Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 562: How Kansas City Evened the Series

Episode Date: October 23, 2014

Ben and Sam discuss the deceptive stats, mistaken managers, and rejuvenated Royals of World Series Game 2.

Good morning and welcome to episode 562 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Prospectus, presented by the Play Index at BaseballReference.com. I am Ben Lindberg of Grantland.com, joined by Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus. Hello. Hi. Hi. How are you? Okay.

I am preparing to fly home, but first a podcast. Anything to get to before we talk about the game? Just quickly, you know that i think it's an ad for geico motorcycle insurance uh that uses the wallflower song one headlight uh one headlight have you seen that one uh if so it hasn't stuck in my head uh it's been it's been constant just absolutely constant during the postseason and um i just wondered if you had an opinion about using a song that makes sense in that it's called one headlight and it's about motorcycle insurance that seems clever and it seems like a perfect fit but but the song is is not actually

about a motorcycle headlight and so I just wondered whether that's ethical. I think I've probably done the same thing with podcast intro songs. So if not, I'm guilty of the same sin. Yeah, it's not quite the same commitment to the theme of the song. It seems to bother you. It sticks out at me. It's something that doesn't ever quite feel right well i thought the same thing about some of the stats i was reading before yesterday's

game um of course before any world series game everyone is focused on the same game and everyone is digging deep into stats maybe deeper than they should into stats to try to say that one team is well suited or poorly suited to face the opposing starting pitcher that sort of thing and so there were lots of stats going around yesterday about the royals stats versus Peavy. So collectively they were hitting 320 something and slugging five something against Peavy as a team in their previous at-bats against him and something like 147 at-bats in total. And obviously a lot of those at-bats coming in previous seasons when PV was much younger and the hitters were much younger. And of course we know that those stats don't really mean anything over the samples that most or all players actually accrue against certain other opponents. There was that going around, and then on the other side, there was this very pervasive stat about the Giants versus Fastballs. Not just Fastballs, but the... 95+.

Right, 95+. Man, I do not care for that. I don't know. It's not a fun fact, I guess, but I don't find it fun at all. What's your opposition to that one? Because that one at least, well, I guess both of them to the user have a certain internal logic. I mean, you can see why the matchup stats are completely aggravating, but you can see why a person who has not been told through exposure to actual research into the matter

would think that makes a lot of sense, right? Sure, yeah. Last night, for instance, I was watching that game, and I was like, in the first inning, I was like, you know what, I know that it's the wrong move to walk Hosmer here. I know you should just go after him however i can't i'm kind of you know i'm kind of approving that they basically pitched around hosmer because there's no way billy butler's getting hit against pv he's gotten i mean he's not good anymore and against righties he's just gotten to this really really wretched place he

always has been tough again you know struggling against righties. But and like three people were like, dude, he's he's hitting like 360 against Peevee. And I was like, yeah, come on. Yeah. And of course, he then smoked a base hit and later on did it again. And so that made it hard for me. But anyway, the point is just that there's, you can see why people would accept that. But the 95 mile an hour one even more so, I mean, that's a, like we all know that batters have a scouting report, right? So why wouldn't catches up to high heat be on a scouting report? Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying that certain hitters do not have some

ability to hit better than their overall performance against either fast or slow pitches. I'm guessing that that is maybe less common than people think, but maybe there's something to it, but I don't think the single season stats against any one pitch type, let alone a subset of that pitch type, which is essentially what we're talking about. We're talking about a minority of fastballs in this case. case i don't think that tells us much because i mean a the numbers are just i mean they're telling us like what happened how many hits per at bat in which these players saw a a 95 plus fastball in many cases this is what that stat is actually saying and so it doesn't really tell you for instance you know what the players did against all 95 plus fastballs like the giants if you look at it they had the i think it was the eighth or the ninth highest whiff rate against those pitches also so when they swing at those pitches they they miss them quite often and that stat doesn't really account for that it just kind of tells you what happens when they hit it and

when they put it in play really um and so it's not really it's kind of omitting important information and then there's also a sample size issue because you don't get that many at-bats against 95-plus fastballs in a single season. And that can fluctuate a lot. Like, the people were citing their slugging percentage against these pitches, too, which was also among the five best. But, like, ahead of them were the Mets and the Padres in that stat. Like ahead of them were the Mets and the Padres in that stat. And are we saying that the Padres are really one of the best slugging teams against really fast pitches? Like the whole root of their offensive problem was that they didn't face enough flamethrowers. Like if they had faced Giordano Ventura every day, they would have been just great.

Every day they would have been just great. Is it that or is it that they just happened to get some hits against 95-plus fastballs or at bats in which they saw 95-plus fastballs? That seems more likely to me than that they have some true talent for crushing really fast pitches, which tend to be effective pitches on the whole. Well, Ben, I am going to almost entirely agree with you and restate everything you said in slightly different words, but I do have to push back on your Padres example, which is illogical.

Nobody is saying that they, in that example, nobody would be saying that they are a great, they would have been a great team if they only faced 95-mile-an-hour fastballs, merely that they would have been better against one particular type of thing than the average team. relative to the average team. And we find out that, in fact, they will be facing a type of thing that they are better than average against, that it changes their outlook in that game relative to our preconceived expectations. So, no, I don't think that the team, like I would imagine,

I don't know what the Padres slugged or whatever on those pitches, but I would have... 400 or something. Yeah, so that's not good. They're saying it's not good. But the presupposition of a 95-mile-an-hour fastball is that it's very effective. And so, I mean, most teams would be

at a greater disadvantage than the Padres. So it would be just a worthwhile talking point if the stat had any merit. You are right, though. I didn't realize the way that the stat was being presented. That has absolutely no merit. You're right. It's completely skewed by whether the ball gets put in play.

It's skewed by whether, I don't know if this is a, anybody who's dealt with performance on a pitch type or whatever has dealt with this thing where you're like, okay, are strikeouts counted against his batting average? Because then it becomes a big thing of like, well, did he get the pitch on two strikes or on one strike? If you swing and miss on one strike, it doesn't hurt your batting average. But if you swing and miss on two strikes, it does. Right. And, you know, is, you know, and you realize, oh, you know, crud.

The batting average has now a different denominator than isolated power because now I've got to deal with the third strike thing. I mean, you have to have like four or five different skewing agents in mind whenever you're looking at these pitch type uh performances and i'm guessing that those were either a not considered by whoever was reciting the fact b certainly not explained to you in the eight word chiron in a way that you would know what they were talking about and be convinced of the of the uh of the the accuracy of it C also, it gets to the point of, you know, that, is it MJL or Tango who's always making this point? Basically, if you're good on fastballs, they should be throwing you fewer fastballs. Right, yeah.

And so what you really, I mean, I think what Rob Arthur would say, maybe, I don't know, I'm putting words in Rob Arthur's mouth, but I think I'm allowed to do that. You're his editor. I am his editor. I think what Rob Arthur would say is maybe the most compelling fact that they could show you in that is what percentage of 95 mile an hour or higher fastballs each player sees because if the giants see fewer then that tells you that the opposing team's scouting report is well you know you can't beat them with high heat like you can beat padres who see a ton of them or whatever the case may be although i guess that could be skewed by how many pitches you face who can throw that pitch if you were if you were going to write one of your 7400 word grantland pieces that doesn't get to the point until word 3200 that's how you would do it

i know i know you i know how you would do it uh-huh so uh those numbers might have suggested that that this would be a a high scoring game It seemed I was listening with one ear to the broadcast. With one head on. And the broadcasters seemed to be saying that this would be a high-scoring game, and of course there was some scoring early. As it turned out, neither starter was exactly shellacked, as baseball people say. They allowed two runs apiece through the first five innings, although there were many hard-hit balls and there weren't a whole lot of missed bats,

and I wouldn't say that either starter was fooling anyone regularly. There was sort of a sense that eventually those line drives would start falling and the bats would do some damage. Wait, they were saying that this was going to be a high-scoring game? Yeah. At least once it started, it was like, you know, it's going to be a long night. The hitters, you know. Oh, when it started, it was like, you know, it's going to be a long night. The hitters, you know. Oh, one and seven, okay. Yeah.

So is there anything to discuss before the pivotal sixth inning? I mean, interesting things happened, but. Yeah, let's briefly, I don't know if you were watching the game on TV overhead or if you were watching it with your eyes looking forward. So one of the things that was really striking to me, particularly in the first three innings maybe, but really any time Ventura was in there, is how Sal Perez couldn't frame anything and or Ventura makes it hard to frame. Because if he misses his target, it's on you so fast. But he was missing his target a lot, as they do.

And particularly outside pitch, sorry, outside target, inside pitch to lefties. And Perez just caught them miserably. I mean, he was stabbing at him, he was late on him, his glove was taking him out of his own. And so to my eye, you know, it looked pretty ugly, but he was getting all these strikes, even on borderline pitches. And this was actually really, for my brain processing it while I was watching it, I knew these were pitches that were strikes. I mean, you could tell they were in the zone. Sometimes they would show a pitch tracker, and I would show it was in the zone, and yet there was this part of me that was so unused to the idea of getting a strike on a pitch

that is caught that way and that is missed that i was like oh i can't believe they're giving him that even though like i knew it was in the zone it was it was very interesting to watch this umpire who seemed to be frame proof i don't know if i i don't know if my assessment of him in general is true or is true in general uh and i and i don't even know if my assessment of him last night was true maybe he actually had a very poor game and who knows but he seemed to be frame proof and this was actually almost more disconcerting to me than like um like one of those extreme camera angles that's way off to the side and you're like trying to figure out whether it swept over the plate or not. It was almost the same effect. I had no idea whether it should have been a strike or not, but I did. I knew it was in the zone.

I just was like, well, it was definitely in the strike zone, but was it in the frame zone? That was really interesting to me. It's also interesting to me, somewhat interesting to me, in light of the fact that Sal Perez and Yordano Ventura were statistically one of the worst framing tandems in baseball last year. I was just looking that up. I think they were, like, I mentioned it in the World Series preview,

but it's something like 10th worst or something in baseball out of, like, you know, hundreds of batteries. Yeah, 11th worst with no minimum set on the number of pitches. They were, let's see, extra strikes. They were like 20 strikes below average, a few runs below average. So that was interesting to me. I kind of wonder what this game looks like if it's an umpire who responds to the catcher the way that we're used to not that i like that i think that it's a shame it's a speck on the eye of the game uh that umpires make their

decisions based on what the catcher does after the play is is nominally over uh but still uh i wonder what it would have looked like with a kind of more typical umpiring performance. Because there were some key calls that went away that I was not expecting. Yeah. So that and that and sure. So the sixth inning was the one that proved decisive when Kansas City got its big lead. And after that, there was no more scoring because, or in part because, Ned Yost got to do his usual shutdown prevent defense where he puts in Dyson,

which he did in the top of the sixth, and uses Herrera, which he also did in the top of the sixth after Ventura put a couple guys on, sandwiched around and out. And he even used Terrence Gore, pinch running for Billy Butler in the sixth, which was an interesting move because Butler's spot would come up again. And as it turned out, Will willingham pinch hit for gore in that spot and there wasn't uh really the the chance for gore to do a whole lot in that spot because there was someone on ahead of him the base ahead of him was occupied so he couldn't really steal or do anything except be more likely to to score on a hit perhaps uh so. So that was so aggressive that maybe it was overly aggressive. And it's not the fact that they could pinch hit Willingham for him.

I don't think necessarily absolves him, absolves Yost, just because if the game gets close again, you want to have Moustakas insurance against Affelt, I think. I don't know, maybe Bochy's not going to use Affelt on Moustakas. Maybe he's going to use Affelt on Hosmer. And so then maybe you don't have to worry about it, in which case, sure, go ahead, do Gore. You know you've got Willingham in reserve,

and Willingham is not that significant a difference from Butler. But yeah, there's just something about seeing Terrence Gore put in a sort of a prison of sorts behind a lead runner that just does not appeal to me. It would have been nice if they could have somehow swapped, just for our sake.

Like, if they could have... If Gore could have stolen second while Hosmer stole first Segura style, and they just pass each other, what would that mean? That's not allowed. No, it's not. So I guess you could say that both managers maybe made the same sort of questionable decision in even leaving their starters out for the sixth with the most rested bullpens imaginable because not only the long

layoffs after the championship series but then the first game which wasn't particularly close and most of the high leverage guys didn't pitch. So everyone was extremely rested. And you had two guys who were going through the heart of the order for the third time. And neither one had been all that effective. So as it turned out, Ventura, as I said, put a couple guys on. But Herrera came in and got out of that jam. And then in the bottom of the inning everyone was calling for getting pv out of the game and uh you know putting petite in maybe or starting starting it with pv and then going to javier lopez or someone for the lefty or cosmo and this is a move that i don't

think most managers would have made in that pv as Bochy said after the game, had quote-unquote settled in and had been pitching a couple scoreless innings and had only thrown like 57 pitches because the Royals had been swinging and making contact early. And so there's that. And then, of course, there's all the research that shows that maybe that doesn't matter how many pitches you've thrown. Doesn't really affect your times through the order penalty and how you've been pitching for the last couple innings. Doesn't really affect how you'll pitch for the next couple innings. Anyway, Bochy stuck with Peavy. Peavy put the first couple guys on in fairness lorenzo cane's single was pretty softly hit his foul ball was not that's true

and uh hasmer walked i think on six pitches maybe and then the bullpen parade began and and uh bocce went you know righty lefty righty lefty and made many many moves so machi came in and allowed a single and then then javier lopez came in right and got the out which made everyone wonder well if you're willing to bring in javier lopez now why why not just bring him in to face hasmer before you even have a jam to worry about? Instead, he came in to face Gordon and got him to fly out, and then the fateful move to Hunter Strickland. And Strickland, of course, had allowed four home runs already in this postseason, and they had been very convincing home runs. They had been no doubt home runs, not ones that just scraped over the wall. The Bryce Harper home run was one of the more impressive-looking home runs

I have seen in a while. And so Strickland had come in the night before in essentially a mop-up inning, a low leverage inning, and Bochy had wanted to get him in there just to see how he'd respond, I guess, and how he'd look. And Bochy had very nice things to say about how he looked. Before game two, he was talking about how it must have helped his confidence a lot and he looked really good and that it encouraged Bochy very much to see him pitch that well. And so Strickland came in in this important spot instead of Petit or instead of Romo or seemingly less risky right-handed relievers. risky right-handed relievers and he threw a wild pitch almost immediately and then he gave up the double to Sal Perez and the home run to Omar Infante who had not homered since mid-August and Infante had actually recorded his first extra base hit earlier in the game since

September sometime he had not had one in the postseason and he has started every game since late August or so despite this shoulder problem that has been plaguing him and both he and Perez have been worked really hard and have been worn down and were two of the worst hitters in baseball in the second half and I speculated in my series preview well maybe maybe the long layoff benefits the Royals and that they have a bunch of these guys as I think I asked Andy in the preview podcast will it help the Royals disproportionately in that they have guys like Perez and Infante who are dealing with nagging injuries or been worked really hard maybe having five days off helps them somehow, somewhat, and who knows whether it did or not. But coincidentally, perhaps those two players who had contributed

relatively little to this postseason run and really to the Royals' whole second half run were the two biggest offensive contributors, or two of the three last night and so strickland gave up home run to omar infante which you would not think righty on righty infante possibly diminished with his shoulder problem not having homered in over two months was not a likely home run spot but it happened again strickland again and now he is allowed five home runs this postseason which ties a record shared by chris narveson who also did it in 2011 and that was the game essentially so you you can apportion blame or credit to Bochy or probably more realistically to the players involved who didn't execute very well or did in the Royals case. But seemed like maybe suboptimal decisions, not taking out Peavy and then going to Strickland when there were superior options.

not taking out PV and then going to Strickland when there were superior options. It's, uh, it's really incredible how different the game, how, how different the game is, I guess, in the post season as the fifth inning,

as between the top and the bottom of the sixth inning. Um, okay. Let me back up. I'm obsessed with, with pitchers pitch counts throughout the game. I, but before back up. I'm obsessed with pitchers' pitch counts throughout the game. Back 10 years ago when I was still writing about education, the first time I ever tried to do something sort of statty,

like to do an investigation, I had this hypothesis that if all you knew about a game was how many pitches had been thrown through three innings you would be able to predict with great accuracy who was going to win and that would be true even if the game were not decided yet even if it were still tied and for like two days I kept track of how many pitches had been thrown through three innings and so in like 28 data points, it was not convincing, and then I got bored.

And so I probably would guess that my hypothesis was wrong anyway, but I didn't stick to it. But ever since then, I've been particularly fascinated by the ups and downs of a pitcher's pitch count throughout a game. And so it's one of the things that is in the foreground for me in any game I watch. And it's so different in the postseason. So between the top and the bottom of the sixth, Ventura had been pulled after five and a third innings. And, of course, I had watched his pitch count get fairly high. In the second, I was thinking, you know, oh, well, the Giants aren't going to score here in the second,

but they've got to at least get one base runner on so that they can keep Ventura at like an 18 to 20 pitch per inning count. Like that just sort of is the natural way I think about these games early in the game before you really know what the narrative is going to be and all that. And so Ventura was out of the game and PV had thrown 57 pitches and I told the guy I was

with that normally in a regular game, I would think this is huge for the Giants. Even though it's a tie game, the fact that they've got Herrera in there, that they've already gotten into the Royals' bullpen in the sixth, and Ventura's out, and we're going to see the Royals have to stretch their bullpen

to figure out a way to get to the ninth, while the Giants' pitcher has only thrown 57 pitches. What a huge, huge advantage. And yet, as I said when i was talking to this guy it felt exactly the opposite it was like you you sort of got the feeling like a giants fan should be envious that the royals already got their bullpen and they were gonna have to watch jkv meltdown and he's like no they'll he'll be on even with 57 pitches he'll be on a short leash but a short leash means that he has just enough time to give up a triple with one out or whatever. And in this case,

it was two base runners before they had time to warm somebody else up. And yeah, I mean, from 57 pitches, the game was lost by 63 pitches, basically. And it's such a different, it's just such a different calculus of how you manage your pitchers and what is and isn't good. I wonder whether there is a way that pitchers, starters, should be pitching differently knowing this fact.

Knowing that it's just absolutely pointless to save pitches. To worry about your pitch count, to worry about keeping your pitch count low. It's just not what you're trained to do. You're trained to throw innings as a starting pitcher.

And in the postseason, you shouldn't be. There's no point in thinking about the eighth inning if you're Jake Peavy. So I wonder if there's a way that a coaching staff can figure out a way to get their starting pitchers to think differently in October. But anyway... Or in some cases, get the manager to think differently and then

I guess it would be even better if you had the starting pitcher thinking that too so that he was not saving his stuff so that he was using his best stuff early but uh but yeah you've got to get the manager on board with that first and i i don't know i i wonder the more we watch this postseason and we always talk about how you win in the postseason and i do wonder even if it's an unpredictable thing because who could have predicted that

ned yost would suddenly turn into what seems like a good postseason manager who manages completely differently than he did during the regular season. So maybe now we know that about Ned Yost, and if the Royals make the playoffs again next year, then we can factor that into our expectations. But maybe manager really is something that we should think about or that can improve or hurt a team's odds more than more than we typically suggest during the regular season so if we know that a manager has not only the the tools to do this has the good bullpen or the good defensive replacement or whatever it is but the inclination or the

willingness to do it, then maybe that is a real factor that our statistical models are not accounting for. So for Hosmer specifically, I guess if I were to defend the decision to bring out PV and I'm not at, I look even, even having recorded 17 podcasts in a row where we talk about why some pitchers shouldn't have been allowed to go third time to the order. I, I'm not sure that even if I were in, in the dugout, I would have pulled PV there. Um,

because it's really hard to look at 57 pitches and think that that means the guy's done. It's, and I know, I know, but it's really, it's, it's really hard to look at 57 pitches and think that that means the guy's done. And I know, I know, but it's harder. It would have been, if Peavy had been at 87 pitches, then I'm not sure that even Bochy sends him out there. But 57, there's just something beguiling about that number. It's so low. And you know, he'd gotten the last 10 guys out in about 28 pitches. Great.

Well, those are the two potential pitfalls, it seems like. Those are the things that make managers mess up, those two deceptive things. But, yes, I agree that most managers probably would have done the same thing. But further, okay, so, you know, Kane, he's a righty against Kane. I think what we've seen is that managers generally have been a little bit more willing to go third into the order as long as the platoon advantage is in effect. Now, of course, that wasn't the case for Aoki, but Aoki's different in every way.

Reverse split, not good, et cetera. And so he let him go against kane who's a righty and um you know so so that seems you know quasi justified but and and again it's like the how short can it unfortunately there's no there's no 2-0 leash there's no leash like well i'm gonna have him on a short leash as long as he doesn't go 2-0 on a batter he'll be okay but as soon as he goes 2-0 i'm pulling him they they maybe there should be but you know managers don't generally pull their pitchers in the middle of a count uh as long as as long as he doesn't throw a start to throw a hanging slider i'm gonna pull him but as soon as he starts to throw a hanging slider just

before i release it i'm gonna go yank him uh so anyway came And then, as you noted, the ball wasn't hit that hard. And then you've got Hosmer. And so this seems pretty dangerous. But, I mean, I'll just say that, A, so far, Kane's not in scoring position. It's not – I mean, it's important to get Hosmer, obviously, but it's not quite to the point where we're talking about most important batter of the game yet. That would probably be like Gordon two batters later, who you know you've got coming up.

And it might be Hosmer in the eighth or Gordon in the eighth because you're playing in a tie game. You're hoping that it stays close, and you're going to have big, potentially huge game changing at bats against posmer and gordon again in the game in the eighth maybe in the ninth and you've only got two lefties and so you're you're either going to go with your hobby uh you know your hobby lopez switch mount a felt combination there or you going to maybe save one of them for the eighth.

And I think that's probably what he was thinking, is that he didn't want to use both his lefties right there. He knew that he had Gordon coming up in a minute. And so he's thinking, well, I save one lefty for the eighth. I use one lefty here. And PV, as a starter, has a broader repertoire than a broader repertoire than any of your right-handed relievers in your bullpen are likely to have. And maybe you just think, well, I'm going to have a platoon disadvantage against a good Royals hitter. That's what their lineup does to you.

It's tricky like that. like that. And if I'm going to have a right-hander in a platoon disadvantage against a good left-handed batter, I would rather it be Peavy because he's used to facing lefties. He's got a repertoire that should be a little bit more advanced

against lefties. And then after that, I've got, you know, if he gets past Hosman, then I've got a platoon advantage again against Butler. Maybe that's how you talk yourself into letting him go the distance. But, I mean, it was going to be really hard at some point in this game regardless.

And so I could sort of see each step-by-step decision along the way. Yeah. It wasn't the worst ever i mean did is is strickland at a point or was he at a point before this where you would just be too scared to use him in any situation like this i mean well yeah he throws ridiculously hard of course he was effective toward the end of the year but uh just just you know having seen him allow all these moonshots it's hard to put him back in there or it seems like it would be again maybe maybe that's you know recency bias maybe we should throw that out maybe he's not actually a home run

machine but it sure seems like you know he throws hard, but it's kind of straight and or it has looked sort of straight or I don't know whether I'm saying it looks straight just because it's resulted in a lot of home runs so far, but it does seem that way. So is he at a point where you would just bury him or, you know, was he at that point before this home run? before this home run? I think I might be at a point where I would DFA him. Seriously, if I were the Giants, I would have found that whole thing so embarrassing, the whole Sal Perez thing could be so embarrassing. And, I mean, really, it's embarrassing that it started. It's embarrassing how long he kept it going,

like that he was still doing this as he walked off the field. I mean, that was one of even ignoring the possible. I think a lot of people are like, there's a lot of lip reading going on right now on the internet that has concluded that he might have gone a little racial maybe and nobody knows it's i would say that there's maybe a i don't know 46 chance that it did and therefore we should give him the benefit of the doubt and assume it's like a 99 chance he didn't because people deserve the benefit of the doubt uh so he totally ignoring that just the whole scene was super embarrassing and not you know not the way that i would want a guy to handle his failure because that's what i mean for that's what

he was responding to he was responding to his own failure and and he did it in the most childish way possible and kept doing it even after his manager had gone out there to pull him and presumably tell him, hey, shut up. So, like, seriously, I don't know that he adds enough to the franchise that I would want him around. I mean, other teams have let him go for less. But, yeah, no, I would have no – I mean, it's kind of – you could almost make the case that if the Giants had won game one 3-1, they might have won game two. It was that they won 7-1, and they got to use Strickland

in that mop-up inning to convince Bochy that he was back. And if he hadn't – I don't think Bochy goes to him there without, I don't think Bochy goes to him in any leverage situation before game one. Game one, I think, convinced him that Strickland was back in a good mental space and had found the slider. And that didn't exactly cost the Giants necessarily because they were in a situation where they were much more likely to lose. Let's see.

What was it? It was first and second one out because Lopez got Gordon. So they weren't that – it wasn't – yeah, you're right. They weren't that less likely to lose, but probably 62% or something like that at that point. So, yeah, so that – you could argue that the fact that um that the giants piled on runs in game one is what cost them game two yeah and i know some people i think were excusing strickland because of his youth or immaturity or something but he is 26 years old yeah it's not he just arrived in the majors but he's been pitching professionally for quite some time and

there was a great moment and i don't know whether they showed it in the broadcast or not, but because there was one of those typical baseball almost brawls where it never actually results in any physical contact, but people mill about menacingly for a while, and you could tell that the bullpens weren't sure what to do they weren't sure if they were required to run in or not and so most of the royals bullpen just sort of they opened the door and they kind of stood on the warning track looking in to see whether they would be needed but three royals relievers sprinted in which three i i think it was holland and collins in which three i i think it was holland and collins and i'm not sure who the third guy was the last two right right yeah gotta get tim collins in there for reinforcements uh and one big guy who might have been probably was davis um so they sprinted in and then they just like got to the

infield grass and by that or the infield dirt. And by that time, everything was already sort of wrapping up and everyone was dispersing. And then they just kind of stood there awkwardly, like looking around sort of sheepishly. And then they just slowly ambled back to the bullpen where everyone else was waiting as if they had not just run in like they were about to fight so I always enjoyed the awkward does the bullpen run in or not and this was even better because only part of the bullpen ran in and no one from the Giants bullpen ran in and so these guys looked even sillier than usual but but yes that was a low moment in many ways and then after that it was it was davis and it was holland and it was dyson making a nice catch in center in the seventh to catch what might

have been a single with a rally going with some other center fielder out there and that was that by the way um one one interesting thing, a difference in managerial techniques. We've talked a lot about the Dyson, and we loved the Dyson move when we first saw it. It seems like we're talking to ourselves and are loving it more and more every time we see it. The aggressive use of Dyson as a defensive replacement. And extremely aggressive in this game top of the sixth so uh four four at bats left for the royals and not even in a pitch running pinch running situation it it seems like before he would bring him in usually in the seven unless aoki batted in the sixth and got on because

then he would take advantage of that to also get the pinch running in there. But in this case, they just used Dyson at the top of the sixth as a clean defensive replacement. And meanwhile, by the way, I misspoke. Butler's single had already come off Machi, and so the Giants were considerably likely to lose before Strickland ever came to the game. All right, but you see a difference in the way that the Giants manage. He has a very similar situation where Ishikawa is a poor defensive left fielder

and Juan Perez is really an elite level of defensive outfielder. I mean, he is beautiful. Like, if he were on the Royals, we would have a much greater appreciation for him. He gets overlooked because we don't see him as much and because, I mean, there's no reason to pay that much attention to him, but he is an exceptionally good outfielder, okay? The gap between him and Ishikawa

is greater than the gap between Dyson and Aoki. Yeah. And probably quite a bit greater. Now, he's a very, very poor hitter. Very poor. And so, in a tie game, unlike Yost, Bochy sticks with his bat, which is a reasonable thing. That's what a lot of managers would do. And we saw in a crucial moment, not the moment that, I mean,

I don't think the Giants were likely to win this game anyway, but Billy Butler's single, which broke the tie, which drove home the game-winning run, Kane ain't scoring on that if Juan Perez isn't left. I don't think he's even going. Now, it'd be base loaded and nobody out, so they're probably going to win. But Kane doesn't score on Juan Perez there. And, of course, Ishikawa misplayed uh i would say a a ball that perez catches earlier in the game i can't remember it was that cane's double it was cane's double right so that that

was the first run didn't cane double to left field and ishikawa kind of dove for it and just missed it. So that was the first run that scored, if I'm remembering this correctly, was Kane. And, of course, Juan Perez shouldn't have started. Ishikawa's better than Juan Perez. But that shows you kind of the difference of Perez and Ishikawa, two plays that turned on the defense, one of which was unavoidable, the other one which was extremely avoidable in Yost's style of managing. Although I'm not sure that I would have done,

I don't know if I would have replaced him. I might or I might not have. Anyway, Harold Reynolds later in the game said that watching Ishikawa in the outfield, it looks natural, which is the least true thing I've ever heard. Yeah, not good. good all right i've got a flight to catch so uh we will end this here please send us emails at podcast at baseball prospectus.com join the facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild

there was an effectively wild listener meetup inup in Minneapolis last night organized through the Facebook group. I think nine people showed up, and there were pictures of all these people. They made name tags even. And I told them to take a group pic sitting on wobbly chairs, but they didn't do it. From what I can tell, they're sitting on completely stable chairs. completely stable chairs. There's a bunch of people in a bar in Minnesota last night who were wondering who fed $30 into the jukebox and said it to play Smash Mouth's All-Star continuously.

Yeah. So there are other meetups being organized, so if you're interested, you can find that information at the Facebook group. And you can support our sponsor by going to baseballreference.com, subscribing to the Play Index using the coupon code BP, and getting the discounted price of $30 on a one-year subscription. And we will be back tomorrow.