PHILADELPHIA — This was what the Phillies had in mind all along: Sweeping three home games to clinch the NLCS, the decisive game featuring a dominant Zack Wheeler performance, a Rhys Hoskins home run, and the other runs scored by the stars the Phillies brought into supplement him — Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, and J.T. Realmuto. And atop it all, Harper, battling to break through against an unhittable reliever, at long last flicking a 98.9-mph slider off the outside of the plate and into the seats.

“I told [hitting coach Kevin] Long before I walked up the steps,” Harper recounted at his postgame press conference. “I said, ‘Let’s give them something to remember.'”

The ensuing at-bat was the most memorable of Harper’s already storied career, turning a 3–2 deficit into a 4–3 pennant-clinching win. An excitable but anxious crowd brought from despair to ecstasy, a dugout full of postseason novices leaping over each other and onto the field to celebrate, and the $330 million man, the one-time child prodigy now a week on the gray side of 30, cantering around the bases.

“J.T. set the tone and put pressure on them right away with a base hit. Then it’s the MVP, right? It’s the showman,” Hoskins said. “This guy finds ways in big situations every single time. I don’t even know how many times he did it this series.”

As much as Harper joined this team with precisely this kind of moment in mind, elements of this victory were not planned. Several years of false starts after the shift out of rebuild mode in the late 2010s, for example. Or a midseason managerial change. Or a sudden rainstorm that almost derailed the whole enterprise and brought the series back to San Diego. No matter. Within minutes of Harper’s home run, Calum Scott and Tiësto’s cover of “Dancing On My Own” was piping through the Citizens Bank Park loudspeakers, and lampposts were already being climbed at Broad and Locust. Read the rest of this entry »

PHILADELPHIA — There are baseball games, and then there’s the Phillies 10-6 win over San Diego in Game 4 of the NLCS. This game lasted four days, saw 19 home runs, and involved 31 pitchers. It was interrupted in the bottom of the fourth inning by plagues of frogs and locusts and decided in the eighth by the timely arrival of Hessian mercenaries. It was loud, maximalist, and weirdly bawdy, like the works of Ken Russell or Electric Six.

The tactical puzzle of postseason baseball has always been about getting the highest possible percentage of innings from the team’s best pitchers. This has been so since Three-Finger Brown. But since 2015, the pursuit of the lockdown postseason pitching staff has consumed the attention of baseball’s top thinkers and empiricists as never before. Can a team conjure an entire staff of front-line starters and lockdown relievers? The Astros seem to have done that this season, but that might be a unique achievement in modern baseball history.

Still other managers — especially Terry Francona in 2016 and Dave Martinez in 2019 — have schemed, finagled, and cajoled their best starters and most trustworthy relievers into the most important situations available. To some extent, this has become the blueprint in October. Pitchers start on short rest, one-inning relievers get stretched to six or seven outs, starters close games on their throw days. Anything to keep the Other Guys out of close games. Read the rest of this entry »

PHILADELPHIA — Jean Segura experienced the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat all in one inning, Rob Thomson managed as if there were no tomorrow, and Ranger Suárez excelled in the biggest start of his career as the Phillies beat the Padres, 4-2, to go up two games to one in the NLCS.

The Padres and Phillies are not only closely matched, but with their great top-end starting pitching and star power at the plate, they make excellent foils for one another. This was the third consecutive tense, close-fought game between the two. After the pitchers’ duel in Game 1 and Game 2’s tilt between Sir Gawain vs. the Green Knight, Game 3 was a contest of tantalizing opportunities. Each side opened the door to the other through some, um, creative defense, but in the end, the Phillies made more of their opportunities.

The recurring theme of this game was the ball on the ground. The night’s 69 plate appearances produced 51 balls in play; of those, 30 were grounders, 18 by the Padres. And even though both teams shifted heavily throughout the game, these grounders seemed to have a habit of going where the fielders weren’t. The Padres had four infield hits, two by Brandon Drury on balls with a launch angle of -20 degrees or worse. There were three groundball double plays, and there could have been a few more.

While the fate of the game was always figuratively just within or just out of reach, an unusually large percentage of Friday was spent with infielders literally reaching for the ball. Sometimes successfully, sometimes not. The first six batters of the game hardly indicated what was to come. Two of Suárez’s three strikeouts came in the first two plate appearances of the game, while Joe Musgrove started the bottom of the first by surrendering the only home run and the only two walks allowed by any pitcher on the night. Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 997

With four teams remaining in the postseason, this week we put our fan hats on before meeting a talented new FanGraphs contributor.

• In the first segment, resident Phillies fan Michael Baumann is joined by site Padres fan Jason Martinez to discuss the NLCS. Jason was at the first two games in San Diego, while Michael will be at each of the next three in Philly; neither expected their team to get this far. We hear about Jason working as a field timing coordinator, Michael being more scared of Manny Machado than Juan Soto, the experience of facing (and watching) Blake Snell, their shared adoration for Jorge Alfaro and Jake Cronenworth, and Jason almost having to help Ralph Sampson to break up a stadium fight. [2:56]
• After that, Dan Szymborski welcomes Davy Andrews for his podcast debut. Davy recently joined the site as a contributor. We hear how he found himself at FanGraphs before learning more about his musical projects. The duo also discuss Jose Altuve’s recent struggles and future Hall of Fame chances, the playoffs being a bit of a crapshoot, what the Dodgers should do in the offseason, being fun uncles, and their strong opinions about baking and cookies. [45:07]

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Audio after the jump. (Approximate 72 minute play time.)

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With a massive first-pitch home run off Aaron Nola on Wednesday afternoon, Josh Bell broke an 0-for-14 slump. He went 3-for-4 in Game 2 of the NLCS, adding an RBI single in the fourth and another base hit in the seventh to go along with his second-inning home run. It was a major improvement over his performance in the first game of the series, when he went hitless in four at-bats and struck out swinging with two runners on to end the ballgame.

When Bell is hot, he can be a terrific offensive performer, and a lineup built around him, Juan Soto and Manny Machado has the potential to be one of the most powerful in baseball. That’s exactly what A.J. Preller was counting on when he pulled off the biggest summer blockbuster in recent memory. When Bell goes cold, however, he’s dead weight in the middle of the lineup.

Just take a look at his wRC+ by month:

More of his success came with the Nationals, but Bell did have a couple of strong stretches in San Diego. From August 20 to September 10, he hit for a 152 wRC+, and did so again from October 1 through the end of the season. The Padres went 14–9 during those two stretches, and Bell led the squad with 0.84 Win Probability Added. In the rest of their games post-deadline, the team went 17–18, and Bell’s -1.55 WPA ranked dead last. When their DH was hitting, the Friars had a more complete offense, and when he wasn’t, he dragged the team down with him. That trend has continued into the postseason; in Padres wins, he is batting .294/.294/.647 with three runs and four RBI (17 PA), and in losses, he’s hitting .100/.182/.100 with no runs or runs batted in (11 PA). Read the rest of this entry »

Stop for a minute. Take a breath. You’re great. Everything will be fine. If I were Blake Snell, that’s what I’d have been telling myself six batters into the second inning Wednesday. Snell came out firing, garnering empty swings and weak contact left and right. The first three batters of the inning produced two flares and a line drive single. After a steadying strikeout, though, this happened:

You can’t control the sun, but that one stings. That ball is as close to a sure out as you can get, and instead it fueled the Philadelphia rally. The next batter, Edmundo Sosa, flipped another flare to left to make it 3-0. Snell was pitching extremely well, and staring down three runs and two more runners on base. The game threatened to get out of hand quickly. Read the rest of this entry »

Well folks, that’s what we call a pitcher’s duel. I don’t think there’s a universal definition for the term, but Wikipedia tells me it’s when both starting pitchers allow very few runners to reach base. That seems about right! Zack Wheeler and Yu Darvish both came up big Tuesday night in San Diego, with each starter limiting the success of the opposing team’s hitters after each offense had put up an incredible performance in their respective Division Series. As the game progressed, both attacked their foes with a variety of pitches spread across the zone. Neither was predictable, and neither gave their manager much reason to remove them, but one made a few more mistakes in a few more at-bats than the other. Those mistakes ended up being the difference in the game.

To understand exactly what happened in those at-bats — specifically, why the batter was successful — it helps to know what happened with each pitch and what the pitcher-catcher tandem’s potential thought process was for each of them. John Smoltz always sprinkles in tidbits about pitch sequencing that are worth listening to when he broadcasts a game. It’s easier said than done, but a pitcher holding back some pieces of their repertoire until later in the game — or say, a hitter’s third at-bat — is a good way to maximize deception. If there’s anyone who knows a thing or two about that, it’s Darvish. Darvish’s never-ending pitch mix allows him to change how he attacks hitters as the game progresses. In his first battle against Bryce Harper, he opted for a three-pitch mix and attacked Harper in the zone. No nibbling the first time around:

Read the rest of this entry »

They ran roughshod over the league for six months thanks to an elite offense, great pitching, and exceptional defense, posting a win total that hadn’t been seen in decades. Yet a stretch of a few bad days in October sent them home, consigning them to the status of historical footnote and cautionary tale. Somebody else would go on to win the World Series.

Such was the fate of the 2001 Mariners, though everything above applies to this year’s Dodgers as well, who won 111 games — the most by any team since those Mariners, and the most by any NL team since the 1909 Pirates — but were bounced out of the playoffs on Saturday night. A Padres team from whom they had taken 14 out of 19 games during the regular season beat them three games to one in the Division Series because they got the clutch hits they needed while the Dodgers didn’t. The combination of an 0-for-20 streak with runners in scoring position that ran from the third inning of Game 1 to the third inning of Game 4 — after which they began another hitless-with-RISP streak — and some puzzling bullpen choices by manager Dave Roberts doomed them.

There’s been plenty of that going ’round. The Padres, who won 89 games this year, were facing the Dodgers only because they first beat the 101-win Mets in the best-of-three Wild Card Series. Earlier on Saturday, the defending champion Braves, who claimed the NL East title with 101 wins this year and like the Dodgers played at a better-than-.700 clip from June through September, were ousted by the Phillies. On Saturday evening, the 99-win Yankees let a two-run lead in the ninth slip away against the 92-win Guardians, pushing them to the brink of elimination, though they rebounded on Sunday night, pushing the series to a decisive Game 5 in New York.

Upsets in short postseason series are practically as old as postseason series themselves. In 1906, in the third modern World Series, the 93-win White Sox, a/k/a “The Hitless Wonders,” took down their crosstown rivals, the 116-win Cubs, four games to two. In 1954, the 97-win Giants beat the 111-win Indians in the World Series. In 1987, the 85-win Twins bumped off the 98-win Tigers and then the 95-win Cardinals. Last year, the 89-win Braves felled the 106-win Dodgers in the NLCS, then the 95-win Astros in the World Series.

Such unexpected wins are a cornerstone of baseball history. As MLB.com’s Anthony Castrovince noted, in terms of the gap in winning percentage between the underdogs and the favorites, the Padres trail only the aforementioned 1906 White Sox in the annals, with a 136-point gap (.549 to .685) compared to the Chicagoans’ 147-point gap (.616 to .763). In third place is the 122-point gap from the 2001 ALCS between the Yankees and Mariners (.594 to .716), and in fourth is the 107-point gap from last year’s NLCS between the Braves and Dodgers (.547 to .654). The 86-point gaps between the Nationals and Astros in the 2019 World Series and between the Braves and Phillies in this year’s Division Series are tied for seventh. By that measure, seven of the top 11 upsets have happened in this millennium. Read the rest of this entry »

Did anybody out there have this one? None of us did. While it’s not altogether surprising that either the Padres or the Phillies, two very good teams, made it this deep into the postseason, it’s incredible that both of them have, considering who they had to go through to get here. While a handful of the FanGraphs staff members picked the Padres to beat the Mets in the Wild Card Series, none of us picked them to beat the Dodgers, and even though the vast majority of us thought the Phillies would dispatch the Cardinals, only two of us picked them to beat Atlanta.

This seems foolish in hindsight, especially as it pertains to the Padres. They have a dangerous heart of the order led by MVP candidate Manny Machado and young star Juan Soto, who is starting to heat up. Neither Max Scherzer nor Spencer Strider seemed 100% in their respective postseason outings (key details that allow for some amount of site-wide absolution), making the Padres the lone NL postseason team with three totally healthy premium starting pitchers in Yu Darvish, Blake Snell, and Joe Musgrove. Their bridge to Josh Hader — Robert Suarez and Luis García in high-leverage spots, Tim Hill as a lefty specialist and Steven Wilson as a mid-90s/slider middle inning rock — might be the best relief corps of the remaining playoff teams, depending on whether you value depth (Houston’s bullpen takes the cake in this department) or peak individual nastiness ceiling (give me the Padres or Guardians). Despite Fernando Tatis Jr.’s suspension and a difficult playoff draw, San Diego has now bested the two teams that spent most of the calendar atop the National League and now enjoys home field advantage in a League Championship Series.

The Phillies are also playing with house money. If you had listened to Philadelphia sports talk radio in August (I was visiting home and fell off the wagon), you’d have thought the Phillies were an awful team rather than a good one that’s simply somewhat incomplete. Even though they (along with the Padres) kind of backed into the playoffs, the depth of their lineup and their two elite starters were obviously enough to make them dangerous in October, and in two playoff series those traits were sufficient to overcome a middling bullpen (which may or may not be without veteran David Robertson again in the NLCS) and bad team defense. With the NLCS set to get underway on Tuesday, we’re no more than a week and a half away from one of these two clubs punching a World Series ticket. Read the rest of this entry »

It had been leading up to this all day. After the Phillies routed the heavily favored Braves, after the Astros clinched their ALCS ticket with a go-ahead home run by Jeremy Peña in the 18th inning, and after Oscar Gonzalez walked up to the SpongeBob SquarePants theme and walked off the Yankees, of course it was the Padres who authored the closing spectacle. Down 3–0 in the seventh of Game 4, they rallied for five runs and are headed to the NLCS, their first in 24 years.

The Dodgers, meanwhile, have been saddled with one of their most humiliating losses in recent memory. A juggernaut in the regular season, none of their 111-win momentum carried over into this elimination game, or the entire series for that matter. For those who enjoy it, Los Angeles’ rapid implosion is a refreshing splash of schadenfreude; the 116-win 2001 Mariners at least made it past the Division Series, but the 2022 Dodgers will live in infamy for having won one measly playoff game.

Their collapse is made all the more heartbreaking by the auspicious start that preceded it. Watching the Dodgers had been an excruciating experience this series, punctuated by brief moments of hope to be deflated soon after. They were 0-for-their-last-20 with runners in scoring position, if that makes sense. But finally, Los Angeles broke through in the third inning. Mookie Betts drew a lead-off walk, Trea Turner doubled, and so did Freddie Freeman to drive in two runs:

For the first time in what felt like an interminable while, the top of the Dodgers’ order resembled the well-oiled, run-producing machine that flattened its opponents. Before it could kick into overdrive, however, Joe Musgrove settled down, getting the two additional outs needed to shut the door.

Speaking of Musgrove, he featured his four-seam fastball 44% of the time, which, considering his regular-season rate of 24%, was uncharacteristic. But it also made perfect sense. The one misconception about the Dodgers, likely popularized by this graphic, is that they are a superb fastball-hitting team. Rather, they are a superb fastball-taking team; their chase-averse tendencies are responsible for a collectively high run value. When attempting to make contact, though, the Dodgers have been objectively terrible. The optimal strategy against them, then, is to throw fastballs for strikes. That’s basically what Musgrove did, even though he sometimes strayed too far to his glove side:

As a result, Musgrove largely cruised through the game. The only other moment of danger he encountered came in the sixth, when fatigue seemed to set in, resulting in a walk followed by a single. But as the internet loves to proclaim, Musgrove got that dog in him. He struck out Chris Taylor looking for the second out, then Gavin Lux swinging on a perfectly-located high fastball for the third. Read the rest of this entry »