[Panther Thunder]

Interesting Stat. observation PT. I think that Lawrence is 131 for 32 games at I believe 4.09. Thats a bit decieving in that 31 of those runs came in the series with Sheldon Clark and they had 9 games at 1or less runs and 10 games in the 2-3 range. If my math is correct they have had 19 games below their average. Check my math, not my forte. I just thought there would have been more runs scored in this game. I would have thought something like 8 or 9. Guess averages kinda go out the window.

You run in to irregularities when level of competition (in this case pitching) is either increased or decreased. The more towards the average the pitcher and defense, the more you will see the number you are used to seeing. When you face below average it goes up, above average it goes down. Simple math (Which is why you can't really throw out the SC games). If you have the upper echelon competition to counter it (your 0 run outputs) it all evens out.

Take facing a Tyler Williams versus facing a guy with a 9.00 ERA. Those two games will usually even out to basically facing two guys throwing 3.50 ERAs. Then when you do face the guys throwing a 3.50, it makes sense to see 4 runs on the board for LC.

All of that basically means nothing when you face really good competition in terms of output, but it can indicate an increased or decreased ability/likelihood to produce more valuable runs (I.E. The 3-5 runs you may need to beat a Williams, Blanton, Hamilton, Stapleton, etc...). Meaning a team averaging 6.2 is more likely to find a way to manufacture 3-5 against really good competition on a given night than a team averaging 4.0. It would not be the mean, but more of the maximum on the range. On 7 out of 10 nights, you will not score 5 in this region off of that caliber pitching, but for 2-3 nights you will see irregularities. A great example being last years Region Championship. No one in their right mind would have predicted a 9-6 score, but the maximum happened to show up that night.

All of this theory is predicated on the assumption that schedules are comparable (to a reasonable extent) in terms of Strength of Schedule. For example, JC's 7.2 is more impressive than East Ridge's 7.29 because of the tougher schedule than ER has played. Not that that fact is exactly hard to realize. But, as for Prestonsburg and JC they are about equally impressive considering the similar SOS.

If anything is unclear, I apologize. I kind of confused myself at times and forgot where I was going with the argument. The main idea I have is that the only thing these averages count for in post season play with be the likelihood of the team to score more VALUABLE (Runs off tougher pitching, being 3 off good pitching is more impressive than 6 off average) runs in postseason play. And perception is not always reality, IMO. Pikeville is perceived by many to be weak offensively where as Belfry was perceived to be returning a lot of offense. The reality for both is somewhere in between probably. Neither is great or horrible. Probably just average (In relative terms).

In tonight's case, Belfry did not reach their average, but were pretty close. A number of factors could have cause it to hit the average very easily. Lawrence County did not come close to their average, but faced higher quality pitching. While, this is the case, I still believe in terms of numbers, for LC this was an irregularity. Normally you could count on 1 or 2 runs against high quality pitching as LC has only been shut out 3 times this season ( <10% of the time = irregular, also could be referred to as the minimum on the range).