/13, 12/5/13)
    10-24-26:  1
      8-15-17:  1         
     Total    15 permutations

 

So the recent 8/15/17 is one of only 15 Pythagorean triplet dates in a century. That’s more common than a solar eclipse, but still pretty rare. And for the close reader, we’re already had 13 of them in this century, so that only leaves us with Dec. 16, 2020, and October 24, 2026 as the remaining Pythagorean dates this century. Start planning your parties for those two, folks, because unless one of us goes all Ted Williams on us and gets thawed in 70 years or so, most of us probably won’t be around on 4/5/(21)03. But I digress.

 

And speaking of parties, would it surprise you that my equally nerdy son’s favorite day of school was always March 14, since his math teacher would bring pi(e) to class to celebrate its 3/14ness? You can imagine the frivolity that happened on 3/14/15 at 9:26:54 in the morning. I think they got ice cream as a bonus or something. He also points out that European kids miss out on that treat, because there's no school on 22 July when they could celebrate it being 22/7.

 

So with all that out of the way, let’s go ahead and insert a little baseball into this until-now math thread. After all, baseball and numbers go together. For example:

  • Yogi Berra supposedly said, “You’d better cut that pizza into six pieces. I don’t think I can eat eight.”
  • And Hank Aaron supposedly said, “It took me almost 20 years to get 3000 hits on the baseball field. I did it in one afternoon on the golf course.”

And who among us didn’t learn how to do long division by calculating batting averages and winning percentages? Why, just this week I gave my schoolteacher wife an incredulous look for not knowing that 3 out of 7 is approximately .428(571428 repetitiously). The look she gave me in return was, shall we say, incredulous squared, but I digress. I do like to digress.

 

So, how does today’s game shape up by the numbers?

 

Well, first there’s the Magic Number. You may think it’s too early to be worried about Magic Numbers, but I will point out that with any combination of 3 Twins win and White Sox losses, the Twins are guaranteed to finish ahead of the Team That Plays in the Monument to Cement. After all, in any season, the ultimate goal is to win the World Series. The penultimate goal is to win the league. The antepenultimate goal is to win the division. And the preantepenultimate goal is to win a wild card. But the FIRST goal in any season is to beat the White Sox. And we’re getting close to having that in the bag.

 

(And yes, “preantepenultimate” is a word. Really. The same math-nerd son is also a grammar and word nerd. Actually, he’s an all-purpose nerd. But he’s my nerd, and I love him. As a shameless plug, check out this site he put together providing Google maps of every team’s radio network: http://sabrmedia.org/2017/08/03/now-available-cool-maps-of-mlb-teams-radio-networks/. How this applies to today’s game is to note that in geographic terms, the Twins and Royals radio networks are significantly larger than any of their division rivals.)

 

(And at the same site is a link to a downloadable database showing the broadcasters in every nationally televised game since 1947 (though he’s a few weeks behind). How that applies to this game is that Bert (30) and Dick (11) have a combined 41 national telecasts. That’s dwarfed by the Royals’ Steve Physioc, who has done 316 by himself. That ranks him 22nd in career totals. Physioc’s 312 play-by-play games ranks 13th.)

 

But back to the math (I told you I like to digress.). There’s also Pythagoras as it relates to winning percentages. Much was made earlier in the season about how we were dramatically overperforming our Pythagorean winning percentage (PWP), which is calculated as RunsScored1.83/(RunsScored1.83 + RunsAllowed1.83). With last night’s win, we have outscored opponents 700-699, which would suggest a record of 70.5-70.5. That barely rounds to 71-70.

 

At 74-68, we’re three games ahead of that, which is on the edge of the “normal” range. A 44-0 win today would put our PWP right in line with our actual winning percentage. I like that option much better than eight consecutive 1-0 losses, which is how we could play ourselves down to our PWP.

 

And one last stat. Though this Game Thread opening is still long, it’s only 75 percent as long as my prior effort. That’s about three-fourths as long, but you already knew that.

 

I digress. Twins lineup coming soon:

 

Twins

P: Jose Berrios (R ), 12-7, 4.01

 

Royals

P: Jakob Junis (R ), 7-2, 4.48.

 

2B: Whit Merrifield (R )
CF: Lorenzo Cain (R )
RF: Melky Cabrera (S)
1B: Eric Hosmer (L)
C:   Salvador Perez (R )
3B: Mike Moustakas (L)
DH: Brandon Moss (L)
SS: Alcides Escobar (R )
LF: Alex Gordon (L)

 

Gametime forecast: 83 degrees (28 C), 1% chance of precipitation, wind 5 mph (8 kph) from right to left.

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PDX Twin Ft Myers Mighty Mussels

PDX Twin

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When I was young I used to take piano lessons from a brilliant Catholic sister. She would write the date on the top of my lesson book every week. One day (you'll figure out which day) she wrote 6/6/66. We both thought that was pretty wonderful and clever, so from then on I would spend more time trying to figure out a mathematical symmetry in the date than practicing the piano.

 

The sister moved to St. Cloud a couple of years later and my interest in piano (never all that strong) soon waned. But a couple of times over the years we would stop in St. Cloud to visit on our way through Minnesota. Out of the blue, on 10/10/10, she borrowed someone's cell phone, figured out my phone number in Portland, and called me, 44 years, 4 months, and 4 days after that lesson that we both fondly remembered. She was about 90 and still as energetic and sharp as we (my wife was also her student) remembered her. We've fallen back out of touch and I'm not sure if she is even still living, but I think of her now and then, especially when a symmetric date arrives on the calendar.

IndianaTwin Wichita Wind Surge

IndianaTwin

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And here's the Twins lineup:

 

2B Brian Dozier (R )
1B Joe Mauer (L)
SS Jorge Polanco (S)
LF Eddie Rosario (L)
CF Byron Buxton (R )
RF Max Kepler (L)
3B Eduardo Escobar (S)
C  Jason Castro (L)
DH Robbie Grossman (S)

IndianaTwin Wichita Wind Surge

IndianaTwin

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When I was young I used to take piano lessons from a brilliant Catholic sister. She would write the date on the top of my lesson book every week. One day (you'll figure out which day) she wrote 6/6/66. We both thought that was pretty wonderful and clever, so from then on I would spend more time trying to figure out a mathematical symmetry in the date than practicing the piano.

 

The sister moved to St. Cloud a couple of years later and my interest in piano (never all that strong) soon waned. But a couple of times over the years we would stop in St. Cloud to visit on our way through Minnesota. Out of the blue, on 10/10/10, she borrowed someone's cell phone, figured out my phone number in Portland, and called me, 44 years, 4 months, and 4 days after that lesson that we both fondly remembered. She was about 90 and still as energetic and sharp as we (my wife was also her student) remembered her. We've fallen back out of touch and I'm not sure if she is even still living, but I think of her now and then, especially when a symmetric date arrives on the calendar.

 

Great story on two counts -- the math, yes, but also the long-term memory of a wonderful teacher. What a blessing to have those kinds of folks in our lives. 

PDX Twin Ft Myers Mighty Mussels

PDX Twin

Verified Member
Posted
Posted

 

 

I’m kind of a nerd, so it made me wonder how often that pattern happens. Turns out, it’s not as rare as I thought it might be, given that there are three months that are squares (1, 4, 9), five days of the month that are squares (those, plus 16 and 25), and 25 years in a century that are prime (you don’t want me to list them.). That gives us 3 x 5 x 25 = 375 permutations of square-square-prime over the course of the century. The next one will be on 1/1/19.

 

 

 

 

Isn't there one next Saturday on 9/16/17?

 

Puckett34 FCL Twins

Puckett34

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Sorry...stepped out of the room when I heard the word "math". Twins lineup ready yet.

http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/73/73754ace66e25252107af5725cfb11425ab12705e7ef31d136af1d805e3b9775.jpg

spinowner Ft Myers Mighty Mussels

spinowner

Provisional Member
Posted
Posted

 

Well, first there’s the Magic Number. You may think it’s too early to be worried about Magic Numbers, but I will point out that with any combination of 3 Twins win and White Sox losses, the Twins are guaranteed to finish ahead of the Team That Plays in the Monument to Cement.

The standings on the MLB web site refer to the magic number as the E#, E presumably standing for elimination. However, it turns out there isn't really a simple formula. That's because it's more complicated than comparing wins and losses of a particular team and the division (or wild card) leader. One also must take into account the games remaining between other teams in the division (or the wild card competition) that have not yet been eliminated. Here's an uncomplicated example. Say that there are two games left in the regular season. Teams A, B, and C are all in the same division. Team A and Team B have 90 wins and Team C has 88 wins. Team A and Team B play each other in their two remaining games. The MLB calculation would put Team C's E# at 1 because it is 2 games out with two games to play. However, because Team A and Team B play each other at least one of those teams will finish with 91 or 92 wins, meaning Team C is eliminated.

To determine whether a team is eliminated from competition for a title one must determine the minimum possible wins for all other teams in contention and compare that to the maximum possible wins for the team in question. A loss by the team in question lowers the magic number by one, but because there are multiple teams involved a win by the team in first place does not necessarily lower the magic number by one.

A side note: when I was attending The Ohio State University in the early '80's I learned from an acquaintance of a new definition for the term "Indian Summer". Cleveland baseball fans defined it as the period between the time their team was eliminated from postseason play and the end of the baseball season. Back in those years that Indian Summer usually lasted pretty long. (BTW, I almost always avoid using the nickname of the Cleveland and Atlanta baseball teams but it was necessary in this instance.)

 

Richie the Rally Goat St Paul Saints

Richie the Rally Goat

Community Moderator
Posted
Posted

Warning: There’s math.

 

I decided to put my 1.000 winning percentage on the line by signing up for today’s Game Thread. Okay, I’m only 1-0, but still, 1.000 is 1.000. We were 1-0 on April 3, and look where that's gotten us. It's a lot better than last year's 0-1.

And when I signed up for the 9/9/17 game, I realized that that’s a square number followed by another square number, followed by a prime number.

 

I’m kind of a nerd,...

i wish there were a "really really like" button. Fantastic! Like squared!
h2oface Wichita Wind Surge

h2oface

Old-Timey Member
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Posted

Belphegor's palindromic prime 1000000000000066600000000000001

spooky.

 

Buxton and Kepler need to STEP IT UP today.

Dave The Dastardly Cedar Rapids Kernels

Dave The Dastardly

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Wait a minute. I don't want to be divisive, nor do I want to subtract from the discussion, but I don't think all these numbers add up. Go forth and multiply if you need any proofs.

 

 

h2oface Wichita Wind Surge

h2oface

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Cleveland wins again. 17 games in a row! Are the Dodger's the worst team in baseball (1-13 in last 14) or the best (92-49 with a 5 game lead on the next closest)? 

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Signed in for the sole purpose of liking the game thread opener.

h2oface Wichita Wind Surge

h2oface

Old-Timey Member
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Kepler is officially a weanie with no balls. After that effort last night, and now this.... he is just horrified as he gets close to the walls. It is looking like a real problem.

spinowner Ft Myers Mighty Mussels

spinowner

Provisional Member
Posted
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Cleveland wins again. 17 games in a row! Are the Dodger's the worst team in baseball (1-13 in last 14) or the best (92-49 with a 5 game lead on the next closest)?

 

Yes. (Somebody had to say it.)
h2oface Wichita Wind Surge

h2oface

Old-Timey Member
Posted
Posted

I will never ever understand giving up a run to get an out. Never. Not ever. It is tradition, especially early in the game, but how is an extra out, or a runner on first, worse than giving up a run that you could make an out, and not a score? Cain was totally loafing in from third, and he just pulled up on the trip around the bases. 

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