Game 25: Braves 15, Phillies 13 (11 Innings)
May 3, 2012 at 1:07 am by David Lee under Atlanta Braves
Source: FanGraphs
Game MVP: Carlos Ruiz, .489
Least Valuable Phillie: Michael Schwimer, -.649
Most Valuable Brave: Martin Prado, .391
Least Valuable Brave: Eric O’Flaherty, -.522
Big swing: Prado’s two-run single in the eighth tied the game at 12, .410.
Ruiz’s three-run homer in the seventh was worth .409.
Chipper Jones’ walk-off home run in the 11th was worth .306.
Via Matt Gelb of the Philadelphia Inquirer:
The Phillies had not lost a regular-season game when scoring 13 or more runs since 1969.
Before this game, Roy Halladay had been handed a four-run lead 118 times. Only eight times did his team lose, and Halladay had never been charged with a loss.
Halladay had gone 50 innings without allowing a home run until Brian McCann’s grand slam tied the game at six.
It was only the fourth grand slam allowed by Halladay and the first in four years.
Halladay had not allowed six runs in one inning since 2007.
It’s difficult to comprehend the enormity of this game. There were seven players who had WPA’s of .300+ or below -.300.
There were 15 plays in the game that drew a WPA above .100 or below -.100. It’s not uncommon to have at least one game a night in MLB that doesn’t have a single WPA play reaching .100.
Leads blown were by six runs, four runs, two runs and one run.
And the man who ended the game is a 40-year-old who ended it on his 500th professional home run.
Loading ...
An incredible game, and by far one of the craziest that I’ve had the privledge of seeing. This is the kind of game that rewards persistance. Two comebacks after being down six, four runs respectively? Against a Cy Young winner? Against a team that has beaten us EIGHT straight times up to that point? Capped off by a Chipper Jones bomb? Couldn’t have asked for more.
beisbol
Wow. So glad I watched this game. Amazing. Still in shock, can’t really form thoughts on it. Proly tomorrow, but I definitely can’t wait for @DOBoner to recap it for us!
baseball. love.
My dad claimed to go to bed once they put Durbin in. A few minutes later he texted me and said, “We need to score because he won’t pitch another inning like that.” So not only did Chipper win the game, he saved us from Durbin at the same time. Got to love it when a child-hood hero does what you thought he would do every at-bat one more time
I said this in the other game thread that I guess was deleted, but I’ve been watching since 1982, I was watching the Rick Camp game, and this was hands down the most amazing game I’ve ever seen.
Interesting that the pitchers who did not give up runs, were Durbin and Livan. Perhaps more interesting to me, was the postgame thread over at the Phils blog Crashburn Alley. While we have our issues with Fredi, Papelbon was nowhere to be found in this game for the Phils. I know he notched saves in the previous two games, so maybe he was unavailable, but the leverage was such that I think that maybe you run him out there.
You almost never use your closer on the road in a tie game. Also he has not thrown very many multiple innings in his career. Durbin actually has. So you throw Papelbon out there he pitches 2 innings and then what? They do not have Wilson Valdez anymore.
You have to put your team in the best position to win at that time. Putting a AAAA pitcher who just went through two rather wild innings in for a third inning is a bad choice when you have a $50mil pitcher who could easily keep the game moving.
Great game.
I have a question for all the writers: What do you attribute Hanson’s drop in fastball velocity to? I know his new delivery isn’t exactly ‘new’, but could it be a contributing factor? I figure it’s because of the multitude of shoulder injuries he has had, and/or a combo of the two. Just would like to hear what your opinions are.
Thanks..Go Braves
That WPA excites me in the nerdiest way possible. What a game.
I <3 Chipper
at 7am I turned down 2 tickets to this game because Wednesday night is the night I go to trivia with my closest friends. As much as I would have loved to have been there it was great to see it at the bar with friends. This was truly an amazing game (also getting praised or heckled for not being there by those same friends as the game went on was fun all in itself). Go Braves!
Just an aside here is what DOB posted earlier on the 2nd http://blogs.ajc.com/atlanta-braves-blog/2012/05/02/braves-clutch-hitting-has-gone-into-a-ditch/?cxntfid=blogs_atlanta_braves_blog in that article, which i hope linked but my not have. he talks about how the braves clutch hitting has sucked. Then literally that same day they have awesome clutch hitting. Both circumstances show small sample sizes but in the end prove the same point that SSS is a bad determinate of performance. There is nothing wrong with emotion, but evoking meaningless stats to support that emotion is well meaningless. This is a continuation of the argument I had with Tim on the last game recap but I feel is relevant that posting based on emotion (as I did earlier) is both fine and acceptable, but making glaring comments on the range of the team based off that emotion is still no relevant and degrades the overall discussion. In the end I’m thrilled the Braves and as an infrequent commenter I may not post in awhile, but I love the blog, I love the Braves and in the end as a guy with an Economics B.S. and an MBA I just want to warn against using SSS as an argument. Emotion and SSS should be kept separate and I apologize for clogging the past two game threads with this argument but I feel its necessary to keep the overall commenting on this site an enjoyable atmosphere.
Plus there’s no such thing as being a good clutch hitter
Since you keep pounding away with this SSS argument (mainly at me for whatever reason) would you mind sharing exactly that that means?
small sample size
Holy shit! What a game, one of the best I have witnessed, just wish I was there. More ups and downs than a rollercoaster!! Was on the live chat till Kevin had to turn it off, great fun and bet he wishes he could have stayed online for the hilarious comments! Could be some emotionally drained players rolling out at midday and some very scared pitchers? After watching the Doc and Tommy get killed yesterday whats the odds on the two lesser pitchers throwing a shutout? Go Braves. The streak against the filth is ended and I lost another 2 hours of sleep to a good cause.
What an awesome game. It’s the morning after and I still can’t believe this happened. To comeback from being down 6 runs against Roy Halladay is simply amazing when he was mowing the Braves down the way he was. Watching Chipper get all these game-winning hits this season have made me feel like it’s 1999 again and I’m a kid again watching my child hood hero win games for the Braves. If this is what it takes for the Braves to beat the Phillies than I’ll take it.
Batters now 0/12 in medium to high leverage situations against Durbin and last night was by far his highest leverage situation yet. What a great game to watch. I had chills watching Chip limp around the bases.
Small Sample Size
Yep, Glad his luck didn’t run out last night.
The quotes from last nights game were classic. McCann “I wanted to punch him in his face” when Chipper was about to cross home plate.
One of the best baseball games I’ve ever seen. It was bizzaro world. Ace starting pitchers and relievers were getting shelled. The ‘scrubs’ were getting perfect innings. Every time Philly got out to a lead, the Braves chased them down. Jack Wilson got a key hit. Heyward was sensational off the bench. And of course the mammoth walk-off shot by Chipper, after missing a home run, foul by 5 feet, 2 pitchers earlier.
Philly pitchers ended with WPA of -1.47.
Oh, an a grand slam that McCann sent into orbit. Loved the dugout shot of Minor and Beachy being told to get their spikes on. Delgado warming up in the bullpen. Fredi was pulling out all the stops to win the game, and he was right to do so. It was a division rival and a high-leverage game. Fredi also didn’t call a bunt at any time late. Well done all around by Fredi.
I thought to myself several times – Fredi is managing this game is being managed by Fredi as a playoff game. He was going to pull out all the stops. The shot I liked was Hudson having to toss hit bat and helmet aside to run and congratulate Chipper b/c Hudson was in the hole.
sorry mangled that sentence – it’s early and I stayed up late. Meant to say “Fredi is managing this game like a playoff game.”
Looking forward to hearing more thoughts from the bloggers on last nights slugfest, they are probably like the rest of us and still struggling to get their heads around what on.
This was better than the Conrad grand slam. That one had a more exciting 9th inning. This one was the more exciting game. Chipper’s producton this year may not quite equate to $14 Mil, but I wouldn’t trade the money for not having him.
Don’t forget, we did get pretty lucky with the Rollins strikeout call in the 9th. He should have been on first and they could have easily scored more than 1 run and beat us. You can’t win a game like that and not have a few calls go your way.
I know, I know, double negative in that last sentence.
Oh geez…It was phenomenal, but I don’t think it tops the conrad grand slam. Thats one of those moments where you remember what you were doing and where you were at the time.
I know I do. Was sitting at my boss’ house on his laptop because I was just told the Braves might get back into the game. Turned on the radio play-by-play during the Conrad at-bat. It was pure awesomeness.
Yeah, that Rollins punchout was “just a bit outside!”
Wonder who starts tonight had Delgado actually had to come in to the game.
Johnny Wholestaff.
Proobably Livan.
They would have likely sent Delgado down and brought up Teheran or Jurrjens for a start.
I was thinking about that myself last night. I am totally impressed that Fredi was willing to do whatever it takes – including running out Ol’ Timmy Hudson – to win. If Delgado had to pitch last night I would’ve expected Tehran, Gearin or even Varvaro to be called up for an emergency start, but it looks like they all pitched last night in the Gwinett double-header. I doubt Wren, et al, has confidence in JJ at this point. Noting all of this, we would have probably been given a steady diet of Livan and Durbin the Destroyer. Huddy is due up on Friday when we face the Rockies, but I doubt Frank & Fredi would have pushed him given his age.
Also, what a letdown from David Ross. The guy finally gets a PH PA and gets a K. I couldnt help but feel bad for the guy. I really wanted him to stroke one for the game winner *just* so that Fredi could see his value. Chip/Joe even said something on the broadcast to the effect of “Fredi says he has nightmares at night about using his backup catcher in a PH role and then the starting catcher getting injured. You know this is a special occasion if David Ross is PH-ing.”
The entire bullpen pitched at least one inning last night. However, Livan only threw 7 pitches. I expect to see him eat up some innings this afternoon (if needed).
We badly need 7IP out of Delgado today
Livian will no doubt eat up pitches this afternoon and whatever else he can get hisn hands on judging by his ever expanding girth! Fair play to him if he can rattle through an innings in 7 pitches though.
I’m in Atlanta for business, and I’ve been a HUGE Braves fan for years! This was my first MLB game I’ve ever been to, and I feel so damn lucky in so many ways. I got to see McCann bomb a grandslam, I got to see the Braves overcome 2 huge deficits, and I got to see my favorite baseball player of all time hit a 2 run walk-off home run! And I caught it all on camera! I really don’t think I could have asked for more. Best baseball game ever.
Can someone who’s smarter than me educate me on how Chipper’s homer is not the highest WPA. It literally gave the Braves a 100% chance of winning. How did it not add the most win probability?
Oh and ….. holy **** what an awesome game!!!! (what is the cursing policy on this blog?). That game was, at different times, frustrating, exhilerating, disappointing, exhausting, and, finally, thrillingingly satisfying. I couldn’t get to sleep last night I was so excited. Typically, I don’t watch the post-game shows because, honestly, Fox Sports analysts are pretty terrible. But last night I watched every bit of it. Wanted to hear as much from the Braves players as I could.
I know they all count the same, but damn … that one feels especially sweet.
WPA is the change in win probability during an event. Chipper’s homerun took them from 69.4 – 100, which is 30.6%.
Ruiz’ homerun took the Phillies from 31.2 – 72.1 which is a 40.9% increased chance of winning. McCann’s grandslam was a 39.1% increase.
Prado’s single ended up at 41% due to how late in the game it occured.
Yeah, okay, that makes sense. Thanks.
Do we expect Big Mac and chipper to be rested today? Could be a hard afternoon if we do especially if Jason isn’t fit to start.
Maybe it’s just the excitment from last night’s game but I’m really surprised the love Fred is getting for “going for it!” Without getting into the whole debate of a win in May is worth the same as a win in September, I think running out the following day’s starter would have been a mistake. I’m pretty sure the entire reason Livan is on the roster is for nights like this where he could have thrown two hundred 78-mph fastballs until the game’s outcome.
The live chat last night was fun, thanks for setting it up.
It’s not that clutch hitting doesn’t exist. It’s just that it’s not a skill. Obviously, if you get a hit in a given situation, it’s clutch even if the even t is random. I guess you could call it a high leverage situation but the point is the same. Chipper Jones hit a clutch home run but not because he is a clutch hitter.
It’s a difference in definition for a lot of people. If you believe it is the concept of just getting hits in important situations, then it exists. That is kind of a pointless definition because it doesn’t attempt to determine if that is “clutch” or normal hitting ability.
As you indicate the issue is the people who try to separate clutch from normal hitting ability, which would have to be analyzed as hitting ability in high leverage situations vs low leverage, or hitting as a whole. I do recall multiple writers as well as Elias trying to compare this and finding nothing of note to indicate that the ability to get hits in high leverage situations is distinguishable from ability to hit as a whole.
Can’t get over this game. I haven’t seen a lot of our players pumped up like that ever before. Jason was overflowing with excitement, Dan was running around jumping on people, everyone was trying to put that extra bit on each swing. I hope Fredi finds a way to use this as a tool for the rest of the year. I think the players got a good vibe from his “go after it” attitude, and now that the players have seen it out of him once, they know it’s there forever. Still can’t really process everything from last night. Had to try not to scream at work reading everything from the game.
Am I the only one that had visions of Scott Proctor vs PIT dancing in my head when Durbin came into the game?
I sure will miss Chipper next year.
scott proctor’s aggressive sliding was dancing in my head too…
http://i.minus.com/ieaCPS.gif