6 teams waiting for a trot-off win
Posted by John Autin on July 21, 2011
Angel Pagan's 10th-inning blast Wednesday was the Mets' first walk-off HR of the year. Just six clubs remain without a game-ending HR this season. Below are the most recent walk-off HR for those six, with a bit of story for each. (Click here for all 2011 walk-off HRs.)
-- Rockies, 2010-09-12: 2-out, 2-run shot by pinch-hitter Jason Giambi, off Arizona's Sam Demel.
- Giambi's 2nd PH/walk-off HR of the year gave Colorado their 10th straight win, pulling them within 1.5 games of the division co-leaders.
- Five games later they were just 1 game out, but they skidded to a 1-12 finish.
-- Yankees, 2010-09-08: 2-run, come-from-behind HR by Nick Swisher, off Baltimore's Koji Uehara.
- It was the 2nd straight year that Swisher hit a walk-off HR on Sept. 8 to win a game by a 3-2 score. He homered twice in the 2009 game, for the first and last runs of the game, each HR coming after A-Rod had grounded out to SS.
- In 2010, Swisher's game-winner snapped a 3-game slide and put them 2.5 games up on the Rays, with 22 to play and the best record in baseball; but they lost 5 of 6 on a trip to Texas and Tampa, and had to settle for the Wild Card.
-- Red Sox, 2010-08-21: Solo shot in the 11th by Jed Lowrie, off Toronto's Casey Janssen.
- Lowrie had entered the game as a pinch-hitter in the 8th and drawn a walk, then played first base the rest of the game -- just the 3rd time he'd ever played 1B as a pro. In the 11th, he dropped a 2-out foul pop-up by John Buck, giving the slugging catcher another chance.
- But Buck struck out to end the inning, and Lowrie led off the home half with a HR. ("As usual, the guy whose error could have lost the game leads off the next inning....")
- Lowrie's shot kicked off a a 4-game win streak that brought Boston to 73-55, the 3rd-best record in the AL -- but 5.5 games back of the division co-leaders, whom they never threatened.
-- Twins, 2010-08-17: 2-run, come-from-behind shot in the 10th by Jim Thome, off Matt Thornton of the White Sox.
- The sudden reversal ended a game full of them. Minny jumped ahead 4-0 in the 1st; Chicago tied it in the 4th; Twins went up again in the 5th; ChiSox tied it in the 9th, when Alexei Ramirez homered off Matt Capps.
- In the 10th, Ramirez put the Sox ahead for the 1st time with an RBI single. But in the bottom half, Thornton allowed a 1st-pitch single to Delmon Young, the 6th batter he faced, and Thome ended it on an 0-1 count.
- The game gave Minnesota their 5th straight win and culminated a 2nd-half surge (23-12 since the break) that lifted from 3.5 back to 4 games in front of the Ozzmen. They were never threatened after that.
-- Astros, 2010-06-03: 2-out, 2-run shot by Carlos Lee, off Washington's Matt Capps,
- Lee's blast ended Cristian Guzman's roller-coaster game on a very sour note. Guzman started the game at SS and made 2 errors there, one causing an unearned run, and went hitless in his first 4 ABs, including a GDP in the 7th with the Nats down a run.
- In the 8th, Guzman moved to RF after a double-switch; it was his 8th career game in the OF. The Nats mounted a 2-out rally in the 9th, with Guzman driving in the go-ahead run.
- But in the bottom of the 9th, with 2 out and a runner on 2nd, Guzman dropped a fly ball in deep right-center to let in the tying run, and Lee won the game with his HR. Guzman did not play the OF again that year; and after batting .313 through June 3, he hit just .220 the rest of the way.
- Also notable: Guzman's Win Probability Added for that game was a strong 0.188, showing that WPA doesn't always give a good picture of a player's impact.
And finally....
-- Mariners, 2009-09-18: 2-out, 2-run, come-from-behind HR by Ichiro Suzuki, off Mariano Rivera.
- The Great One, riding a streak of 36 straight saves converted (see games 10-58), struck out the first 2 batters looking in the 9th, before pinch-hitter Mike Sweeney doubled on the first pitch. (Sweeney and Omar Vizquel each has 18 PAs against Rivera without a single strikeout, the most of any Mo opponent.) Ichiro came to the plate just 2 for 10 career against Rivera, but he drove the first pitch over the wall in right to win the game.
- Mariano blew just 2 saves that year in 51 chances, including the postseason.
P.S. Toronto and Cleveland share top honors with 4 walk-off HRs this year. Teams that have surrendered the most walk-off HRs: 4 by the Cardinals; 3 by the Braves, Padres, Angels, A's and Mariners.
Among hitters, Travis Hafner, Matt Kemp and Albert Pujols have 2 each; brothers Justin and B.J. Upton have 1 each.
Among pitchers, Fernando Salas of St. Louis has allowed 3, including those by Pagan Wednesday and Brandon Phillips last Friday. Atlanta's Cristhian Martinez allowed 2 in consecutive appearances, each in the 12th inning or later; Darren Oliver and David Pauley also have 2.
July 21st, 2011 at 3:06 pm
I remember the Ichiro/Rivera homer. Ichiro just bet on where the pitch would be and cheated on it, opening up his hips early to get to the inside cutter. I guess it's not as easy as it sounds, since Rivera has been known to throw a few pitches in that spot but most of them don't end up in the seats.
July 21st, 2011 at 3:15 pm
Maybe Ichiro just imagined that he was taking batting practice.
July 21st, 2011 at 4:13 pm
That said, the Red Sox have had at least two walk-off wins this season. Just not on homers. Both were a few days apart, the walk-off singles coming from Carl Crawford, near the end of his godawful April. (Unlike with a lot of big-name, big-bucks free agents who come in to Boston and struggle early, Boston fans have seemed very patient with Carl.)
July 21st, 2011 at 4:15 pm
Anyone else find it amusing that the six include two awful teams (makes sense), two not-very-good teams (yeah, I suppose), and the two best teams in the American League?
July 21st, 2011 at 4:29 pm
Boston fans have seemed very patient with Carl.
The fact that their other big addition hit just fine in April certainly didn't hurt Carl's cause. 🙂
July 22nd, 2011 at 7:34 am
@4 John - Yes, it is amusing that both the Yankees and Red Sox haven't had a walk-off HR in a while.
July 22nd, 2011 at 9:13 am
@4
John, I think that the 6 teams on the list show that walk-off home runs for or against doesn't correlate with quality of team. Not having a walk off home run could mean you put a lot of your games away early and weren't in a position to have one.
When you look at Toronto's 4 HR's, two of them were hit by John McDonald and Corey Patterson. Say what? This suggests that walk-off HR's are merely a matter of "luck".
Examining all 44 home runs, although there are a lot of the usual suspects winning the games, there are just as many surprises in terms of overall power.
July 22nd, 2011 at 11:19 am
@7, Neil L. -- For all practical purposes, I'd agree that chalking it all up to "luck" is the most sensible course.
I do suspect that mathematicians could parse out some correlation to team characteristics, but I think some of those characteristics would work against each other.
For example, a team that hits quite a few HRs, like the Yankees, should -- in the long-term -- have an above-average number of walk-off HRs. On the other hand, a team with a high run differential, like the Yankees, should tend to have fewer walk-off HRs, simply because they play fewer close games.
July 22nd, 2011 at 3:31 pm
I was at the 9/8/10 Swisher walk-off HR game for the Yanks.
(my favorite walk-off HR game that I saw in person will always be the Mr. November game) 🙂
July 22nd, 2011 at 5:14 pm
I was at the the Mariner game in 2009. Raised in NY living in WA I catch the Yanks series every year. Ichiro was the only threat the entire night, my friends and I were questioning why we were even pitching to him, IBB anyone? anyone? and then boom over fence.
From the reaction of the Mariners you'd think it was 1995. Too bad they were 13 1/2 out with 14 games to go in the season. Meanwhile another World Series title for us.
July 22nd, 2011 at 5:29 pm
Does any one know who was first to use the phrase "walk-off" home run? Sounds like the invention of an ESPN-highlight talking head.
Is there any other kind for the home team in the bottom of the ninth or extra innings? 🙂
Isn't a game-winning home run for the visiting team just as significant, in terms of WPA, as for the home team in the ninth or extra innings?
But I guess the visiting team couldn't celebrate at home plate for their home run. Sorry, just a little tired of the phrase walk-off.
July 22nd, 2011 at 5:56 pm
@10, Wazzu_Hondo -- Me, I can't quite see the wisdom of giving an IBB to Ichiro -- generally not a HR hitter -- when he represents the winning run.
However, I wouldn't be surprised if they thought about it. But if they did, they may have also flashed back to a game in which Mariano did intentionally walk Ichiro, and all hell broke loose:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA200205040.shtml
(Also featured in that inning: a rare Mariano fielding error.)
July 22nd, 2011 at 6:04 pm
@12
JA, do you have brain cells made of silicon? 🙂 How do you remember these things? Nice recall for the Rivera-Suzuki matchup. And the Shields-Sabathia July-10th catch in another blog.
You are inhuman .......... 🙂
July 22nd, 2011 at 7:34 pm
Thanks, Neil ... I am a detail person, but more, I'm just a P-I searchaholic. When my initial search of walk-offs by team turned up Ichiro's off Mariano, naturally I was curious about their faceoffs over the years, so I ran a batter-pitcher search, saw the 1 IBB, and checked the play-by-play. Didn't use it in that post, but it was still in my mind a day later.
I've always loved box scores, something I inherited from my dad. When the Play Index came along, with the links to the Retrosheet box scores & P-B-P, I was like a pig in slop. I guess I still am. Any time someone brings up a particular game, I can't help looking for nuggets. Seems like there's always something.
July 22nd, 2011 at 7:42 pm
@11 -- Agreed, "walk-off" has been overused. Unfortunately, it's a very useful term; it's the quickest way to convey the situation. I try to mix in "game-ending" sometimes.
I share your curiosity about the term's origin. I'm sure I never heard it as a kid -- no one ever mentioned "Bobby Thomson's walk-off shot heard 'round the world" -- and I can't recall noticing it at all in the 20th century. Perhaps a quick googling will turn up some history.
P.S. A visitor's (eventually) game-winning HR can't have the same WPA as a home-team HR in the same base-out situation, because the WPA odds reflect how much "time" is left in the game. If the visitors go ahead in the 9th or later, the home squad still has 3 outs to work with.
July 23rd, 2011 at 10:44 am
@12, Nice research JA, however it should be noted that it was an entirely different scenario.
1. M's were a 93 win team that year (21-9 at time) and could produce some runs (814 in '02 v. 640 in '09).
2. There were two outs already in the 2009 game with a runner on 2nd and 1st base open...2001 walk was to load the bases with 1 out.
3. 2009 F. Gutiérrez is 1/6 w/ 3K lifetime against Rivera, .246 w/ runners on 1-2 and .231 with 2 outs. Jeff Cirillo was a .351 lifetime hitter with the bases loaded, .310 with 1 out.
4. Rivera 2002 - In save Situation 2.43 ERA 28sv... runners on 1-2 .267 BA, bases loaded .667 BA 6 Blown Saves.
2009 In SV Sit 1.16/ 44 saves...runners on 1/2 .125 BA, never had bases loaded during '09 but was .200BA w/ runners on 2-3 and as you mention 2 Blown Saves on the year (this being one of course)
Clearly, two different Rivera's and 2 different opponents. If I recall 2002 was a nagging play through injury season as well. Sorry last stat - 2002 at home, 2009 on road. For his career Rivera at Home .214BA 2.45 ERA on road .207 and 1.97. However should also be noted Rivera gave 1 IBB in all of 2009 and just 2 in 2002 so it's not a thought most of the time.
I'm kind of a stat freak, this website is not healthy for people like us. Thanks again for the followup response and the article/blog.
July 23rd, 2011 at 11:04 am
Have to add this - for an even more impressive number study, check out Ichiro Career/2002/2009 Clutch stats, RISP and first pitch...the guy is amazing. Hint all those stat categories he performs his best or second best in with regards to the 2009 scenario
July 23rd, 2011 at 11:13 am
@17, Wazzu -- Fair point about Clutch Ichiro. The flip side is the question a friend asked when I noted Miguel Tejada's excellent stats with RISP during his big seasons:
"Why can't he concentrate the rest of the time? Those ABs matter, too!"