Thursday, September 29, 2011

If you're not cheering for the Rays, you have no soul.

Two factoids that you may not know that illustrate just how improbable the Tampa Bay Rays' comeback was last night:

- Fangraphs reports that entering the bottom of the eighth inning at Tropicana Field, with the Rays down 7-0, they had approximately a 0.3 percent chance of winning the game. At the same time, they had about an 11% chance of making the playoffs, as the Red Sox had a 3-2 lead in Baltimore entering the bottom of the seventh.

- Dan Johnson, who hit the game-tying home run in the bottom of the ninth with two balls, two strikes, and two outs is one of the worst hitters in the league. And that's an understatement. According to Fangraphs, Johnson is the second-worst hitter in the entire majors among players (including pitchers) with at least 90 plate appearances. In other words, the only person who performed worse at the plate than Johnson in 2011 was Roy Halladay. Johnson, the guy with the slash line of .108/.178/.157, the wOBA of .160, and the wRC+ of -7, sent the game into extras after his teammates had overcame a 7-0 hole in the eighth inning. You can't predict baseball.

No comments:

Post a Comment