My father’s an avid tennis player, and there’s this thing he says anytime — or, because he’s a dad, precisely every time — he mis-hits a ball for an accidental winner. “Welp, I paid for the whole racquet,” is what he says. It’s a goofy way of acknowledging some good fortune, of apologizing for having benefited from something other than one’s actual skill.

The Los Angeles Dodgers pay Chris Taylor mostly for what he does with his bat and his glove and legs. But they employ the whole Chris Taylor. And while there was no reason to care about it before last night, one is compelled to acknowledge today that the whole Chris Taylor includes Chris Taylor’s ball cap.

Here’s why that’s relevant. With one out, runners on first and third, and the scored tied at 0-0, Houston’s Alex Bregman hit a liner to center field. What happened next actually kinda did shock everyone.

For those who haven’t fully pivoted to video, the footage above depicts center fielder Chris Taylor diving for Bregman’s liner, missing Bregman’s liner, and then somehow deflecting Bregman’s liner to left fielder Joc Pederson by means of his hat. While the base hit allowed Josh Reddick to score from third, the ricochet to Pederson forced George Springer to stop at second, limiting Bregman to a single. Rich Hill would strike out the next two batters. No further runs would score.

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Well, that was one of the craziest baseball games anyone has ever seen. A would-be triple that hit the bill of Chris Taylor’s cap and then bounced right to Joc Pederson, a pickoff at second base that looked like Laz Diaz got challenged to an impromptu game of dodgeball, and finally, an extra inning home run derby led to a 7-6 Astros victory, tying the series at one game apiece. If we get any more baseball games like that one, this series will be a classic.

But before most of those crazy things happened, Dave Roberts made a decision that seemingly set the wheels in motion. In the top of the fifth inning, the Dodgers’ manager summoned Kenta Maeda from the bullpen to take over for Rich Hill.

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Being expressive is half of Yasiel Puig’s whole thing. The Dodgers would love for him to be great, and the fans would love for him to be great, but if Yasiel Puig were great, he’d be just another great baseball player. That is, if he were great and great only. But there’s more to him, for better and for worse. Puig’s own expressiveness might be linked to personality traits that make him, shall we say, draining company, but fans don’t have to be around Puig for hours on end, every day of the week. They just get to watch him entertain. Puig is a highly-skilled professional entertainer.

He goes about his business with uncommon flair, eschewing baseball’s standard and pervasive stoic self-seriousness. It’s not that Puig is in any way lacking for intensity; it just has a different way of bubbling to the surface. Over these past few weeks, we’ve grown acquainted with Yasiel Puig’s tongue. Sometimes it’s hanging out of his mouth, and sometimes it’s licking the end of the barrel. Puig is also notorious for his bat flips, regardless of whether the ball’s leaving the yard. Puig has his own style of playing defense. He has his own style of running the bases. You know, in short, when it’s Puig that you’re watching even if you can’t see the name on his jersey.

Puig has even brought his own flavor to patience. You might not think there’s such a thing as taking a pitch in a particularly expressive way. Puig would disagree with you, and there’s a mountain of evidence from just these playoffs alone. Puig has shown some demonstrative takes for years, but this month, he’s reached a new level, as he’s been more patient than ever. Puig has one of the lower swing rates in the playoffs. He has one of the higher rates of pitches per plate appearance in the playoffs. Though he went 0-for-3 last night, he worked two counts to 2-and-0, and the other to 3-and-0. Puig has swung at the first pitch just three times in his last 54 opportunities since re-joining the Dodgers lineup in late September. One of those was a check-swing foul where the bat met the ball by accident.

This might be a bit of a slog. You’re welcome to leave at any time. But, I watched every pitch that Puig has seen this year in the playoffs. I’ve identified 16 different forms of demonstrative takes. This ignores the regular, boring, featureless take. There have been some of those. There have been many of the others. Watch as Yasiel Puig makes a show of doing nothing.

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This World Series has been dubbed a clash of analytical titans. Whatever the outcome, it would appear already to be a victory for the movement and an argument for greater investment in decision-science departments.

The Dodgers have one of the largest research departments in the game — perhaps the largest, though there isn’t a publicly available database for full accounting. The Astros have also benefited greatly from analytics, as we know. It’s possible that the two organizations have distanced themselves from much of the pack in a sport where every team has some sort of investment in statistically based R&D.

Nor is this development lost on the players. Consider left-hander Tony Watson’s comments from a recent piece by Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register.

“Just the sheer numbers as far as the bodies, the staff that is analytically-driven,” says Dodgers reliever Tony Watson who spent 6-1/2 seasons with the analytically-open Pittsburgh Pirates before joining the Dodgers this summer. “Then I later found out it’s the largest R & D in baseball. … Coming from Pittsburgh, it’s definitely bigger. That’s the focus. And it works. The numbers don’t lie.”

The Pirates have made a sizable investment in their analytics department. According to Watson, however, it’s overshadowed by the group assembled by Los Angeles. Once a tool for low-revenue teams, it’s become another area where large-market clubs can outspend and outinvest their opponents. It’s a troubling development for the league’s minnows: the richest teams are now also the smartest.

I bring all this up to establish that, if any club is capable of idenitfying the weaknesses and strengths of an opponent, it’s the Dodgers. They know what all the Astros do well and what they don’t.

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Last year’s World Series featured a true face-off between big and small markets, pitting the high-revenue Chicago Cubs against the lower-revenue Cleveland Indians. The difference in each club’s markets materialized in their respective payrolls: Chicago outspent Cleveland by roughly $90 million in 2016. The contrast was stark.

This year’s Series represents a different kind of contrast. Everyone’s aware of the Dodgers’ financial might, of course, but the Astros enjoy a large market, too. And even if that hasn’t been obvious recently, the club’s payrolls from a dozen years ago reflect the club’s spending capacities. Over the last decade, however, the team has executed a massive tank-job and also navigated difficulties with their gigantic television deal. The result? Dramatically lower payrolls. The rebuild has worked, however, and the club’s payroll has nearly doubled in just the last two years. However, that payroll is still in the bottom half of baseball and represents only half of the Dodgers’ expenditures in what is the largest disparity in World Series history.

I would be remiss when discussing the disparity between the two teams not to mention that the gap between the clubs’ payrolls is much more modest when comparing only active rosters. Carl Crawford has been gone from the roster for quite some time, but his $22 million salary is still on the books. Scott Kazmir is hurt. Adrian Gonzalez is in Italy. Those three account for around $60 million in salary alone. A handful of other players are no longer on the team. As a result, the Dodgers’ 25-man World Series roster is earning “only” $143 million. Even with all the money the Dodgers have written off, they still have an active roster that would place them in the top half of MLB payrolls. As for the Astros, their World Series roster comes in at around $115 million.

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Justin Turner refused to be fooled a third time by Dallas Keuchel in Game 1 of the World Series. He made an equipment change after a strikeout and a pop out, and was ready for the pitcher’s final attempt to go to the well. That go-ahead two-run home run in the sixth serves to give us all a look inside the type of adjustments hitters have to make from at-bat to at-bat.

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Last night, the Dodgers’ domination of the postseason continued. Winning a World Series game by two runs isn’t exactly steamrolling your opponent, but given what Clayton Kershaw, Brandon Morrow, and Kenley Jansen did to the Astros offense, the game never really felt in doubt. Houston got their only run on an Alex Bregman solo home run and never really threatened again.

The rest of their offensive production consisted of a pair of singles, but neither runner would get past first base. The Astros didn’t put a single runner in scoring position all night long. There were no rallies, no trouble out of which a Dodger pitcher had to work. Just outs, and most of them quick outs.

It took Los Angeles just 107 pitches to face 30 batters. Usually, when you see low pitch counts and quick innings, it’s because a team was overly aggressive, swinging at pitches early in counts and making quick outs. In Game 1, though, the Astros seemingly made it easy on the Dodgers by just not swinging at strikes.

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People have spent a lot of time defending playoff Clayton Kershaw. This has taken place because other people have spent a lot of time attacking playoff Clayton Kershaw. To the defenders, Kershaw is anything but unclutch. He’s been a victim, a victim of randomness and a victim of sample size. To the attackers, Kershaw hasn’t shown up. Not often enough, not like normal, regular-season Clayton Kershaw. There’s that fact of the 4.40 playoff ERA. That’s where Kershaw was for his career when he woke up Tuesday morning. It’s a number that one could dismiss, but it’s not a number that one could deny. When Kershaw had pitched, there were too many runs. Forget about any weaknesses or character flaws. The argument against playoff Kershaw was simple. The stats were right there.

The Dodgers would tell you that Kershaw was redeemed in the 2016 NLDS. That’s when he came out of the bullpen on one day of rest to close out the Nationals. Kershaw himself wasn’t satisfied. There’s only one way for Kershaw to be satisfied — he needs to win the World Series. He’s internalized all the playoff runs he’s allowed. He’s tired of the frustration, and he’s tired of the defeats. There’s one thing to be done to put it all to rest. Win it all, and it’s all taken care of. The history could finally be buried and dead.

Kershaw hasn’t erased the history just yet. Not for himself. The World Series wasn’t decided by Tuesday’s Game 1. But in the biggest game Kershaw’s ever thrown, nearly every pitch was sharp, and the Astros could come up with no answer. Kershaw drove the critics backward, forcing them to wonder if maybe he’s no pumpkin after all. Kershaw struck out 11 Astros hitters. He became the first pitcher to do so all season long, and he needed only 83 pitches. In 11 previous playoff games, the Astros had struck out against the opposing starter just 35 times combined. Kershaw rendered the league-leading lineup helpless, yielding three hits and a run, without a single walk. Kershaw was Kershaw, on October 24.

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This is classified as an InstaGraphs post. That means it’s short. For a variety of reasons, we don’t put up InstaGraphs posts much anymore, but every so often there’s a clear opportunity. I don’t have that much to say here about Yasiel Puig. I just want to show you an image.

As the Dodgers have reached the World Series, Puig has been a major contributor, batting .414 in the playoffs with a wRC+ of 210. He’s struck out just three times, and he’s done that while drawing twice as many walks. Now, let me give you some quick background. Puig has always been pretty aggressive. In 2013, he swung at an above-average rate of first pitches. In 2014, he swung at an above-average rate of first pitches. Same thing happened in 2015. Same thing happened in 2016 and then again in 2017. Puig, historically, has liked to go after the first pitch he’s seen. That’s neither good nor bad on its own; it’s just a thing. But now! Now, look at this.

This shows Puig’s entire career. This is Puig’s rolling-average first-pitch-swing rate, over progressive spans of 50 plate appearances.

It’s plummeted almost to nothing. Already, in 2017, Puig appeared slightly more patient, but now he’s far lower than ever. Puig has batted 35 times in the playoffs. He’s swung at the first pitch only twice. The first pitch has counted as a strike 37% of the time. During the season, that rate was 59%. And, in the playoffs, Puig has been ahead in the count for 45% of all the pitches he’s seen. During the season, that rate was 30%. Puig has the highest playoff rate out of anyone. It’s Yasiel Puig who’s most working the count.

As mentioned, Puig has gone after the first pitch just two times out of 35 in the playoffs. But this seemingly didn’t start right then. Over Puig’s final five regular-season games, he went after the first pitch one time out of 16. He’d gone after four of the previous 16 first pitches, and five of the previous 16 first pitches. Puig’s first-pitch aggressiveness slowed almost to a halt. And, interestingly enough, right before Puig started taking way more first pitches, he was benched for disciplinary reasons. Dave Roberts was annoyed with him. Through September 23, Puig hadn’t drawn a walk in 11 straight starts. Then he was benched. He drew three walks over the last five games, and then the playoffs happened. The discipline has carried over.

I don’t want to suggest that, all of a sudden, Yasiel Puig has a Joey Votto-like approach. I don’t think Puig has one of the best eyes in baseball. But, abruptly, roughly one month ago, Puig stopped swinging so aggressively, especially early on. He’s taken nearly every first pitch, and to this point it’s worked to his benefit. If only temporarily, the Dodgers might’ve gotten through to him. Ideally this would last forever, but, more realistically, it would be nice if it lasted another week and a half. When Puig is in control of his own zone, there’s not much he can’t do.

We’re a few hours away from Game 1 of the World Series, which means we have a few hours to analyze the World Series rosters that were released this afternoon.

The Astros are making no changes to their roster. The same 25 players who were a part of the ALCS roster will also have a World Series experience.

Perhaps the intrigue with the Astros’ World Series roster is whether A.J. Hinch will actually trust his bullpen, a subject Dave tackled earlier today. Also of some interest is the distribution of lefties and righties in Houston’s staff: only two of the former, Dallas Keuchel and Francisco Liriano, will be available for Hinch for the duration of the Series. Perhaps that’s a good thing: as I noted in a post examining the Dallas Keuchel’s Game 1 start, the Dodgers typically crush lefties.

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