The Arkansas Razorbacks won two out of three games this weekend against Illinois State. This was a predictable result, as most teams – even the elite ones – can drop a game on any given weekend against a competent opponent. Just take a look around the weekend scoreboard, and you will see this to be true.
But the Hogs lost their first game. Suddenly a 2-1 weekend record feels more like relief than expectation. Many Hogs fans were in near panic mode after the first game. That’s a result of high expectations. It’s also the result of sequencing, which is but one small part of the great SABR experiment.
In this space each week we will take a look at the numbers. What do the analytics say? Who got lucky? Who hit into bad luck over and over again? Baseball is a game told in numbers. Much like notes on a page of sheet music, they provide the roadmap. The game is the jam session that spits out the notes. And we’re the rock writers who decipher them and talk about what it all means.