Brewers 4, Pirates 3 narrowly edges out the day's lone extra-inning game to take the top spot. The game began with Yovani Gallardo (who's pitched well this year) on the mound for the Brewers, and Wandy Rodriguez (who has not, like at all) for the Pirates.
Gallardo walked Travis Snider (who's not exactly your conventional leadoff hitter) to open the game, but didn't permit him to move past first. Rodriguez got off to a much rockier start with a Rickie Weeks double and a Jean Segura bunt single, but then bailed himself out on defense; Ryan Braun hit a grounder back to the mound, and Rodriguez was able to look Weeks back to third and still throw to second in time to start a double play. Jonathan Lucroy grounded out to end the inning with the game still scoreless.
The starters then combined to retire 11 straight hitters, getting to two outs in the bottom of the third with the bases clear. That brought Weeks to the plate again, and this time he homered, putting Milwaukee in front. A walk-and-balk put Segura on second before Braun lined out to end the inning.
Andrew McCutchen reached on an error and Pedro Alvarez walked in the top of the fourth, but Gallardo escaped the jam. The same could not be said of the top of the fifth, in which Jose Tabata led off with the first Pirate hit of the game and Tony Sanchez followed with the second, this one being of the over-the-wall variety and putting Pittsburgh in front. Rodriguez followed with a single of his own, as did Neil Walker, but Gallardo managed to leave the resultant runners at the corners.
Martin Maldonado led off the bottom of the fifth with a game-tying homer, but Gaby Sanchez started the sixth with a longball that restored a single-run advantage to the visiting team. The game was then handed to the bullpens, starting with a perfect sixth from Justin Wilson and excepting Gallardo's recording the first out of the seventh. Zach Duke came on to finish that inning, and Wilson returned to strike out the side in the bottom half. Tyler Thornburg walked both McCutchen and Alvarez (with the latter walk rendering McCutchen's steal of second meaningless), then induced a double play from Gaby Sanchez. Rob Wooten relieved Thornburg and brought a double switch and wholesale defensive changes with him (Lucroy from first to catcher, Mark Reynolds from third to first, Jeff Bianchi in at third and Maldonado out); he struck out Jordy Mercer to end the inning.
Tony Watson allowed a two-out Weeks single and nothing else in the bottom of the eighth. Wooten yielded an infield hit to Tabata and walked Ike Davis in the top of the ninth, but coaxed a double play from Starling Marte to keep the lead to a run. And Mark Melancon promptly provided the Brewers with the shortest possible path to eliminating that lead, allowing a Braun single, walking both Lucroy and Reynolds, and giving up a walkoff two-run single to Khris Davis.
This is a quality baseball game - the lead never exceeded one run in either direction, meaning there were the maximum number of ties and lead changes possible, one of which resulted in a walkoff. It scores a WPL of 3.59 - not spectacular, but in the 77th percentile so far this season.
That also makes it pretty much par for the course among games featuring the Pirates. Through 40 games this season, Pittsburgh has an average WPL of 3.26, which is a remarkable .25 higher than the second-most thrilling team (the White Sox). To put that margin in perspective, if you take .25 off of the second-place WPL average, you get the 15th-highest score (the Cubs), at 2.76.
What's behind all the drama? The Pirates have played 5 extra-inning games, which is maybe one more than you'd expect. Three of those games have lasted 13 innings or longer, which is almost certainly more than you'd expect. But the real key is that their games have been almost uniformly close - 20 of the 40 contests they've played so far have been decided by one run, with 6 of the remaining 20 decided by two. That's a good way to score as a thrilling team, even if it's not a trend that's likely to be sustained throughout the remaining three quarters of the season.
No comments:
Post a Comment