Game Five obviously did not go the way the Giants wanted, as the 4-2 loss cut their series lead to 3-2. There are small signs that the Phillies’ hitters are coming around, and the pitching matchups aren’t going to get any more favorable for San Francisco. I won’t review every key play of Game Five, but rather a few bad and good points that the Giants can take away from it.

Errors in last night’s game highlighted problems some see with the Giants infield defense. Aubrey Huff‘s error in the third inning was the biggest WPA shift in the game (.155), scoring two runs to put the Phillies up for good. Pablo Sandoval’s error in the ninth didn’t cost the Giants any runs, but did serve as a reminder that he has been benched for reasons other than his bad season at the plate. Despite Huff’s good UZR and DRS scores this season, for his career he’s still a negative defender at both at first, and was slightly below average in 2010’s Fans Scouting Report. The metrics don’t see Sandoval as horrible at third base, but the Giants are clearly concerned about his abilities there.

The middle of the Giants’ batting order got shut down. There’s no shame in getting reigned in by Roy Halladay, even when he’s working with a pulled groin, but the Giants needed more from their 3-4-5 hitters Aubrey Huff, Buster Posey, and Pat Burrell, who were held to a double (by Burrell) and a walk (by Posey) in twelve plate appearances. It was obvious before the series started that runs would be hard to come by for both teams, especially the Giants, but the team can’t count on Cody Ross to keep bailing them out (insert baserunning joke here).

There were some hopeful signs for the Giants, however. They still aren’t being dominated by the Phillies’ offense. Tim Lincecum gave up three runs (not horrible in itself over seven innings), but two of those scored on Huff’s error. The Phillies did look better at the plate in this game (at least to me), but they are still struggling to score runs. Lincecum won’t be starting the other games of the series, but Jonathan Sanchez and Matt Cain have more than held their own so far against the Phillies. One long home run by Jayson Werth doesn’t change that.

Despite the last night’s defensive foibles, Giants fans should be happy that Pablo Sandoval started last night and got a hit. He grounds into an incredible number of double plays, and 1-4 with no walks isn’t great, but he’s still a better bet than running either Mike Fontenot or Edgar Renteria out there. Bruce Bochy resisted the temptation to leave Andres Torres on the bench, and he responded by going 2-3 with a walk. Another poor plate performance shouldn’t change our evaluation of his true talent, but it might have put pressure on Bochy to sit him for the remainder of the series, and he’s clearly better both offensively and defensively than Aaron Rowand. It is amazing how much I’ve read about Torres’ “returning to reality” during his playoff struggles from people who should know better. He’s probably not as good offensively as his 2009 and 2010 regular season performances, but as I’ve discussed before, this hasn’t been a 300 PA, BABIP-fueled hot streak, either. For more than 700 PA in 2009 and 2010 Torres has had an above-average walk rate and good power. He needs to be starting every game for the Giants.

Some will want to talk about the Phillies “seizing the momentum” as the series shifts back the Philadelphia. The Phillies still have the more talented group of players, but they certainly haven’t outplayed the Giants so far in this series. Even in last night’s loss, the Giants showed that if they do win the series it won’t be a miraculous feat.

I’m nothing if not predictable. Why change a horse in midstream, the saying goes.

Roy Halladay, October 6, 2010

Roy Halladay, October 21, 2010

Yup, more strike zone plots from Brooks Baseball. And Carson’s out here pushing the limits in his previews. But these two game plots are pretty different, eh? Then let me blow you away with yet another strike zone plot, eh?

Looks like Halladay was having a little trouble locating low-and-away to left-handers, no? Or, at least low-and-away in general. In any case, it’s a nice way to show, in pictures, what it looks like to win “without your best stuff,” as the game stories most likely went today. Halladay grit and grissioned his way through the start while Tim Lincecum was the valiant loser, mostly because of some poor defense behind him.

Lincecum is not left-handed, and that probably helped lefties Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and the recently unbenched Raul Ibanez to a stunning 3-for-12 in game five. That group, along with Domonic Brown, is now a combined 10-for-51 with 7 walks and 3 extra-base hits, which sounds bad except the whole team is now batting .208. Perhaps the struggles of the left-handed batter from Philadelphia were overstated.

Raul Ibanez, though, that guy shook off his benching in a strong way. One of his two hits led to the first run of the game and started that third inning that featured all the little league defense a big-league audience could handle. Placido Polanco was the WPA champ on the offensive side for singling in the third run in the third inning (+8.5%), but somehow Ibanez sticks out.

It was a nice respite. Now, because of the Roy Oswalt Decision, the Phillies still face an uphill climb in game six.

First off, given some of the howling on twitter, it’s time for the obligatory strike zone plot. Let’s get it out of the way, thanks to Brooks Baseball.

It’s pretty ugly, but consistent enough. It was four or five inches too wide, or a half a foot if you count both sides. But there are plenty of triangles and squares out there beyond the box, so let’s not blame it all on umpire Wally Bell.

For all the talk of how similar Madison Bumgarner and Joe Blanton were going into the game, it’s somewhat prescient that they both failed to get out of the fifth inning and that they both left having given up three earned runs. On the other hand, the journey was not necessarily so similar. Bumgarner does use his left hand, and he did strike out six and allow only one run to score while he was on the bump, while Blanton struck out three and was directly responsible for all of his runs. It wasn’t all bad for Blanton – all of his balls in play were counted as groundballs – but it since the starters played to a standstill on the scoreboard, the advantage goes to the hometown pitcher.

Phillies fans can’t even blame the randomness of coming through in high leverage moments in this one – there were eight moments with a leverage index over one last night. The Phillies batters came through in two of them, and the Giants batters came through in two of them. It may seem that the Giants were more ‘clutch,’ but that would probably just be because they came up last. To the home-fielders went the spoils.

At this point, some of the blame must rest squarely on the Phillies’ stars. In this game, Chase Utley put up a -10.8% in win probability by going one for five and not coming through in some key moments. That comes on the heels of a -12% in game three (0-for-4), +3.8% in game two (0-for-3 with two walks), and a -1.8% in game one (1-for-3 with a walk). It’s obviously just a poor four-game stretch for a great secondbaseman, but it’s also bad timing for that stretch. The same could be said for Jimmy Rollins (.267, 1 extra base hit) and Jayson Werth (.250, 1 extra base hit).

The larger pattern is one of struggles for all of the left-handers on the team. Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, the recently benched Raul Ibanez, and young Domonic Brown are a combined 7-for-39 with 7 walks and 3 extra-base hits, and most of that is Howard’s production. Maybe it’s not a surprise given the left arms of Jonathan Sanchez and Madison Bumgarner, but Javier Lopez looms as a large acquisition for the Giants in this series. He has three big holds and gave up his first run Wednesday night. His lefty sidearm release has been hard on the lefty batters, and that makes sense given the difference in release points vis-a-vis a regular right-hander.

All this said, it was a great game. The WPA graph does a good job showing the rollercoaster that was Wednesday night. Fans of baseball were satisfied, if not fans of Phillie baseball.

Cody Ross isn’t bald, he just emits Awesome from his head. – chatter Tony
Cody Ross is the answer to every question. – chatter TexasRanger

Ah, but this is the Philly review, so that will be enough of the Ross love here. Which is good, because we don’t have to cover the Great Bruce Bochy Lineup Disaster either, especially since it turned out okay for the Giants. Instead, we’ll reach back into the chat to find a couple quotes that offered real-time feedback on Ted Barrett’s strike zone:

Aren’t you noticing a completely different strike zone being called for both pitchers in this game. Matt Cain is getting inside, outside, and low. Have not seen those same pitches call for Cole Hamels – chatter T Barrett
Maybe the complaints are based on when Cole get squeezed rather than quantity. The non-strike 3 to Sanchez was a big call (like Halladay’s against Burrell in game 1). – chatter Andy

So we turn to the pictures – from Brooks Baseball – to try and get the full story:

At first glance, there’s reason to doubt Barret’s zone. There are five clear strikes on the outside the zone for the Giants, and only two that are as far outside the zone for the Phillies. If we count all of the “wrong” calls inside and out, we get eight called strikes that weren’t strikes and four strikes that were not called strikes for the Giants. Then there’s four called strikes that weren’t strikes and five strikes that weren’t called for the Phillies. It’s the sort of thing that seems both real and yet somehow not completely significant. But a lot of this is in the eye of the beholder, as these chat responses to the posted strike zone show:

looks pretty even to me – chatter Evan
Whole camels could fit inside Cain’s sz – chatter bowie
mostly shows me that cain did a better job of hitting that left side of the zone. he peppered a lot of pitches very close to the line – chatter Giants

Ah-hah. The truth is in the eye of the beholder often, but let’s try to say something true about this game: “Though the strike zone may have favored the Giants in a slight way and put pressure on Cole Hamels in key moments, the game was won by timely hitting by the Giants and the failure of the Phillies’ batters to come through in similarly tough situations.” You can quote me on that.

Let’s end this with a look at the highest leverage moments in the game, and the results of the at-bat.

The weekend took your faithful Phillie correspondents to places we didn’t expect, and none of those places featured wifi and a comfy moment to kick back and review the first two games of the NLCS. Better late than never. The Phillies and Giants split the weekend, which wasn’t great for the maroon marauders because the series tilted lightly in the Giants’ favor with those results – teams that win one of two games on the road in a seven-game MLB series win the series 56.2% of the time.

Game One was just one of those games, it seems. Seven innings, eight hits, seven strikeouts, no walks and more ground balls than fly balls doesn’t seem like a line that would normally produce four earned runs, but that’s what happened to Roy Halladay Saturday night. The difference between excellent and a -8.8% WPA night for the Doc could have been summed up in two fly balls from Cody Ross that ended up in the seats. This same Cody Ross had exactly average power this year (.145 ISO) and had gone -for-16 against Halladay in his career. The same Cody Ross that was Cody Ross the Marlin until Brian Sabean briefly made him Randy Myers by supposedly claiming him just to block the Padres. Then the Giants then realized that he was better than Jose Guillen, at least in the field, so that he could become the Cody Ross, Giant, that the Bay Area now knows and loves. Either way, you read that fateful name backward as Grant did on the McCovey Chronicles, and you get “ssoR y doC,” which is about all that can be said to Halladay, who pitched well enough to win.

It did seem like the Phillie offense could have put together a five spot – Tim Lincecum wasn’t at his best either. He walked more (three), and gave up equal numbers of fly balls and ground balls, but he also struck out eight – one of which was Ryan Howard with two batters on in a tie game in the third inning (worth 6.6% in WPA alone). Though the two teams had the same amount of baserunners, and the Phillies showed a better slugging percentage as a team, it was the Giants that strung together the hits in the big moments.

The following may seem random – and most likely was – but the big lineup change between games one and two may have had a little bit to do with the different outcomes. As Rob Neyer noted before the game Sunday, Charlie Manuel reversed Placido Polanco and Chase Utley in the batting order so that the heart of the order did not include two straight lefties in Utley and Howard.

It’s a little strange to see Polanco and his lack of power batting third, and it may feel like separating two lefties isn’t that big of a deal, but just look at what the Giants did in the two games for your pudding-based proof. In Game One, Javier Lopez brought his lefty sidearm release to the mound to get Utley to ground out and Howard to strike out before leaving in a double switch that would have made Dusty Baker proud. In Game Two, Bruce Bochy brought Ramon Ramirez out to pitch to the righty Shane Victorino, but after Victorino sacrificed, he was faced with the choice of walking the lefty Utley to keep Ramirez in the game and pitch to Polanco, or burning Lopez on Utley, bringing in Sergio Romo to pitch to Polanco, and then summoning Jeremy Affeldt to get Howard. That is a lot of relievers, but with the off-day coming today, the second move-heavy approach is probably what Bochy should have done. Instead, this is what happened:

Bottom 7th: Philadelphia
– R. Oswalt singled to shallow center
– R. Ramirez relieved J. Sanchez
– S. Victorino sacrificed to third, R. Oswalt to second
– C. Utley intentionally walked
– P. Polanco singled to shallow center, R. Oswalt scored, C. Utley to second
– J. Affeldt relieved R. Ramirez
– C. Utley stole third, P. Polanco stole second
– R. Howard struck out swinging
– J. Werth intentionally walked
– P. Sandoval at third
– S. Casilla relieved J. Affeldt
– J. Rollins doubled to deep center, C. Utley, P. Polanco and J. Werth scored
– R. Ibanez lined out to third

4 runs, 3 hits, 0 errors
San Francisco 1, Philadelphia 6

Don’t underestimate the difference the new lineup made, as it obviously made Bochy’s life difficult in the seventh inning Sunday night (and then he went and made some dubious decisions of his own). Now it’s clear that he’ll have to use both of his lefties to get through the heart of the order late in game three, provided his starter once again gets the job done against the new-look lineup.

I watched Ron Washington’s Game 5 post game press conference and he stated the following:

We have a very aggressive team, and tonight we took advantage of some things, a ground ball double play Vladimir [Guerrero]. What else do we have to do but come around the bag and keep running? If it’s a double play, the inning is over anyway.

I thought Vlad had slowed down when rounding third base, so I went back and looked at the video to see if Vlad was hustling the entire time to get home or was he waiting to see how the play at first base unfolded.

The video of the play does give a few hints confirming if Vlad was heading home once he left second base as Ron Washington stated or was Vlad looking for some other clue to go home.

First of all, there was no visual clues that third base coach, Dave Anderson, was sending Vlad home as soon as he left second base (45 seconds into the video).

No arms windmilling- nothing. Anderson simplywalks slowly closer to third base.

Second, Vlad is not hustling home with 100% effort like Ron Washington mentioned in the press conference. About three steps from third base he begins to slow down to a jog and continues at this pace for few steps after touching third base. During this same time he is watching the play at first base unfold.

Finally, Vlad never actually put his head down and ran home with 100% effort until he saw Kinsler was safe at first base.

I am not sure what event that actually caused him to decide to head home with 100% effort. I first thought he may have been too far off the bag to make it back to third base safely if David Price decided to throw to third base, so Vlad decided to try to score. After watching the video a few times, I think he could have easily made it back to third base.

Maybe it was Texas’s plan to have their runners always round third base on possible double plays with one out and try to score. If this was the case, I think Dave Anderson would have been waving Vlad home once the ball was thrown to first. Instead, both seemed to be watching the the play at first base.

I actually think either Vlad and/or Dave Anderson knew that David Price had a propensity to ignore base runners when covering first base as seen earlier in the game. Once they saw that Ian Kinsler was safe and Price had his back to the play, Vlad headed home to try to score. There is no way from the footage to tell which one made the decision. Anderson was about 6 feet away from Vlad when Vlad decided to head home. He could have easily kept the instructions somewhat quiet in order for David Price not to hear them or Vlad could have made the decision on his own. There is just no way to tell either way for sure.

Ron Washington can claim that Vlad was heading home no matter what due to the Rangers aggressive base running, but I don’t think that is the case on this play. Instead it was a heads up play by some combination of the base runner Vladimir Guerrero and the third base coach Dave Anderson.

Cliff Lee was masterful once again, making it the fourth time (of five matchups) that he struck out double digit Rays. He’s going to be the story of this game (hell, this series) and rightfully so. It’s hard to think Lee isn’t the best pitcher in the American League right now – and that’s not just because only two teams remain.

The other big plays involved baserunning. Let’s give them each a quick look:

1) Elvis Andrus scoring from second on a groundball to first base

Carlos Pena picked up the ball and flipped it to David Price. By the time Price heard Evan Longoria screaming to throw it home, Andrus was successfully across the plate. Rangers up 1-to-0 after three batters. The gain here is .041 despite an out being made on the play. Pretty nifty, considering Andrus also added .035 WPA on his single and .015 on a stolen base.

2) Nelson Cruz scoring from second on an error by Kelly Shoppach

Cruz took the weirdest route of the three. After driving a ball to the deepest portion of the park (and admiring it so), Cruz had to hustle to get into second base after the ball hit off the wall. He then took off for third base on a steal attempt and got up to run home after Shoppach’s throw sailed into left field. Just like that, the Rangers regained the lead. Add .027 WPA on the double and .099 on the steal and further advance.

3) Vladimir Guerrero scoring from second base on a grounder to first base

Price received the ball at first again, but this time argued with the umpire on the safe call before turning and firing home. Guerrero slid in before Shoppach could apply the tag and the most unlikely of events put the Rangers up by two in the sixth. Add .057 on this play.

That’s .206 WPA off baserunning and .477 for Lee, or about 70% of the win.

Congrats to the Rangers, who now advance to the ALCS.

The San Francisco Giants didn’t exactly take Game 4 in convincing fashion, but was able to capitalize on timely hitting on rare opportunities. When it looked like Derek Lowe was on a roll after five no-hit innings, unheralded Cody Ross (+28.9% WPA) swung at a first-pitch hanging slider, hitting a line drive to left field for a solo homerun. Lowe had been all over the Giants all day, inducing 14 swinging strikes over the first five no-hit innings, 10 of them being sliders by my count.

When Lowe struggled locating his sinker in the 7th inning after pitching two out of the last three starts on short rest, the Giants’ lineup exhibited rare patience. An Aubrey Huff (+4.9% WPA) walk followed by a Buster Posey single called for what turned out to be Bobby Cox’s last mound visit. Lowe insisted that he could finish the inning, but still could not locate the sinker against Pat Burrell (+8.2% WPA), who kept his bat on his shoulders for five pitches, drawing a walk to load the bases. A possible double play groundball from Juan Uribe (+15.3% WPA) wasn’t converted by Alex Gonzalez, allowing Huff to score the tying run.

Cox then elected to bring in Jonny Venters, striking out Aaron Rowand for the second out. But Cody Ross had adjusted his approach to a more aggressive one, hitting a sharp grounder on the second pitch to score Posey. As a recap of the top of the 7th inning, the Giants waited for pitches to hit when Lowe was off-target for the first time all day, and responded to another Braves’ infield error by driving in the winning run, a sequence of classic playoff baseball.

The Braves’ offense was not ready to give up, however. Brian Wilson came to close out the bottom of the 9th with a 3-2 lead, but struggled to find the strike zone throwing multiple fastballs. Two good at-bats by Rick Ankiel and Eric Hinske led to back-to-back walks. But Wilson adjusted his approach against Omar Infante, throwing several outside sliders to get Infante to strike out swinging. And it was the slider that Melky Cabrera grounded out off of for the final out, thrusting the Giants into the NLCS against the Phillies.

For the series, the Giants’ starting pitching has been phenomenal. Madison Bumgarner’s Game 4 start is not to be overlooked, as he struck out five and allowed two earned runs in an efficient six innings on 85 pitches. In hindsight, Bruce Bochy made a wise decision electing to go with Bumgarner instead of Tim Lincecum on short rest, setting the stage for the ultimate pitching matchup against Roy Halladay in Game 1 of the NLCS.

The Giants’ offense, for the most of the series, succeeded by taking advantage of rare opportunities. In Game 1, it was Ross who drove in a run after an intentional walk to Pablo Sandoval. In Game 3, it was several Brooks Conrad errors. In Game 4, it was Ross yet again with timely hits against Lowe and Venters. The Giants did not exhibit much power in the series, and credit goes to the Braves’ pitching staff for much of that. The lack of power will be a major problem against the Phillies in the NLCS this weekend, but for now, Giants’ fans will celebrate and take their first playoff win in eight years.

I’ll admit it: I lost this debate to the inimitable Carson Cistulli. What can I say, I was no master debater back in the day, nor had I ever tried the Lincoln-Douglas format. Excuses, excuses, excuses. I know.

What was so flustering was that the Phillies felt like the right pick. But when the numbers were parsed, there were few numbers that were definitively in favor of the team from Philadelphia. Carson was right – overall WAR, UZR, wOBA, they all pointed towards Dusty Baker’s team. I was forced to tickle the numbers until they laughed the right name, and was called out on it. The strange thing? Perhaps the actual, you know, real-life games proved me correct.

Let’s review my seemingly untenable positions:

1) The Phillies’ starting rotation is too strong for the Reds.
Well, like, duh. Not only did all the numbers show it before they played, but their performances did as well. Three games and the new Big Three produced 23 innings, 4 runs allowed (3 earned), 22 strikeouts, 2 walks, and 30/18 groundballs to flyballs. That’s “pretty good,” and it minimized the edge the Reds had in the pen. This edge probably was enough to ignore many of the other edges that went Red, but it’s unclear why that would be, given the pie chart that goes into every game. More on that later.

2) The Phillies’ lineup is deeper.
Defining something like ‘deeper’ is tough, but it does seem that the Phillies lineup was more balanced. Facing Raul Ibanez and Carlos Ruiz as the seventh and eighth hitters is far less exciting than facing Orlando Cabrera and either of the Reds’ catchers, right? Philadelphia hit .212 for the series, and the Reds .124. Batting average isn’t a great indicator of course, but in this case it does a quick-and-dirty job of portraying the differences between the teams’ lineups and how they fared in this short series. But again, bullet point one is probably at fault here.

3) The Phillies’ bullpen is better, specifically at closer.
Well, this one didn’t necessarily go my way, but only because the Phillies’ starters didn’t give em much of a chance to show their mettle. They pitched 4 innings total in the three games, and allowed no runs and 1 hit, with 2 strikeouts and 2 walks. The Reds? 10 innings with 4 runs, (1 earned), 8 hits, 7 strikeouts and 4 walks. Advantage; some shade red, but mostly made irrelevant by bullet point one.

The last idea, and it probably doesn’t deserve a bullet point because it’s not something rooted in fancy baubles like “theory” or “proof,” held that perhaps the Phillies owned the star power over the Reds. (Another possibly un-definable term in my favor? Awesome.) But we’ve now seen Roy Halladay and Cole Hamels shine bright while Roy Oswalt, Chase Utley and Ryan Howard got the job done – and on the other side of the ledger, the Reds failed to receive a singular, extraordinary performance from any of their main players. It’s not very ‘Sabre’ to say this, but is it possible that in the slimmed-down post-season things like a deep roster, good defensive pieces and nice middle relief become a little less impressive or important?

Oh, the game? Well, the game was all Hamels. There’s not much else to say when he’s got the changeup dancing like that. That, some good defensive play from Shane Victorino, and a solo home run from Utley, and you’ve basically got enough to say “ballgame” and “series.”

Dusty Baker got seven innings with one earned run (two total) by using Johnny Cueto and Homer Bailey just about perfectly, and made the most of his bullpen the rest of the way – and still lost. Though the Reds lineup may have showed better regular-season wOBAs, in this small sample, only Brandon Phillips and Jay Bruce were able to bat above the Mendoza line. Baker may have made some bad tactical moves over the series, and Dave may yet come with some heat in that area, but it seems the players played out this best-of-five and the Reds came up short. It was still a great year for them and they should be proud of the larger sample size.

Another Giants-Braves matchup, another one-run game. Unlike Friday’s splash hit special though, the drama ultimately went in San Francisco’s direction this time.

Through the seventh inning, I expected I’d mostly be writing about Jonathan Sanchez‘s terrific performance. Sanchez’s first seven innings were reminiscent of Tim Lincecum‘s outstanding series opener: he was a little shaky with his command in the first inning, but then settled into a groove and dominated. After a first inning walk to Derek Lee, he didn’t allow a hard-hit ball until Matt Diaz‘s flyout to right in the fifth, and didn’t allow a hit until Tim Hudson’s soft line drive single in the sixth. Along the way, Sanchez struck out 11 and had retired 14 consecutive batters at one point.

Meanwhile, back on offense, the Giants couldn’t manage much more than an assortment of walks and groundballs against Hudson. The lone run they provided in support of Sanchez came courtesy of two shadow-assisted dropped flyballs; one by the soon-to-be infamous Brooks Conrad, whom we’ll get to in a moment.

Then came the second thing I thought I’d be writing about, the Braves comeback in the bottom of the eight. With a runner on and 105 pitches on his arm, Bruce Bochy pulled Sanchez for Sergio Romo. Here are my notes from the inning:

bot 8
2nd hit for ATL, sharp liner by Gonzales
Conrad with a chance to be a hero flubs a bunt
Glaus hitting for Ankiel
Romo in for Jonathan; gutsy move by Boch
Hinske in for Glaus
Hinske HR
Braves lead 2-1

I heard someone on the radio this morning quote Bochy as saying he was going to play the matchups from the sixth inning onward today, and in this case it obviously backfired as Bobby Cox had an extra bat. I usually try not to second guess managers, but for me it was a questionable call at the time, as the Braves hadn’t done anything with Sanchez and Romo had a rough outing on Friday.

Bochy stuck with his guys in the ninth inning, and didn’t use a pinch hitter other than Travis Ishikawa in the pitcher’s spot, while Cox worked his way through three pitchers. The Giants managed to keep runners on base long enough for Buster Posey to find Conrad with a hard groundball. In what seemed like an act of destiny, Conrad let the ball sail through the five-hole, giving Freddy Sanchez plenty of time to score the eventual winning run from second.

Which brings us to the third thing I thought I’d be writing about: Conrad’s defense. I was fully prepared to stick up for Conrad a bit here, particularly over the dropped flyball, but that last error was really inexcusable for a major league player in the post-season. The ball was hit right to him and the game was on the line; if he had even kept the ball in the infield it would have likely been a different game.

All in all though, it was the the third great game of the series.