The Rays Pull Off a Wild Game 4 Victory
The 2004 movie Primer is widely considered the most complicated movie plot of all time. Two engineers travel back in time again — and again — and maybe before?? — and again in an attempt to mold events to their own benefit. It’s a truly ridiculous, convoluted mess — and it pales in comparison to what the Dodgers and Rays did last night in Game 4 of the World Series.
Let’s begin at the beginning. Ryan Yarbrough took the mound for the Rays, on three days’ rest after a relief appearance in the first game of the series, and he wasn’t sharp. He surrendered solo home runs to Justin Turner and Corey Seager, and scattered three other hits and a walk while striking out only one batter. He was out of the game in the top of the fourth.
Julio Urías, his counterpart, flirted with brilliance. He struck out nine Rays out of the 18 he faced, bullying the opposing lineup to the tune of 20 swinging strikes. Tampa Bay whiffed 17 times on his fastball alone, and his curveball accounted for another 10 called strikes. Naturally, the Rays tagged him for two home runs — a Randy Arozarena first-pitch ambush and a full-count moonshot from Hunter Renfroe. The Dodgers had added a run in the top of the fifth, so Urías left with a 3-2 lead.
LA added another run in the sixth inning,, and the game felt like it might start getting away from Tampa Bay in a hurry. The Dodgers bullpen isn’t airtight, but the Rays’ own bullpen hadn’t been able to slow down opposing hitters all series, and they were running out of good options to fill innings. What was the offense going to do, score six runs in four innings or something?
Well, about that. Dave Roberts called on Blake Treinen to start the bottom of the sixth. The righty sinker-baller was a natural fit against the reincarnated form of Joe DiMaggio Arozarena, Mike Brosseau, and Manuel Margot. Arozarena, though, dumped a single into center, and Ji-Man Choi followed up with a walk. Wait, Ji-Man Choi?
Kevin Cash had started the dugout wheels in motion. The Rays run an extensive platoon system, which means that they had a bench full of lefties. Brosseau hit the bench in favor of Choi, who drew a walk. Austin Meadows replaced Margot, but Treinen overmatched him with three straight breaking balls. That left runners on first and second for another lefty, Brandon Lowe.
Dave Roberts wasn’t going to stick with Treinen. He had to go to the bullpen, and after he’d just been burned by the three-batter minimum when bringing in Treinen, he seemed hesitant to bring in a lefty to face Lowe. If the inning continued, the next two batters were both right-handed, and they’d have the platoon advantage in a high-leverage situation.
Instead, he went with the relatively platoon-immune Pedro Báez, a righty who has been better against opposite-handed batters in his career. That seems like good strategy, except: why not just bring in a lefty and give yourself the best chance of retiring Lowe? Win that matchup — end the inning right there — and the minimum stops mattering. Some new reliever can come in to face the righties next inning.
Anyway — Roberts didn’t do that. He sent in a righty to face the Rays’ best lefty, and yep, Lowe detonated a three-run homer to put the Rays back in the lead. Báez recovered to get the last two outs, but uh… the Rays sent their best hitter to the plate, which Roberts countered by giving him a platoon advantage that also wasn’t his best righty reliever. Whoops, I guess?
Luckily for Roberts, his team picked him up. With runners on second and third and one out, stopper Nick Anderson entered and Cash started getting weird himself. After Anderson dispatched Will Smith, Cash intentionally walked Cody Bellinger to load the bases. Anderson then fell behind pinch hitter Joc Pederson and had to huck a fastball down the middle on 3-1. Pederson lined a single off of a diving Lowe’s glove, and just like that, the Dodgers were back on top.
It didn’t last long. Báez was somehow still out there — Kevin Kiermaier, another lefty, hit another home run to bring the Rays back into a tie. He escaped the inning after that, but just — that’s a lot of Pedro Báez in one game, and it didn’t pan out all that well at any point.
Anderson, too, struggled in his second inning. Despite Los Angeles’s best efforts to hand him outs — Enrique Hernández popped out on a sacrifice bunt attempt — the Dodgers offense couldn’t be stopped. Seager flared a single into left field, and they’d beaten Anderson twice; the Dodgers led again, and despite Roberts’ strange meandering bullpen management, they were six outs away from a commanding 3-1 lead.
Soon enough, they were only three outs away. The Rays’ plan of liberally using lefty pinch hitters left their lineup full of all-lefty pockets, and so Adam Kolarek, a lefty specialist, got to face Choi, Meadows, and Lowe. He got the latter two, and Brusdar Graterol then entered to finish off the inning.
When the Rays went out to the field for the top of the ninth, they did it in a novel defensive alignment. Roberts hadn’t been the only one using his bench in strange ways; Cash pinch ran for Choi in the bottom of the eighth, which left him totally out of first basemen. Renfroe, with exactly nine professional innings of experience at the position, took over. Luckily for Tampa Bay, John Curtiss got three fly outs, but even still, the Rays were down to their last three outs.
Then things got weird. Kenley Jansen came in for a three-out save and retired pinch-hitter Yoshi Tsutsugo. That left the Rays essentially bench-less; only catcher Michael Perez remained, and they were already playing in a stretched defensive alignment as it was. Kiermaier followed with a broken-bat single into center, Joey Wendle lined out, and it was time for the main event: Arozarena against Jansen with the game on the line.
Just one problem: the game wasn’t actually on the line. Due to Cash’s earlier machinations, Brett Phillips was batting after Arozarena. Jansen simply didn’t give Arozarena much to hit (though the 92 mph first-pitch cutter that stayed in the zone undoubtedly made Dodger fans nervous); why lose to the hottest batter on the opposing team when you can face off against their worst batter instead? Jansen surrendered a walk, but that was hardly the worst outcome there. Beat the light-hitting Phillips, and the Dodgers could go home happy.
Instead, an already-absurd game hit a fever pitch. Phillips hit a clean line drive to right, scoring Kiermaier to tie the game. Chris Taylor bobbled the ball, which sent Arozarena around third in an attempt to win the game then and there. Only one problem: he slipped and fell on the way home, which made an already-unlikely chance of beating the throw home downright impossible.
No one told catcher Will Smith that Arozarena had fallen, however. He tried to save the game for the Dodgers with a miracle tag, a grab-and-blind-stab to thwart Arozarena at the very last second. In doing so, however, he lost the ball, and there was no backup to be found; in the fracas, Jansen had somehow remained in the no-man’s land of the infield grass. A sheepish Arozarena simply stood up and eased home uncontested to end the game in Tampa Bay’s favor.
Where can you start with a game like this? Both managers got fancier than they needed to, and it showed. Cash got substitution-happy, and it almost cost him. Not only did he run out of pinch hitters, but he was forced to play a strange defensive alignment, and pinch-running for Choi removed a key bat while the team still trailed. Choi’s spot came up with the game on the line. His pitching management was just as overwrought; he burned through relievers so quickly that Blake Snell was in the bullpen warming up to cover extra innings. There was simply no one else.
Roberts was comparatively restrained, but somehow ended up with worse results. He had his entire bullpen rested, every arm ready to go — and in the biggest spot in the game, two men on and the Rays’ best lefty hitter at the plate, he brought in a righty. Then he left that same righty in to give up another home run to a lefty in the next inning.
He also, for whatever reason, continued his new love of bunting to disastrous effect. Nick Anderson has looked off all postseason, and he continued the trend last night, but Roberts quenched the fires a bit by calling for a sacrifice bunt. It wasn’t a great spot for a bunt, even had it worked, but instead it nearly rescued Anderson from himself. In terms of managerial meddling, it was worse even than Cash’s intentional walk to load the bases, almost as though Roberts wanted to return the favor after that strange choice.
Game 5 is tonight, and both front offices will no doubt counsel restraint from their managers. Even if it wasn’t optimal, however, Game 4 was a blast; a free-wheeling and see-sawing battle that saw both teams empty the tank for four straight hours. The stage is set for a great conclusion: a best-of-three series with no less than Clayton Kershaw taking the mound tonight, while the Rays counter with Tyler Glasnow. It probably won’t be as wild as last night, but it will still be excellent.
Ben is a writer at FanGraphs. He can be found on Bluesky @benclemens.
I will give someone a million dollars* to tell me what Brandon Phillips’ Championship Probability Added for that hit was.
(*I won’t. But I’d still like to know.)
29.68%
https://www.baseball-reference.com/postseason/2020_WS.shtml
Where do I send the bill? 🙂
Brett Phillips doesn’t hit nearly as well as Brandon Phillips, probably even today.
Brett
Both front offices will no doubt counsel restraint. Funny
What a game! At the risk of getting torn apart in the comments, I don’t think Roberts’ handling of Baez was that poor. Especially in the situation of Kiermaier, a career league average hitter against righties who has not been close to a threatening hitter for nearly 3 full seasons and who also until that point was woeful in the postseason. It’s pretty easy for me to think “can’t have it both ways” for the complaints of the Rays burning thru their bullpen too early and the Dodgers too hesitant to move to Adam Kolarek, a perfectably acceptable lefty specialist who has a .348 wOBA against righties.
While it’s much more debatable and the decision seems riskier in hindsight, I also don’t mind Roberts using Baez for Lowe. The biggest reason I can’t fault Roberts too much: the Dodgers needed 2 outs in the 6th. Because of that, use of “end the inning right there” in this article is pretty misleading – Kolarek would have at least 1 righty to face after Lowe, even if that goes well. So the question was Baez vs. Lowe or Kolarek vs. Adames (also a very good hitter this year and a lefty crusher) with the risk of at least one more lefty crusher (Renfroe) after. While Ben is spot on that best hitter w/ platoon advantage isn’t optimal, I think it isn’t indefensible given the context.
It’s easy to pile on managers, in general, but especially in the era of knowing a lot about player tendencies and matchups. I don’t know if it was as warranted last night as this article and the FG chat during the game would suggest. As Dave Cameron used to always say, we are dealing with incomplete information, and managers tend to have more than we do. That doesn’t mean we should question managers decisions, but I believe this current critique is less warranted.
Right, there is a LOT of 20/20 hindsight bias with respect to managing the bullpen. If anything I feel like Cash should get more flak for his decisions (which Ben also alluded to) than Roberts will. But of course, the losing manager always gets blamed more than they should, and the winning manager rarely deserves all they credit they get.
Well, Baez almost had Lowe, but he chose to thow a not great fastball instead of a changeup. That pitch coul´ve changed the entire narratibe about Roberts managing
I agree. I thought leaving Baez in to face Arozarena after giving up the walk to Diaz was a much more puzzling decision than bringing Baez in to pitch to Lowe. Of course, Arozarena hit into the shift for a double play so that decision doesn’t receive as much flak.
I think what you’re saying is valid, but I also believe that one of the reasons why there is so much piling on Dave Roberts right now is because this isn’t an isolated incident. As Dodgers fans we’ve watched Roberts make this kinds of head scratching decisions time and time again.
One of the reasons I think people are saying Baez against Lowe was an okay decision is because we’re already assuming he’s one of only maybe 3 choices Roberts would make right there. I think most people are omitting what is actually the most baffling thing Roberts has done this season and that’s putting all his faith in what are actually some of his worst options. Take a look at the Dodgers best relievers. You can look at statcast or fielding independent numbers and the results are pretty much the same. Jake McGee and Victor Gonzalez (and to a lesser extent Dylan Floro) were two of the Dodgers best relievers by both statcast and fielding independent metrics and they have combined for less innings this postseason than Baez, who was along with Joe Kelly, one of the Dodgers worst relievers this season. Why even roster these guys? Same argument for game 3. With a 5 run lead, why automatically go Treinen, Graterol, Jansen? It’s the combination of all of these puzzling decisions I think that most people are questioning, not merely the headscratchers in game 4.
Great job in blowing another game Dodgers. I’d love to blame Roberts but I can’t, given that he isn’t allowed to make any managerial decisions. Let’s see if the Hollywood Dodgers find a new way to lose tonight.
Every time the Dodgers blow a playoff game, an angel gets its wings
This game was epic. Running around your house screaming “I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS” epic.
See I was exactly the opposite, this is the 3rd time I’ve watched this particular brand of insanity in recent years (2017 games 2 and 5) and, as it turns out, I hate it
I’m not sure I agree with the assertion that Arozarena was unlikely to beat the throw home if he didn’t slip. In the replay, he is rounding third as Taylor is throwing. It took him ~3.3 seconds to get from 2nd to 3rd and it took the throw essentially the same amount of time to get to Smith. This is probably a really close play at the plate that favors the Rays since Smith was pulled too far to his right to block the bag and needed to blindly swipe at a runner he couldn’t see.
Does anybody besides me wonder why Smith still had his mask on? It seems obvious that, with the ball coming from the side, that it may have affected his ability to catch the throw from Muncy. I was jumping out of my chair anticipating a play at the plate then, as if not enough mayhem had already occurred during the game, Arozarena did his best Jack Cust belly flop. He knew he was toast. but when the ball got loose his reaction was priceless. This play brought back memories of Game 7 in 2015 when Alex Gordon was held up at 3rd. I have always thought that these things happen under intense pressure and the Royals best chance of scoring was to send him in.
In my experience, catchers prefer to keep the mask on in the event of a close play at the plate that could result in a collision, both to protect themselves, and their hold on the ball (i.e. the out).
Now, this was especially true some years ago, when collisions were not regulated and quite more common (which means that you can read the first sentence in the past tense 🙂 ).
It may have been a combination of “muscle memory”, years of playing, years of being coached in a certain way, focus on the play, etc.
He shouldn´t have have the mask on, but that was not a good throw by Muncy either. I think they share the blame. The Alex Gordon play… i think you´re right, that was their chance against MadBum, Crawford was in shallow left when he caught the ball, but it was Crawford, and Posey, they would´ve probably gunned him down easily
I agreed with Cash calling for Anderson to intentionally walk Bellinger to load the bases. There were three scenarios to consider:
1) Pitch to Bellinger with a 1 run lead and the go-ahead run on second base.
2) Pitch to AJ Pollock with the go-ahead run on second base.
3) Pitch to one of Joc Pederson, Edwin Ríos, or Matt Beaty as a pinch hitter with the go-ahead run on second base.
Walking Bellinger opened up two other possible situations, both of which put Anderson in a better spot than simply pitching to Bellinger. I know he got to a 3-1 count and ended up giving up the go-ahead hit but I still liked the move. As a manager you have to have faith that Anderson can throw strikes with the bases loaded and give him the opportunity to face a worse hitter.
I totally agree it was the right move. Weird that this author tries to critique it
Not to mention that the most high-leverage missed call of the night was the 1-1 pitch to Joc that got the edge of the plate but called a ball, swung the count from 1-2 to 2-1.
I disagreed with Cash calling for the intentional walk there. Bellinger has a stiff back that kept him out of the field. Make him hit his way on base, but don’t give him anything to hit. If you walk him, that’s fine, 1st base is open. But give Bellinger a chance to get himself out.
Is it ever a good idea to intentionally walk? I think there probably is, but the bar is really high. The very best hitters have OBP’s around .400, meaning that you have a better chance of getting even the best hitters out than you do of them getting on base. You can adjust that higher or lower based on the slugging percentage–clearly, not all on-base outcomes are created equal–but I’m not sure Cody Bellinger fits the criteria. Cody Bellinger in 2019 should obviously be walked in this situation. Cody Bellinger in 2020 with a bad back, a much lower OBP, and a lot less power? No, I think you just have to trust you can get him out.
I’m sure someone has written up the “when should you intentionally walk a player” argument in more detail and we might be able to figure out whether it was worth it in this situation from that. But the default position should be that intentionally walking a player is not a good idea.
There are definitely bottom of the 9th situations where it’s clearly the right move, because the extra baserunner is literally irrelevant apart from the possibility of forcing in a run with a HBP/BB.
Yes, that is definitely the situation to do it, although it’s not relevant here.
There is a book, it is titled, “Always walk the batter if there is a runner in scoring position, 1st base is open, Jeff Mathis is on deck and the other catcher has already been used”.
There are a number of catchers that you should always try to get to in the same way you would with a pitcher–Tony Wolters, Jeff Mathis, Austin Hedges. Chris Davis too, because he’s awful. But aside from Hedges pretty much all of them will be out of hitting in 2020, unless you think the Orioles will continue burning a roster spot on Davis instead of cutting bait.
You also have to consider the added chance of getting a double play when intentionally walking someone with a base open, as well as the times the pitcher is on deck (wherein even facing a pinch-hitter often has value in forcing the current pitcher out of the game) in the NL in a normal season.
Yes, those are the two things. Not relevant here, obviously, since there were 2 outs and there were no pitchers batting.
Last year’s Astros famously went the whole regular season and the first two rounds of the playoffs without issuing an intentional walk, but in Game 2 of the WS, with Juan Soto coming up in a 2nd+3rd/2 out situation and exactly zero lefties in their pen, even they acknowledged there were some situations where it probably made sense to put up the four fingers.
Five runs later, of course, they finally succeeded in getting out of the inning.
With runners on 2nd and 3rd, with two outs, and with the runner on second being the go-ahead-run, there are only two hitters in 2020 I’d intentionally walk in that situation: Juan Soto and Freddie Freeman. Everyone else has to earn that base.
I can’t believe there’s no mention of the unnecessarily early hook Roberts gave to Urias. He was cruising and wasn’t in any trouble in the fifth, and had a reasonable pitch count. When you make your shaky bullpen get 13 outs, you leave yourself absolutely no margin for error.
There’s so many things to criticize Roberts for, we just haven’t gotten to this yet
Sure, if four hits, two of them home runs, and a walk in four and 2/3rds innings is cruising, sure, Urias was cruising.
Urias had gone through the order exactly twice. His career third time through the order slash line is .256/.326/.453, with a .780 OPS. Arozarena had just hit a home run off Urias in the 4th inning, then Renfroe hit a home run off him to lead off the 5th inning. Urias was already up to 80 pitches. The next two batters were Diaz and Arozarena. Diaz had already fouled off 5 balls from Urias in the game and hadn’t swung at anything outside the strike zone.
Let’s say Urias manages to get through Diaz. Urias hadn’t been able to get Arozarena out, and the only pitch Arozarena hadn’t hit yet was Urias’s changeup.
So sure, leave Urias in against Arozarena. Maybe he walks him. Then he faces Brosseau instead, who was fouling off what he saw in the strike zone in the first inning, then hitting what was outside the strike zone in the third inning.
Sure, leave Urias in to face three right-handed batters that he had trouble with earlier in the game. That’s galaxy brain smart. That’s what people would be saying about Dave Roberts if he had left Urias in to face the next three batters.
Now that Roberts has gone through his whole bullpen, and now has less confidence in them, want to bet he leaves Kershaw into long today? The man has no feel for the game.
I’m sure that no matter what happens, Dave Roberts will be criticized for how he utilizes his bullpen. I would rather a manager pull a starting pitcher too early, before he has a chance to lose a game, than too late.
Allow me to join the other commenters and say that this managerial second-guessing is a bit odd for FG and not very strongly argued in any case. At a certain level it comes down to the players executing, and it seems like Baez sure didn’t. Smoltz mentioned on the broadcast how perplexed he was that Baez threw a fastball to Lowe instead of his best pitch the change, against a hitter who despite a game 2 outburst, has struggled with pitches out of the zone. Same for Jansen – you could say he even got lucky on the Wendle result, a smoked liner that Pederson made a running snag on and could have otherwise tied the game right there.
In any close game with multiple lead changes you’re gonna be able to look back and find instances where you can accuse managers of being ‘cute’ but I don’t think it’s anything more than armchair stuff with these two, who are more like lieutenants for the FO anyways, which makes it all the more amusing your comment about the FOs intervening on what was probably their chosen strategies.
There’s no way the FO’s chosen strategy is Baez right there. He was objectively one of the Dodgers worst relievers this season and has a history of giving up huge hits in the postseason. But “Petey” is one of those guys Roberts’ thinks “has it” and so he goes with him over and over like he did with Madson in 2018 while completely ignoring what are most likely better options in McGee (2 IP in PS), Gonzelez (4 IP in PS) or Kolarek (3IP in PS).
Baez is a consistently good reliever: he’s consistently had around a 130 era+ every year. He’s also a really bad choice with men on base, as he allows few hits but many of those are home runs. And baez has been particularly bad with men on base in the postseason: BP provided the lovely tidbit that Baez has allowed 10 of 17 career postseason inherited runners to score, including the last 6 and every single one this postseason.
The Dodgers going to an extreme flyball pitcher with 2 on and 1 out when they have multiple ground ball/sinker based lefties for LHB Lowe was inexplicable.
Baez should always pitch a clean inning and he’s quite good at that if allowed to do so. Contrast the pitcher usage in NLCS game 6 where that is exactly how the pitchers were deployed in the 7th and 8th innings
While I agree that Baez has been a good reliever in the past, I think it’s also obvious that he hasn’t been that pitcher this year. Obviously small sample size with only 17IP but when his results this year (career low K%, second highest Walk% of his career, 5.71 xfip) coincide with a precipitous decline in stuff (FA has dropped nearly 1.5 mph since last season) I think it’s fair to say he’s not that same pitcher, at least not right now. He is obviously pretty effective at limiting hard contact but with non-elite strikeout numbers, mediocre control, and extreme flyball tendencies, he’s always been walking a pretty fine line (career ERA more than a run lower than his career xFIP).
Arozarena would have beat that throw regardless of the error. The throw was wide, was it the correct decision for Muncy to cut and relay??? I think so because the throw was was, eventhough Muncy cut throw it still causes Smith to move off home plate tag zone than forcing him to cut back after he realizes throw was going to be cut. Lack of communication by Smith and Muncy? Probably. All this is going on while Randy is booking at a 3.3 sec pace between 2nd n 3rd. There is a reason he tripped over his own feet, cause he was BOOKIN and Committed. Think about it, he was running with such force he tripped over his feet/legs momentum. Had that momentum and force converted to speed In that last half before he tripped He would have beat that blind swipe tag by Smith. Oh, well thank goodness Smith bumbled the toss! Let’s Go Rays
I don’t see what’s wrong with using a righty with reverse splits against Lowe there. As you pointed out, if he had brought in a lefty and he failed to get Lowe out, he’d have to face 2 righties after that which could lead to a big inning. Granted, Lowe hitting the home run made it a big inning anyway, but the ultimate choice was risky either way. Do you bring in a lefty who is more likely to end the inning right there but is also more likely to give up a crooked number, or do you bring in a righty who while more likely to give up a single run is also more likely to limit the damage in the middle innings of a see-saw game? Either choice is both risky and defensible.
Thank you for elaborating what I was screaming at the TV and computer (I was on the chat) while Baez on the mound