NLDS Game Three Review: Philadelphia

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.