The Thriller in Miami
The chart is insane but it barely breaks the surface on this game:
– A combined 104 plate appearances, along with 22 hits, 17 runs scored, 18 walks, and 20 strikeouts; all in 11 innings.
– 16 total pitchers used, only three of which pitched two or more innings.
– The game featured more runs in the 11th inning that it did in the first seven innings combined.
– Jorge Sosa with back-to-back-to-back walks to A) load the bases; and B) score two runs in the 11th inning. Sosa walked four batters and got two outs. Not a banner night for him.
– James Shields making his first career relief appearance on his throw day and thus allowing the Rays to avoid having a pitcher bat after Jeff Niemann’s fifth inning strikeout.
– Wade Davis (the Rays’ projected Tuesday starter) warming.
– Andy Sonnanstine making an emergency appearance after throwing more than 50 pitches on Friday night. He entered with a one run lead and runners on first and third with no outs. Somehow, someway, he struck out Brian Barden, Anibal Sanchez, and then got Dan Uggla to fly out.
– David Price (the Rays’ Sunday starter) missing the game after being hit in the groin with a warm-up toss in batting practice.
– The aforementioned Anibal Sanchez pinch hitting – only in the National League.
– Hanley Ramirez hustling out of the box to get a double, then overrunning second and pulling his hamstring, causing him to leave the game and be replaced by Brian Barden defensively.
– Just a horrid display out of Jason Bartlett. Along with one of the worst plate appearances you’ll ever see with the bases loaded, he also flubbed a defensive play and messed up a slide within a span of three innings. Naturally, Reid Brignac, who had been solid defensively all night long, had issues with a routine grounder after replacing Bartlett at short.
– The Marlins batting out of order, which voided a leadoff walk, and lead to Fredi Gonzalez’s ejection.
– Not only did more than 20,000 supposedly attend this game, but most of them had vuvuzuelas which confirms that Jeffrey Loria hates baseball, freedom, and sanity alike.
– Do yourself a favor and run ten laps around your house while imagining a pack of invisible bees chasing you. Then read the play log. You still won’t come close to the natural level of tension experienced, but it’s about as close as you can get artificially.
Great game. I don’t know the names of the guys who call games for the Marlins, but during the batting out of order fiasco, the PBP guy very obnoxiously says, “How’s instant replay gonna fix THIS?!?!?!?”
As if one situation that couldn’t be solved through the use of video replay automatically invalidates the entire idea.
Hey, if a single rule doesn’t fix everything, then it’s obviously not worth it. That’s why we don’t have any rules in baseball.
I was praying that Uggla would drive home just one, and it would go to 12.
Mark Topkin in the St. Petersburg Times today wrote that Rafael Soriano had a bad night because he blew his first save of the year. I wish he had some understanding of win probability. When you enter the game in the 8th with your team ahead 5-4 but with runners on the corners and no one out and then proceed to strike out 2 batters, get one batter to fly out and have the other reach on an error allowing the tying run to score from third and then pitch a perfect ninth that is not a bad night.
You don’t need an understanding of win probability to understand that Soriano was superb last night. Having even a general understanding about baseball should tell you that coming into a game with men on, no outs, and a 1 run lead is a messy situation, and only allowing a single baserunner over two innings because of an error (or even poor fielding which does not qualify an as error) is an outstanding performance.
If he had anything bad to say about Soriano’s work last night, perhaps he shouldn’t be writing about baseball.
The Run Expectancy for runners at 1st and 3rd and nobody out is 1.904. If Soriano only allowed one run to score, that’s almost a full run better than expected. That’s a good performance (and further proof, as if any is needed, of the stupidity of the Save “stat”).
I agree completely with Bronnt’s conclusion.
Question: If Barden had made an out to start the 9th inning, would Maddon have been able to wait to point out the batting out of order until it suited him either in that inning(as Helms likely would have batted 4th in that inning, also out of order) or later in the game (as Maddon obviously was playing for extras at that point).
Also, could Maddon have let Barden take the base and then “noticed” the problem later, potentially waiting for the best possible time to bring up the BooO problem while being able to have Barden, representing the winning run, called out at any time, or would Barden be sort of exempted once he reached base and another at-bat took place?
That depends on the actual order in which batters appeared in that inning, as well as when the challenge occurred, neither of which is apparent from the game log. The Wikipedia page on batting out of turn (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batting_out_of_turn) contains a useful exposition of the rule with examples.
Oh god, the vuvuzelas have arrived in American sports stadiums.
Granted, it is in Miami, with huge ties to soccer. Still, I’m dumfounded that vuvuzelas have actually caught on in America.
They handed them out in Montreal at an Expos v. Rockies game in the late nineties the players seemed to be pretty annoyed by them then too.
That Twins-Phillies game was also pretty crazy 😉
Never had 27 heart attacks in one night before…until this game.
I watched the last 4 innings of the game. If you have MLB.tv, do yourself a favor and watch. It’s insane – even with the mute button ON.
Part of the problem was Maddon “larussa-ing” the bullpen.
8 pitchers used in relief
– 5 went less than 1 inning
– 7 of the 8 went 1 inning or less (and combined for 3, THREE!, total innings)
– the closer went 2 innings
6 innings from the starter 5 innings from 8 relievers
4 of the 5 relievers who went less than 1 inning were removed because they were ineffective. The 5th reliever, Benoit, finished the 7th and was scheduled to bat 6th in the top of the 8th and was pinch-hit because the bases were loaded when it was is turn to bat. I do not see how you can fault him for using Soriano for 2 innings seeeing how it worked out.