Finally, a postseason game that went into extra innings. Everyone was waiting for it to happen. After all, that sort of thing hadn’t occurred since… a week ago. In retrospect, that “marathon” Guardians-Rays game was pretty zippy. Just 15 innings? Only 394 pitches? On Saturday night, the Astros and Mariners cordially invited the Guardians and Rays to hold their beer. Then another. Then perhaps six more.

How about an 18-inning game, tied for the longest in postseason history? How about 498 pitches? How about a record 44 strikeouts? The teams combined for 18 hits across those 18 frames. Christian Vázquez came in as a pinch hitter in the seventh and batted five times. Luis Garcia came on in relief and very nearly notched a quality start. The Mariners didn’t allow their first walk until the 16th (though they did hit four batters). Read the rest of this entry »

There were two big stories coming into Game 2 between the Astros and Mariners. The first was Yordan Alvarez, hero of Game 1, destroyer of both baseballs and worlds. Before the game, TBS reported that Scott Servais had borrowed a line from Ted Lasso, encouraging his players to be goldfish and forget Tuesday’s heartbreaking defeat. Goldfish or no, the Mariners definitely remembered to be terrified of Alvarez. They also continued their strategy of throwing him sinkers, failing to understand that there is no such thing as the right pitch to throw Yordan Alvarez.

The second story was the pitching matchup. Luis Castillo was coming off a masterful start against Toronto in the Wild Card Series. Framber Valdez had a breakout 2022, including 25 consecutive quality starts. Weak pulled contact is his strength; per the broadcast, the Mariners spent batting practice working on shooting the ball the other way in preparation.

The matchup lived up to the hype. Together, Castillo and Valdez set down the first 10 batters of the game, though the former had a couple of bad misses in the first inning, yanking two pitches in a row against Jeremy Peña and sailing a four-seamer up and away against Alvarez. None of the rest of his pitches to the latter that at-bat touched the strike zone, but that was by design. Here’s what he saw in all three of his plate appearances:

Kyle Tucker kicked off the scoring in the second inning, pulling a slider that caught too much of the plate for a 370-foot home run to right. The solo shot had a launch angle of 43 degrees, which would’ve tied for the 18th-steepest regular-season homer of 2022. Read the rest of this entry »

Did you watch the Guardians and the Rays in their Wild Card Series? It was extremely fun, especially if you hate runs. Everyone got out so much! Both teams had a better WHIP than Justin Verlander. The Guardians batted .171. The Rays batted .115. Together they batted .143. That’s Robbie Ray’s career batting average. Robbie Ray is famously not a hitter.

While Cleveland and Tampa Bay pushed the boundaries of modern science searching for new and innovative ways to not get on base, I noticed that one player seemed to take his failures a bit harder than the rest. See if you can spot it as well. Turn your sound all the way up, especially if you’re at the office. If you’re at an elementary school or a place of worship, see if there’s a public address system you can plug into:

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There are plenty of ways to win a ballgame. Some teams like to get ‘em on, get ‘em over, and get ‘em in. Some go for pitching, defense, and a three-run homer. One fairly reliable method is to absolutely obliterate the baseball all night long while your pitcher nearly throws a perfect game. On Sunday night, the Padres opted for that approach.

San Diego’s batters crushed everything the Mets could throw at them, while Joe Musgrove allowed no runs, one hit, and one walk over seven shutout innings. He also allowed one person to get very intimate with his ears, but we’ll get to that later.

Coming into the game, much of the talk was about Mets starter Chris Bassitt, who was riding high after posting a 2.94 ERA in the second half of the season. Some predicted that Bassitt’s curveball, which Stuff+ ranked as the best pitch in the game this year, could decide the game, as the Padres usually feast on curves. Instead, it was Bassitt’s fastball that ended up being the issue. Read the rest of this entry »

Who was the Nationals’ best player in 2022? Before you try to answer, I should acknowledge that this is not a fair question to ask. For starters, it’s a trick question. More importantly, you haven’t been watching the Nationals. You’ve been doing the best you can to avoid even thinking about the Nationals. That’s called self-care, and I commend you for it. Even the Nationals’ general manager called it “a daily grind to come here and lose baseball games.” He also called trading Juan Soto a “courageous move by ownership,” so maybe don’t listen to him.

Regardless, go ahead and give it a shot! Keibert Ruiz would be a reasonable guess. The promising young catcher posted 1.7 WAR this season. You could also be forgiven for going with Joey Meneses, who put up 1.5 WAR in just 228 plate appearances since his promotion in August. Read the rest of this entry »

Everybody loves a shiny new tool. A new tool holds the promise of a better future. “This new spatula,” we say to ourselves, “will transport us to a world of fluffier pancakes.” “Loved ones,” we say to our loved ones, “this cordless drill is going to revolutionize the way we drill holes into things, if and when we decide to start drilling holes into things.”

Statcast’s Outfielder Jump Leaderboard is very shiny. For balls with a catch probability of 90% or lower, it lists every player’s average in several categories. Playing with this leaderboard, I envisioned a bright new future. A future where I could definitively tell anyone unfortunate enough to be within earshot whether it’s more important to get a good jump on a ball or take a good route to it.

Predictably, I broke the tool immediately. Or at least, I thought I did. What I noticed was that the players who took good routes tended to be, well, bad. They had worse reactions, bursts, and Outs Above Average. Most damningly, they counted among their number one Kyle Schwarber. That made me curious. Read the rest of this entry »

While it is bittersweet to see anyone tie my father’s single-season American League home run record, it’s an honor to know that he shares it with a player as talented and as gracious as Aaron Judge. Aaron plays with passion, puts the team first, and wears Yankee pinstripes. In all of these ways, he is a true successor to Roger Maris. On behalf of the entire Maris family, I would like to offer my sincere and heartfelt congratulations to Aaron Judge.

I would also like to take this opportunity to ask a question: Does this mean I can go home now?

I can go now, right? Please let me go home. It has been so long. I have a cat. I am worried about him. It has been eight days and I need to check on Professor Whiskers. Read the rest of this entry »

The Mets are the current World Series favorites, with 17.7% odds of winning a championship, according to ZiPS. They have a 76.4% chance of earning a first-round bye through capturing the NL East and a starting rotation fronted by Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom. In an ideal world, Scherzer and deGrom would pitch every postseason inning, with the occasional Edwin Díaz appearance sprinkled in, because that song with the trumpet is quite a lot of fun.

Unfortunately, people are frail. They’re full of oddly shaped parts that break and swell and stiffen and rupture. Starting pitchers are more susceptible than most. They’re the four-note motif at the beginning of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony: They come out guns blazing and then need a nice, long break before they’re ready to think about doing it again. Read the rest of this entry »

This is Davy’s first piece as a FanGraphs contributor. Davy is a writer and musician who lives in Brooklyn. He has previously written for Baseball Prospectus, where he contributed to the Too Far From Town series about the contraction of the minors. He bakes fancy cakes and plays guitar for The Subway Ghosts, a punk rock band whose other members are also baseball writers. Davy grew up in Falls Church, Virginia, and his earliest ballpark memory is of boos raining down on Glenn Davis at Memorial Stadium.

Carlos Correa picked a great time to turn things around. The 28-year-old is widely expected to opt out of his three-year contract with the Twins this winter, and he’s primed to hit the free agent market on an absolute tear. Correa is slashing .377/.438/.663 in September, good for a 216 wRC+. That’s the sixth-best mark in all of baseball and second among shortstops, behind only the red hot Bo Bichette.

Like Bichette, Correa faced a rough time earlier in the season. Where did things go wrong for the future former Twin? It’s time for some fun with 15-day rolling averages! Read the rest of this entry »