Strategic Slip in Seventh Stunts ‘Stros
When the seventh inning began, the Astros’ chances of winning the World Series looked good. With a rolling Zack Greinke, Gerrit Cole available out of the bullpen, and closer Roberto Osuna fresh, the Astros had a clear path to getting the final nine outs and celebrating a title for the second time in three seasons. It didn’t work out that way. The Nationals rallied, the Astros were defeated, and A.J. Hinch’s decision making merits some scrutiny. Bad outcomes can cause us to believe the decisions that led to those outcomes were poor, when that isn’t always the case. Let’s take a look.
We’ll start with Greinke entering the seventh, take a quick detour, and then get back to him. After six innings, Greinke had made a total of 67 pitches; he got through the sixth on just eight pitches, including a strikeout of Trea Turner to end that frame. While Greinke’s velocity is not a big part of his game, his fastball velocity was still fine and he topped 90 mph on one of the pitches to Turner. Heading into the seventh, Astros manager A.J. Hinch had a few different options. He could continue on with Greinke, go to Cole, go to Osuna, or go to someone else, like Will Harris or Jose Urquidy.
There are two causes for concern with respect to Greinke, one sort of real, the other self-imposed by the Astros. The Greinke-related issue is that he was about to face the Nationals the third time through the order. He had retired Turner, but Adam Eaton, Anthony Rendon, and Juan Soto loomed. But at this point in the game, facing the order a third time should have been of minimal concern. The “penalty” pitchers often experience is due to two factors. One is the rising pitch count of the pitcher. With Greinke only at 67 pitches, that really wasn’t an issue. The other factor is that the third time through, pitchers often pitch against a portion of the lineup that is disproportionately comprised of the better hitters at the top of the order. While that was an issue for Greinke with Eaton, Rendon, and Soto, it would have been a problem for the Astros no matter who was on the mound. So then the question is, who is the better pitcher, a rolling Zack Greinke or one of the bullpen arms?
Will Harris as reliever and Zack Greinke as starter put up roughly equivalent numbers, with FIPs around three. Add to that that Harris had pitched the night before and Greinke seems like he was a sound choice. Urquidy pitched well in the fourth game of the series and also performed well in two relief outings earlier in the postseason. There’s an argument to be made that as a reliever, Urquidy might be a little better than Greinke as a starter, but it isn’t an especially compelling one. Roberto Osuna also put up similar numbers to Greinke’s in the regular season. The idea behind pulling starters is to replace them with relievers who are better. Greinke at 67 pitches is one of the 10 best starters in baseball, and as good or better than most of Houston’s relief options. It doesn’t make a ton of sense to pull him while he’s still on his game.
That leaves Gerrit Cole. It’s not clear why Cole was only going to be available for the ninth inning if Houston got the lead. He was warming earlier in the game. He was pitching on two days rest, so it’s possible he was only going to be available for an inning, and it seems reasonable to want to put him in at the start of an inning so he can be better prepared for it, but having him only available in the ninth to close out a World Series win is an odd choice and makes one wonder if the decision wasn’t entirely baseball-related. In any event, if Cole could have only gone one inning and needed to start it, then sticking with Greinke to start the seventh was completely reasonable.
Here’s where Greinke’s pitches went to the first three batters in that frame, from Baseball Savant.
Against Eaton, he pounded the outside corner away and induced a groundout. Against Rendon, Greinke threw the hardest pitch of his night at 91.8 mph for a ball, and then missed with a changeup that Rendon crushed. The walk to Soto put the winning run on base, but Greinke caught a bit of a bad break during the at-bat. After a 1-0 whiff on an outside curve, Soto took a change outside. Then, he took a change that should have made the count 2-2, but instead made it 3-1. With the count tilted in Soto’s favor, Greinke threw the same curve that got the whiff earlier, but Soto took the pitch and went to first.
With Howie Kendrick coming up, we are faced with a set of questions similar to those from the beginning of the inning. Greinke was now at 80 pitches and with a walk and a homer, the results said he was getting worse. His velocity against Rendon and the tough break against Soto — one of the best hitters in the game regardless of age, with his 155 wRC+ against righties behind only Christian Yelich, Mike Trout, Cody Bellinger, and George Springer (min. 350 PA v RH) this season — it’s not clear that Greinke didn’t do the right thing by not giving in. Cole seemingly needed a clean start to the inning to enter the game, and that logic might have also been true for Urquidy, who had only come in during the middle of an inning with the Astros once. (That relief outing came in the second inning of a September game against the Angels, and while barely worth mentioning, he gave up a single to the first batter.)
In his piece on the same subject, Michael Baumann discussed the reasons why relieving Greinke and bringing in Harris was defensible, though he did acknowledge Harris’ potential wear as a point against it. That Osuna came in later that inning is another point against it (Osuna is better than Harris), but it’s still not clear that pulling Greinke was the right move. With the lineup through Rendon and Soto, unless Greinke was tired, any issues related to the third time through the order were mostly moot. Howie Kendrick has been a good hitter, but he’s not on the level of Rendon or Soto. With Kendrick and then Asdrúbal Cabrera coming up, leaving Greinke in might have been the best play if Hinch was going to bring in a pitcher other than Gerrit Cole or the best reliever. And if Greinke was tiring, he wasn’t really showing it based on velocity and just pitching Soto carefully.
At that point, the decision should have been Osuna or Greinke; if Hinch thought Osuna wasn’t the best available reliever because he had a few slip-ups in the postseason, then the choice should have been sticking with Greinke. Playing by the numbers doesn’t always require pulling the starter. Relievers aren’t necessarily better than the guy currently on the mound, and even good relievers aren’t usually better than a fresh starter if he’s one of the 10 best in the game. Greinke might have had some so-so outings in the playoffs before last night, and his three strikeouts might not have suggested dominance, but 19 called strikes out of the 80 pitches he threw is an indicator that he was keeping Washington off balance. Was relieving Greinke defensible? Sure. Was it the right call? I’m less certain. It’s usually better to take a pitcher out too early than too late, but in the most important plate appearance of the season, Houston’s fifth-best pitcher threw the pitch that lost the Astros the lead and eventually the championship.
Craig Edwards can be found on twitter @craigjedwards.
But Harris was better than Osuna this year by ERA, FIP, xFIP, and DRA. They were tied in SIERA. It’s not crazy to prefer Harris there. I agree, though, that Greinke had probably earned a longer leash.
But that was Harris’ 4th appearance in 5 days, while Osuna was completely rested, and Harris pitched and gave up a homer the day before.
Yes, Harris had pitched a lot. He also hadn’t given up a run the entire postseason until game 6, whereas Osuna’s numbers were not as good. It’s not a slam dunk, but again, it’s not crazy.
Agree 100%. Pulling Greinke was defensible but the wrong call. Putting Harris in instead of Osuna made very little sense. Not using Cole at all in the game made no sense at all.
You don’t know how much longer Greinke would be going. He was at 80 and his first 4 games of the postseason- he threw 61,83,83,95 pitches. The Nats had Kendrick up and after that was Cabrera who for his career is 18-41 vs Greinke with a 1.096 OPS. So Greinke may have gotten Kendrick but that’s it.
I so much agree that not using Cole, no matter how you explain it, was a very bad decision. Reminds me of when Showalter refused to use Britton for 11 innings and ended up losing.
So I watched the 7th inning just now with Greinke. Several of his misses to Eaton and Soto were WELL outside the strike zone. Not nibbling but missing 4-5 inches out of the zone. Soto yes got a lucky call at 2-1, but it was only 2-1 because of a terrible swing by Soto at 2-1- really should have been 3-0. Definitely very easy to see why Greinke got pulled- he had gone from 0-2 to 2-2 on Eaton with 2 not close pitches, then the Homer to Rendon, and then the Soto PA. Sorry but in game 7 of the World Series, in 7th inning, that’s a pull every single time.
He jumped ahead 0-2 to Eaton, didn’t get to 3 balls, and the first ball didn’t miss by much (see https://www.mlb.com/gameday/nationals-vs-astros/2019/10/30/599377#game_state=final,lock_state=final,game_tab=play-by-play,game=599377), he really only threw one bad pitch to Eaton and that was at 1-2. He was being really careful with Soto, as anyone would in such a situation, and he’d been getting the Astros to swing at terrible pitches all day, that was the whole point. He’d been pitching (and fielding) brilliantly the whole game, this just wasn’t evidence that he was losing it.
really careful? maybe- but these were a good 4-5 feet out of the zone. Just like the balls that he threw to Eaton……
Sorry but I just don’t think it’s realistic to criticize Hinch when EVERY SINGLE MANAGER in MLB would have pulled him in 2019- 7th inning mid way thru 3rd time thru the order..
Martinez didn’t pull scherzer and scherzer looked like a dumpster fire. Martinez let Stras go 8 1/3 the day before. Maybe some managers would have pulled Greinke but definitely not all.
Thank you for this!:
“The other factor is that the third time through, pitchers often pitch against a portion of the lineup that is disproportionately comprised of the better hitters at the top of the order. ”
I’ve often thought that the “third-time-through” penalty is simply a factor that SPs often only pitch against the top of the order the third time through, skewing the numbers and making them appear to be a worse choice than a reliever.
The researchers of course have checked that part of it out. Not difficult to compare getting the exact same hitters out the third time through as opposed to first and second times facing them. Factor that out (or I guess more accurately, factor it in), and the effect is still there. Now-familiarity is very clearly a factor in hitters better hitting that pitcher the third time through.
Also another reason for expecting less of Harris the more looks the Nats are now getting at him. A factor that doesn’t exist in the regular season, so not that much of a sample to look at, see it it’s really there. (IMO, sure bet it is, tho’)
IIRC, back when he was invincible Kensley Jansen started to look mortal during his 3rd and later games against the same postseason opponent. Makes sense it could also happen with a two-pitch guy like Harris.
This. I have always thought that a big part of TTO penalty is that batters are now seeing the same pitches, the same release angle, the same motion, etc. for a third time. They might be seeing the 10th or 12th pitch from the same guy at that point.
really would be interesting to see the actual numbers on this by spot in the lineup and not just wrapped all together.
I agree. My impression has always been that it’s familiarity that’s the overwhelming factor, that all hitters’ numbers improved with each succeeding plate appearance against a pitcher in a game.
That’s fine- but lets see what 3rd time thru the order look like vs guys in the 1 hole compared to guys in the 5 hole…..
How does seeing a relief pitcher (with only two pitches) for the third time in a few days compare to a starter like Greinke with six pitches?
Grienke should have stayed in 100% both old school and sabr minded
colossal mistake to pull him
Great article.
I think the more damning critique of inch is not having Cole pitch the 8th inning- down 1 run with 6 outs to go is a VERY high leverage situation. Waiting for a lead is not a great strategy (especially as they were the home team so starting in inning 9, Cole would never be able to pitch with the lead- he’d be covered in champagne instead.
Fox gave us a GREAT camera pan to Cole stalking sullenly from the bullpen to the dugout watching the Nationals celebrate. A perfect visual.
one problem with Cole though for the 8th- in a situation where he would be facing batters 1-3- Cole’s regular season 1st inning ERA of 3.55 was his worst of any inning he threw all year long. So no guarantee he would have done any better by any stretch.
The 1st inning is typically the most difficult one for starting pitchers, for that reason which you identify right smack dab there in your 1st sentence. (yes, by random chance any starter will likely have some statistically tougher inning most individual seasons)
yep….
Also, not sure how excited they would be having Cole face Soto again if someone got on base…. 4-6 with a double and 2 homers in the series that matchup. 2.500 OPS.
I thought this was the likely explanation for not bringing in Cole.
Yeah did a bit of looking even more with Cole in 1st innings…. not good. 3.55 ERA, but also a 4.82 FIP. 1.9 hr/9 innings… Not that good at all.. And that’s on normal rest…. No telling what he would be in that situation.
Astros fan here, and agree about Cole. To me, the two biggest errors were pulling Greinke too early and not bringing in Cole for the eighth.
Re: Osuna v. Harris, if he brought Osuna into the 7th after Harris gave up a few baserunners, that suggests he wasn’t generally afraid of using Osuna that early; if that’s true, why not go to him immediately? If he gets out of the inning, you could either trot him back out for the eighth, or bring Cole in to start a clean inning. If Cole did well, Hinch could think about bringing him back out for the ninth; if he didn’t, he’d still have Harris/Smith/Pressly to combine to finish the eighth and ninth.
I love A.J. Hinch. He’s a fantastic manager who handles people and statistics fantastically. The decisions in this game were mind-boggling to me.
I’m not an Astros’ fan so I don’t too much about him but this year there’ve been a number of bizarre moves he made. Pitching Verlander on short rest vs. the Rays was something I wildly criticized at the time and Verlander’s mediocre performance after that supports this. Using Pressly in the 7th inning of game 2 was bizarre. And the fact that he decided to use Cole yesterday only to protect a lead because that’s what the Red Sox did with Sale last year suggests pretty strongly that there are a few vacant rooms upstairs.
Both of those decisions make sense to me. Pitching Verlander on short rest made sense because if it worked, Verlander could start G2 of the ALCS on normal rest. If it didn’t, the Astros still had Cole on regular rest in G5. If you think Verlander and Cole are both most effective as starters, starting Verlander Game 4 gives you the best chance to win either game (and it turns out this worked).
Pressly was one of the Astros’ best relievers over the past two years, and down 1, I can understand wanting to have Osuna and Harris in your back pocket for the eighth and ninth if the Astros come back. In fact, throughout the season, the Astros’ normal bullpen progression with the lead in innings 7-9 was Pressly, Harris, Osuna (Pressly and Harris switched on occasion, but still). It’s not like Hinch threw Wade Miley out there–he went with a guy who had been a star all season, but just struggled on that particular day.
I’ve already argued against both of those decisions at length here but to very briefly sum up (a) when you’re leading a series 2-1, you worry about winning that series and then you worry about the next one, (b) if you insist on worrying about the next series, worry about generally not exhausting your pitchers, and (c) pressly had been lousy since coming back from his injury.
Having Cole warm up so as to give Astros fans one last tease of what they’ll miss when he signs elsewhere was the wrong call.
Good article. Harris looked worn down in Game 2 – I cant imagine anyone saying “that’s a good move” when it happened. It’s absurd in Game 7, with the entire team available, to examine season-long advanced statistics.
I think the even less defensible move, however, was having Smith and Pressly in there before Urquidy.
…or all three of them before Cole.
Of course. I meant to say that even if we buy Hinch’s “no Cole unless it’s a lead in the 9th” argument (which in itself is terrible logic), it’s *still* bad.
Craig, many people have hypothesized that the decline of pitchers going through the order also has something to do with increasing familiarity by the batters. I’m surprised you didn’t include this in your rationale. Is there some research to suggest this isn’t the case?
There’s a Carleton piece linked in mine that indicated it was more pitch count than familiarity.
Thanks Craig. It would be nice to see someone replicate that analysis, but it’s beyond my skillset. Will read several more times.
Good article. It worked out (in the sense that the Nats won), but I question the move by Dave Martinez to leave Scherzer in to start the 5th (and maybe also the 4th). Unlike Greinke, Scherzer kept getting into trouble and did not look sharp at all. He was also coming off of back spasms that might explain his struggles. Meanwhile the Nats had Corbin and Sanchez available to relieve (I at least assume that Sanchez was available) along with Doolittle and Hudson. Scherzer was lucky to give up only 2 runs in that outing.
If there is one defining thread in Davey Martinez’ managerial style, it’s that he sticks with his guys as long as possible. Sometimes to the team’s detriment, granted, but in the end it all worked out.
My feeling at the time was that if Scherzer only gives up one more run in the 5th, it’s worth it, for psychological reasons. Pulling Scherzer after 4 would be an ignominious retreat; pulling him after 5 is just being prudent. I don’t have an objective basis for this but that’s what I felt at the time.
Greinke has was truly baffling hitters with his eephusesque wizardry for much of last night. Hitters were as off-balance as Ben Affleck on a typical evening. Despite this, I somewhat understand (albeit not agree with) the managerial move to pull the Grienkster.
Greinke does not have a stellar postseason history. Hence Davey got twitchy with the bullpen phone and took decisive action to limit further damage, in his view. That I understand. Don’t agree with it based on how well he was throwing the ball for majority of the game, but I get the philosophy.
However I don’t understand not using Cole to get a few game-changing outs at that point, or even Osuna-then-Cole, or something. Would seem to be the best obvious resource strategy to employ.
Yes Greinke’s postseason history has been spotty but all someone had to do yesterday was to pay attention to the game to see that Greinke was on. He was putting on a show, not just with his pitching but maybe even more with his fielding. Looking at the game I couldn’t help thinking of Jack Morris in Game 7 in 1991, a pitcher with close to Hall of Fame credentials playing the game of his life in the biggest forum in the game. And then boom, Hinch pulls him for no good reason.
Huh? Who’s the Davey that was twitchy with the bullpen phone to take out Grienke? I think you’re mixing up your managers here. Unless A.J. is short for “Davey”!
Maybe Davey’s heart has some special powers now… Made AJ(and Dave Roberts before) turn into imbecile’s.
I think the gutsy move would have been to not bother to sending Greinke back out for the 7th. Pitch count was low but sending him out to face the heart of the lineup one more time was asking for it. Same thing the night before with sending Verlander out for the 5th. Cole should have started the 7th. The Nationals had a better game plan–went straight to Corbin after Sherzer was done and, in part, because of their willingness to use their best available arms to get the most outs the Nats won.
i think sending ANYONE out there to face Rendon and Soto was “asking for it”
As others note, the indefensible move was Cole sitting on his heinie throughout the whole thing. You don’t want him coming in in the middle of an inning? OK, fine, professional athletes even more than the rest of us are creatures of habit. You only want him to go 1 inning? Why? Why? Well, OK maybe, Hinch might know something we don’t know about how strong Cole actually is right just now. You only want him in with a lead? Huh?!? Why? Whatever in the wide wide world of sports why? Even never mind that as of the top of the 9th inning that’s become impossible. Just no defense for Cole not starting the 9th, and probably keeping the Astros 2 runs closer. An absolute blunder by Hinch in Game 7 of the World Series.
I saw an article which quoted Hinch as referring to the Red Sox using Sale that way in the Series last year so he decided to do it. I was like wow, this was his reasoning?
In the subtitle, you ask: “Is this all just hindsight nonsense?” Yes, it is. I don’t think there’s an obvious case to be made either way. The whole thing about it being better to take out a pitcher too early instead of too late you mention at the end is adequate, and there’s no point in saving your pitchers for the next game. It’s not like there’s any evidence that on a per-rate basis, either Harris or Osuna or Urquidy were going to be worse than Greinke after pitching a bunch already. You only had a couple of innings left to go if you’re going to have Cole pitch the ninth. I’m willing to bet that switching away from Greinke vs. keeping him in is not something that we could meaningfully predict the value of in advance, and it’s really hard to make the case that swapping him out was the definitive wrong move.
I do think the Cole thing only pitching in the ninth inning is on point, like they didn’t want to hash out the Osuna-Taubman thing all over again. I think it’s pretty obvious that if you think that there’s no performance dropoff from Osuna to Cole, having Cole close out the game is preferable. But at the same time, it is also literally the ninth inning of game seven of the world series. Given their aspirations and Osuna’s designated role, if they didn’t anticipate a situation like this when they acquired Osuna, they made a colossal error.
Wow, if not wanting to see Osuna close it is why they didn’t put Cole in, and so lost some probability of coming back… that’s sweet justice for their batterer discount.
One out, Soto on first, and Kendrick then Cabrera up next. You’re kidding yourself if you don’t take Greinke only on 80 pitches over a taxed Harris.
Mr. Edwards is right, if Hinch HAD to make a change then Osuna/Cole were the best options. But the best option was to keep Greinke in the game and face two batters who he previously induced two groundball outs from.
I think we are underrating Davey sticking to Scherzer. He could have gone early to Corbin after the 2nd inning but stuck with Scherzer because he was the best pitcher available. Process-wise, we will say Hinch had the better one over Davey but who won the game? Does that not then require reexamining the process?
I agree with leaving Scherzer in but not because he was the best pitcher available–he just wasn’t that good yesterday and that was obvious early. Scherzer should have stayed in because he’s been the face of the franchise for a long time (sorry, Bryce…) and having him pitch his guts out was going to inspire his teammates more than anything Corbin could do.
If the Nats needed THAT kind of inspiration IN THE 7TH GAME OF THE FREAKING WORLD SERIES, then something is seriously wrong!
I am a huge fan of A.J. Hinch. His handling of the relief pitching in the 2017 AlCS and WS was masterful when he allowed McCullers to go 4 against the Yankees in Game 3 of the ALCS then using Peacock for 3 2/3 in Game 3 and then letting Morton do his thing in Game 7 against the Dodgers was brilliant and flew in the face of many who wanted Giles to pitch the 9th in those games. In this instance though he made the opposite mistake and it may well have cost him the WS. Greinke had been close to perfect and then gave up a HR to one of Baseball’s best players, it happens. It is almost fitting that another awful call by an umpire, Jim Wolf in this case, was so important. The 2-1 pitch to Soto was clearly a strike but he missed it and that led to the walk and Greinke’s removal. He had only thrown 80 pitches and had just failed to get two of baseball’s best hitters out, happens all the time but Hinch overreacted and brought in the wrong man. Harris is a fine pitcher but he was abused and was losing something after excessive usage. Hinch should have allowed Greinke to show him if he still had the magic that he had shown all night before yanking him. Being one of the oldest regular bloggers on this site I can say with absolute, not virtual, certainty that if Gibson, Palmer, Ford, Reynolds, Seaver or Walter Johnson himself had been on the mound, there would not even have been a mouse stirring in the bullpen. Sorry A.J., this one’s on you.
Wait, you saw Walter Johnson play?
I wouldn’t say it’s on Hinch but I would say that he made a series of decision in the last 3 innings which went from bad to inexplicable. I also have a strong feeling that for some reason he may not have noticed that one of the balls to Soto was clearly a bad call and this may have encouraged him to overreact in terms of thinking that Greinke was losing it.
Given the examples you mentioned, it seems to me that Hinch’s great ability–it could even be said to be his innovation–is knowing how to use starters or quasi-starters in very long relief in the playoffs. Obviously there have been isolated cases like this in the past but Hinch has used it as a standard strategy. The question then is why didn’t he do it with Cole on Wednesday. Although I’ve been totally critical of Hinch pulling Greinke when he did, if he had pulled him for Cole literally after the second time through the order–that is, 4 batters earlier–I would have understood the logic behind it (avoid the 3rd time through the order, put the ball in the hands of your best pitcher for presumably the rest of the game). That would have in keeping with how he’s done things in the past. But for some reason he didn’t do it, and apparently he didn’t even consider doing it. For some reason he had decided beforehand that he would use Cole essentially as a closer, which considering that Cole has been considerably worse in the first inning than other innings sounds like the worst possible idea. Somehow he got the idea that Boston did it with Sale last year, so he should do it with Cole this year. There was some kind of short circuit in his brain.
I have a feeling that either Hinch or someone upstairs had decided that Cole had to close out a win as a way to induce him to at least potentially resign with Houston. For whatever reason, they decided that having him pitch when they were already losing was just as bad for his morale as having him not pitch.
Just imagine the second guessing that Hinch would have been lambasted with if he pulled Greinke after the 6 innings he had thrown and whoever came in had blown the game. Those 6 innings were simply as good as a pitcher could do. His pitch count was 67 after 6 and there was no reason in the world to yank him then. At least the occurrences in the top of the 7th gave him some cover to pull him, which I think was a mistake but wasn’t an unreasonable decision.
There’s nothing to see here as Craig points out. All of this was flip of a coin and AJ got unlucky. The real issue is that the Astros couldn’t score more against scherzer and left the game this close. The night before Rendon made the bad umpire call moot by hitting a Soul-destroying homer. Had the Astros had a 4-5 run lead, this would be a non-issue.
Great teams take the umps and managers out of the equation and win it cleanly. And to pile on, the Nats then steam-rolled the Astros bullpen to put the game out of reach.
The nationals were clearly the best post-season team gutting out a tough series against the dodgers and smoking the Cardinals in an incredibly lop-sided series. Then they beat the Astros four times in Houston .
I’m a cardinals fan but loved the way the Nats won.
Only in modern baseball could a pitcher who’d only thrown 80 pitches, and who had just pitched around the one guy on the other team that everyone agreed the Astros weren’t going to let beat them, be taken out of the game. As for a couple pitches being off the plate in the 7th inning Greinke had gotten batters to chase those pitches all game. They weren’t a reason to remove him. Managers are too afraid that someone’s going to criticize them for leaving a starter in the game. I also wonder if Hinch had been told that he shouldn’t have Osuna closing out a victory because of his background and the controversy the Astros had already faced about him.
I don’t buy the clean-inning excuse: if you can bring Urquidy in with the bases loaded, you can bring Cole in with a man on first.
I think Hinch botched the seventh inning, but I wouldn’t say he lost the Series, any more than I’d say Dave Roberts lost his. Bellinger and Seager didn’t drive in a single run. The Astros had plenty of chances to score. It was a team loss.