Two Cy Young Award winners have never matched up in Game 7 of the World Series before. Zack Greinke and Max Scherzer are unlikely to win that award this season, but they are still at relative high-points in their careers; Scherzer’s 6.5 WAR ranked fourth among pitchers this season, while Greinke’s 5.4 was not that far behind and put him ninth.

This is the 40th Game 7 in history. Here are the best pitchers ever to pitch in a Game 7, by their WAR in the season during which they started that year’s final game.

Read the rest of this entry »

Nationals manager Dave Martinez was ejected from Game 6 of the World Series last night. According to Jayson Stark, his simmering rage was set aflame by third-base umpire Gary Cederstrom telling him to “control your dugout,” which had come alive with criticism of the events of the evening, chiefly the squabble that erupted in regards to Trea Turner being called out at first for interference in the seventh inning.

Normally, a manager getting ejected isn’t incredible news, but everything with “World Series” in front of it becomes more distinct and historic, including the screaming.

To learn how Martinez’s ejection measures up with his equally ejected World Series predecessors, we can find plenty of singular instances dotting history. The first occurred in 1907, when Tigers manager Hughie Jennings was “shooed” away by the umpire for “back talk” regarding a play at second base, according to the St. Louis Dispatch. This characterized the majority of the disputes that ended in aggressive thumb-movements by the umpires over the next two decades in the Fall Classic, except in the case of “Wild Bill” Donovan, who was ejected from a World Series game in 1909 for talking to his third base coach for too long. But to be a part of the golden age of World Series ejections, there’s no question that we have to go back to the 1930s. Read the rest of this entry »

The Nationals won last night thanks to a great outing from Stephen Strasburg and a big home run from Anthony Rendon in the seventh inning. But just before Rendon’s homer, this play happened, per our Play Log:

Trea Turner grounded out to pitcher.

That description is a little lacking. How about this:

Turner was called out for interference. Dave Martinez got mad at the umpires. Trea Turner got mad that Joe Torre wasn’t doing anything. There was a delay, and at its end, Turner was still out. Rendon hit a homer that reminded everyone of Rasheed Wallace and the Nationals forced a Game 7, but the play and the rule deserve some scrutiny.

We should first address the rule we are talking about. Turner’s offense was not your standard interference call under Rule 6, as that type of interference requires intent like on this rather famous play:

Read the rest of this entry »

Stephen Strasburg has apparently decided to defy the notion that two-seamers are out of style in today’s game. Having rarely thrown the pitch from 2015-16, and not at all in 2017, Strasburg bumped up his use of the two-seamer in 2018, and more than doubled it in 2019. This season, pitchers threw the two-seam fastball 14.7% of the time on average; three of Strasburg’s six appearances in October doubled that mark.

That’s a sign he has a lot of faith in the pitch, considering the league wOBA for both the regular and postseason sits at .360.

Strasburg also is using a curveball, with great success, to the tune of a .159 wOBA against. What do these two pitches have in common? Allow me to explain. Read the rest of this entry »

Though the final score was once again lopsided, Tuesday night’s Game 6 was this World Series’ most entertaining game since the opener, even if much of it pivoted upon lengthy debates of rules both written (the seventh-inning interference call against Trea Turner) and unwritten (the bat-carrying homers of Alex Bregman and Juan Soto). Beyond those controversies, Stephen Strasburg‘s 8.1 innings and Anthony Rendon’s pair of late-inning hits headlined the Nationals’ winning effort. The latter also helped rescue what has been something of a dull World Series from some ignominious distinctions.

Rendon’s two-run seventh-inning homer off Will Harris did not swing the lead; the fifth-inning homers of Adam Eaton and Soto off Justin Verlander did that job. Rendon’s blow did divert attention away from the scrutiny over Turner’s path to first base after hitting a dribbler to pitcher Brad Peacock, as well as the long on-field delay for what was actually ruled an un-reviewable judgment call. Instead of having runners at second and third with no outs, the Nationals had a runner on first and one out, and boy, were they — and just about everybody outside of Houston — extremely pissed. The tension ratcheted up a few notches when Eaton, the next batter after Turner, popped up to third base on the first pitch from Harris. Two pitches later, Rendon pulverized a cutter that Harris left in the middle of the plate; that’s a 2019 postseason-high 43.4 degree launch angle for you aficionados of such matters:

The ball-don’t-lie homer stretched the Nationals’ lead to 5-2, and while it produced some mutterings about how the lead should have been 6-2 had the umpires not screwed up the call (as well as some terrible puns), such gripes get filed in the category of what Yankees play-by-play voice Michael Kay calls “the fallacy of the predetermined outcome” — the assumption that the inning would have unfolded in exactly the same manner as it did with that one change; we can’t know how Harris, Eaton, and Rendon would have approached their respective tasks in the parallel universe where two runners were on base. Nationals manager Davey Martinez was still hot enough to get run even after the inning finished. Read the rest of this entry »

Through seven minutes after the 8 pm E.T. Wednesday night, when Justin Verlander threw the first pitch of Game 6 to Washington’s Trea Turner, the 2019 World Series had recorded one lead change, zero home wins, and the lowest TV ratings in series history. What it needed, at least from the perspective of a non-partisan observer, was a little action, a little controversy, a little red blood in its veins. It got precisely that. This World Series is going to Game 7 tonight in Houston, and all it took to get there was two lead changes, five RBI from Anthony Rendon, a six-minute “replay” review, a managerial ejection, and quite possibly the best-traveled bats in Fall Classic history. That and 8.1 terrific innings from Stephen Strasburg.

In a moment of what we in the writing business call “foreshadowing,” the very first play of the game — a Turner groundball to Alex Bregman at third base — resulted in a replay review. The call on the field (out at first) was swiftly and uncontroversially overturned, and Turner took his base — and then a second — on his way to scoring the first Washington run of the game on an Rendon single to right (also, as it turns out, a sign of things to come). In a less eventful game, or one in which the final score was reversed, we might make more here of Dave Martinez’s decision to use Adam Eaton (and a bunt) to move Turner over in this inning; as we are consequentialists, we will not.

That first Nationals lead was itself overturned fewer than 10 minutes later, when a José Altuve sacrifice fly and a mammoth Bregman home run in the bottom of the inning put Strasburg on his heels and the score at 2-1 going into the second. Somewhat more importantly, given what was to come, Strasburg took just 13 pitches to get through his inning; Verlander threw 17. The next inning, which was scoreless for both clubs, added 7 and 12 to those totals. The third — also scoreless, though featuring a lively threat from Juan Soto — added 15 and 25, and by the time the fourth inning drew to a close, Verlander had thrown nearly 40% more pitches than his counterpart, and 75 on the game. He was, quite clearly, tiring. Read the rest of this entry »

In a World Series that has been notable for its lack of drama — one lead change in five games, and the largest average margin of victory in at least a decade, as Tony Wolfe discovered — Kurt Suzuki owns the biggest swing of the bat. The 36-year-old backstop’s seventh-inning home run off Justin Verlander in Game 2, which broke a 2-2 tie, produced the highest WPA of any single play thus far, at least by our measures. Suzuki has been sidelined since the middle of Game 3 due to a right hip flexor strain, and at this writing, it’s not clear yet whether he will be able to help Stephen Strasburg and the Nationals in their quest to stave off elimination.

On Monday, Suzuki participated in on-field workouts and told reporters that he had been potentially available in an emergency during the two games that he missed, and that his condition was improving: “It feels better, obviously. I got some treatment and stuff like that, and it’s progressing… Going to do some stuff today and we’ll figure out more tonight after we get into Houston about tomorrow. Everything is looking good so far.”

Though he was behind the plate for just 17 of Strasburg’s 33 starts during the regular season — a situation that owed something to a bout of right elbow inflammation that limited the catcher to five September starts, only one of which was paired with Strasburg — Suzuki has caught all four of the 31-year-old righty’s postseason turns. The results have been stellar, as Strasburg has delivered a 2.16 ERA with 36 strikeouts and two walks in 25 innings. Suzuki’s contributions with the bat during that run have been few and far between; he went hitless in 16 plate appearances during the Division Series, was 0-for-17 in 21 PA for the postseason by the time he collected a single off Jack Flaherty in NLCS Game 3, and is batting just .100/.229/.200 in 35 PA this October.

Other aches and pains may be contributing to his struggles; he needed x-rays on his left hand as well as concussion tests after being hit on the wrist and then on the noggin by a single Walker Buehler pitch in Game 5 of the Division Series. Nonetheless, he’s done the heavy lifting behind the plate for the Nationals, starting 10 the team’s 15 postseason games and eight of their 10 wins. Read the rest of this entry »

In 2012, Stephen Strasburg didn’t pitch for Washington in the postseason after being shut down due to injury concerns. He did make his playoff debut in 2014, and in one start gave up two runs in five innings while striking out just two with a walk and a hit-by-pitch. It wasn’t a great start to his postseason career, but since that outing, Strasburg has been incredible. He made two starts against the Cubs in the NLDS in 2017. He went seven innings in the first one, striking out 10 and walking just one while giving up two unearned runs in a loss. In an elimination game later that series, Strasburg again went seven innings, this time striking out 12 against two walk and no runs in a Nationals victory. That 2017 NLDS gave everyone a taste of what Strasburg could do in the playoffs, and this year, he’s putting together one of the greatest postseason runs of all time with a chance to keep the Nationals title hopes alive tonight.

Strasburg first appeared this postseason in a season-saving relief outing in the Wild Card game in which his three shutout innings kept Washington within range before the offense could make a comeback and advance to the NLDS. Against the Dodgers in the next round, he struck out 10 batters in six innings with no walks and just one run to keep the Nationals from going down 0-2 in the five-game series. Then, in his only blip of the postseason, Strasburg gave up three runs in the first two innings of the deciding game against the Dodgers, but he allowed no runs over the next four as the Nationals won in 10 innings. He shut down the Cardinals with 12 strikeouts and no walks in seven innings in the third contest of a four-game NLCS sweep. Finally, in the second game of the World Series, Strasburg outdueled Justin Verlander and threw 114 pitches in six difficult innings to hold the Astros to two runs. Read the rest of this entry »

Game 4 of the World Series started like gangbusters for the Houston Astros in Washington. A game-opening strikeout by Patrick Corbin against George Springer was followed with four straight singles, producing two runs to give Houston the first lead of the night. Corbin was able to leave the bases loaded in the top of the first to keep his side in the game, but when his pitcher opponent Jose Urquidy took the mound in the bottom half of the inning, he made quick work of the Nationals, inducing two foul pop-ups and stranding Anthony Rendon after his two-out single.

The rest of the game carried on, well, pretty much exactly like that. Each starter traded scoreless innings in the second and third innings, but then the Astros added on with a two-run homer by Robinson Chirinos in the fourth. Washington put up some fight by loading the bases with one out in the bottom of the sixth to bring Juan Soto up representing the tying run, but all Soto could do was bring in a single run with an otherwise harmless groundout. The Astros got their own bases-loaded opportunity the very next inning, and they didn’t miss it, with Alex Bregman crushing a grand slam to put the game out of reach. Houston got a lead early, and aside from a fleeting moment or two, never really seemed in danger of losing it, eventually tacking on enough insurance to make the Nationals’ final few at-bats little more than a formality. Here’s what the win probability chart looked like from that game:

After the fourth batter of the night, Washington’s win probability was never higher than 40%. After the sixth inning, it was never better than 15%. All told, it looked like a typical one-sided baseball game. There’s nothing wrong with that on its face, but when stacked up next to the other four games that have taken place in this World Series, there’s been a troubling trend. According to our calculations, the loser of Game 1, Houston, never had better than a 36.5% chance to win that game after the fifth inning. In Game 2, Houston’s odds of winning were below 2% entering the eighth. Washington’s highest odds of winning after the fifth inning of Game 3 were just 24.5%, and its odds of winning Game 5 after the fourth inning were never better than 13.2%. Read the rest of this entry »

When the Nationals took an early lead in the World Series, there was a popular cry for the team to knock the Astros out while they could. Expend resources you were planning on saving for later in the series, turn Patrick Corbin into a reliever, maybe bring back some starters on short rest: what does it matter if you hurt your chances of winning Game 7, the thinking goes, if Game 7 never happens?

A softer version of this came up as the Cardinals walloped the Braves in Game 5 of the NLDS. The game was already decided. Why not pull Jack Flaherty so that he could pitch Games 1 and 5 of the NLCS rather than Games 3 and 7? It’s not an identical situation, but it relies on the same logic: earlier games happen more often, so get your pitchers into those.

Tomorrow night, there will be yet another version of this discussion. The Astros are a win away from ending the series. If the game goes into extra innings, say, or Justin Verlander gets knocked around but the offense keeps the team in it, would Houston use Zack Greinke in an attempt to end things right then and there? And should they?

While these questions are similar, they’re not identical. Does this reallocation of win probability matter? The answer, as it often is, is “it depends.” I believe the answers to these three questions are “not much,” “not at all,” and “more than you’d think,” respectively, and I’ll attempt to lay out why I think that is the case here.
Read the rest of this entry »