Bored with Sudoku? Crosswords too easy? Then, how about a baseball puzzle over lunch.
The Blue Jays pitchers as a whole have a HR/Fly rate of 19%. This would be an extremely high figure for a pitcher over a season, and for a whole staff, the figure is very unusual. The pitchers are not unusual in other respects, they have typical ground ball, line drive, infield fly, walk and strikeout rates. Is it all Josh Towers' fault? Nope, it's the entire staff, with the exception of B.J. Ryan. What about the hitters HR/fly rates? Nope, they're typical, with the power hitters having high HR/fly rates and the popgun hitters having low ones. Only Gregg Zaun's number looks a little funny.
What about the Rogers Centre? The Jays and their opponents have hit 87 homers in 28 games at the RC, or 3.1 per game, and 56 homers in 22 away games, or 2.5 per game. We don't have HR/Fly rates by home and away games, but it's reasonable to suppose that some of this unusual number results from the ball flying out of the RC. Depending on the number of flyballs, the RC could be the major reason. Is there anything else happening here?
Incidentally, the home and run numbers suggest that the Jay offence is actually a long sequence one, with the ability to get on base more impressive than the power. That will merit watching as the season wears on.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20060530115138288