Does April Matter?

[Wolf Hopper]

Stark has a nice piece on this:
http://espn.go.com/mlb/columns/stark...n/1547667.html

Read it, and see what the numbers say.
Afterwards, the question is - do you agree with the stats?

[Skip]

I think April can matter psychologically more than later months. A team that pulls a Tigers '03 can pretty much give up on their season. A team with low expectations that has a hot April can use it as a springboard to succeeding sooner rather than later. Other than that, I thinks it's just another month.

[Wolf Hopper]

I think Earl Weaver said - - every game that you win in April is one less that you'l need to win in September.

[TimmyB]

The numbers are staggering.

Personal anecdote: I recall after the Sox lost their Opening Day game (late in the game, if I remembers) against Chicago in '78 some were saying, to the effect of, hey, it's still early. Or, it's just one game. All that.

The next morning, the sportscaster on our local AM station commented on this -- they all count, was his point. April or September. Could Boston want this one game, he asked, at the end of the season?

We all know the answer to that one.

[Skip]

Originally posted by TimmyB
Could Boston want this one game, he asked, at the end of the season?

We all know the answer to that one.

And, of course, they could have just won another game any other month too.

[SmedIndy]

Every month matters - every game counts.

[JamesI]

Originally posted by SmedIndy
Every month matters - every game counts.

Exactly. Just those tough losses seem worse in September than in April when the pennents on the line.

[KCBOOMER]

All games count, but late in the season when you know what's at stake then you really know how much they count.

April is a psychological month for some clubs. If you are not expecting much and the team does even worse the local fans almost forget they have a team (see Detroit and KC in years past). On the other hand a club with expectations, real or imaged, that gets off to a slow start can expect a feeding frenzy of negative news (see Mets).

[Craig S.]

Originally posted by SmedIndy
Every month matters - every game counts.

Exactly - I only wish players and managers wouldn't blow off the importance of the early part of the season. The deeper the hole you dig yourself in April, the tougher it is to climb out.

[Skip]

Do managers and players really blow off the importance of the early season, or are they just reverting to cliche-speak when they lose an early game and say things like "There's 162 games and this is only one of them," blah blah blah. I find it hard to believe that managers truly take April less seriously other than to realize that, yes, they do actually have realistic time to dig out of whatever hole they may have dug themselves into - unlike if you're way way back in September.

[Ytown Tribe fan]

In 2000, the Tribe missed the wild card by ONE game. Every Tribe fan knows exactly what game that was.

Manny was hurt early, giving Chicago a nice head start. When he became healthy, the Tribe started rolling. By the end of the year, the Tribe was the best team in baseball -- the one team that NO ONE wanted to play, and the every team was damned glad wasn't in the playoffs.

There was that one game -- shortly after Manny had returned -- a rainy, cold night in Kansas City when the Tribe just showed up and went through the motions and went home with a loss against an unexeptional Royals club. Even the announcers commented on it -- the Tribe was literally going through the motions that one game.

Right after that, they started getting hot. They pulled up ONE GAME short of the wild card. One game.

Yes -- games in April matter, at least based on 20 years worth of data. Games in April matter, but only as much as games in May and June and July and August and September and October matter -- no more and no less.

[TimmyB]

Originally posted by Skip
And, of course, they could have just won another game any other month too.

Of course. But it was the "it's early" talk coming out of the clubhouse that was galling. (Whether it was "Bull Durham"-speak or not.)

[OaktownTribeFan]

Originally posted by Ytown Tribe fan

There was that one game -- shortly after Manny had returned -- a rainy, cold night in Kansas City when the Tribe just showed up and went through the motions and went home with a loss against an unexeptional Royals club. Even the announcers commented on it -- the Tribe was literally going through the motions that one game.

Ytown, IMO the games that most Tribe fans remember are the ones that were blown in September. I recall the last 2 weeks of the 2000 season vividly, especially the fact that Charlie Manuel started Nagy twice, and he got clobbered both times. If another pitcher had started those games, the Indians probably would've been in the playoffs.

My Dad always remembered September 1955, when the Indians led the Yankees in the final week, then lost ALL FOUR to the Senators, and blew the pennant. While it's obvious that all games are important, the ones that stick in your memory are the critical games that are won or lost in September.

[pathogan]

...are te tigers.or the yankees. it matters as much as september