Here’s a link to the play, which isn’t yet embeddable. To summarize:

• 5-3 Tigers, top 8
• Runners on 1st and 2nd, nobody out
• Victor Martinez doubles to center
• Torii Hunter scores from second
• Miguel Cabrera tries to score from first
• fails
• Tigers lose 7-6

Cabrera was gunned down on the relay by Jonathan Schoop. Had he remained at third — with nobody out — then the Tigers would’ve had J.D. Martinez up, and he’s really good. It was a questionable decision to send Cabrera at the time, but now it’s even more questionable with the benefit of hindsight, because knowing the subsequent results makes critics of everyone. Brad Ausmus was asked specifically about sending Cabrera in his sad post-game press conference.

Here is pretty much everything you need to know. Obviously, the Tigers benefit if Cabrera scores. Relative to second and third with nobody out, the Tigers’ win expectancy would’ve increased about 0.7%. The cost of the out, however, was -3.2%, and what that yields is a break-even rate of 82%. Or, it makes sense to send Cabrera if you think he can make it 82% of the time. Some shots of Cabrera’s positioning:

Not only does Cabrera not run well — he’s long been playing through discomfort. Do those shots give him an 82% success rate? I don’t know. Probably not. Schoop made a perfect throw home, so that’s a factor, but he would’ve had Cabrera with an imperfect throw, as long as it was decent enough. Given that Martinez was coming up, it seems like Cabrera should’ve stayed put.

Two big points, though:

(1) It wasn’t completely and utterly insane to send Cabrera, since the Tigers would’ve benefited had he scored. Defenses screw up all the time.

(2) Even with the out, the Tigers’ win expectancy was a hair north of 93%. They had a runner in scoring position and a three-run lead with six outs left to get. I don’t care what the Tigers’ bullpen has done lately so much — it’s a big-league bullpen, if barely, and you expect even mediocre relievers to be able to get six outs before allowing at least three runs. Three runs in two innings is a 13.50 ERA, which is above position-player territory. Cabrera probably shouldn’t have gone. Probably, that was a mistake. But this was only a turning point in retrospect. To dwell on Cabrera is to spend time not dwelling on the misery of the Tigers’ relief. Once more, that’s why the game went to shit.