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October 28, 2013 Playoff ProspectusWorld Series Game Three Recap (The Managerial Moves Edition)
Wherever you stand on the obstruction call, you probably wish this game had been decided by a less ambiguous, controversial play. So it’s worth asking how we got to the point where this game could come down to where Will Middlebrooks fell. And the answer, in part (and as always), is “managerial moves.” Here, in reverse chronological order, are five moves that John Farrell or Mike Matheny made (or didn’t make) that helped set up Game Three for an infamous ending. 5. The Red Sox pitch to Jon Jay in the ninth. In the ninth, Farrell was faced with what seemed like an even more obvious IBB opportunity, and he passed it up. After Adams struck out swinging to lead off the inning, Molina singled to knock Brandon Workman out of the game and pinch hitter Allen Craig doubled against Koji Uehara. That brought up the left-handed-hitting Jay with one out and runners on second and third. Uehara has no career platoon split, so it wasn’t imperative to play lefty/righty here, but an IBB still would have set up the force at every base and brought up a much weaker hitter (Pete Kozma, with Kolten Wong up after that). Tony Cruz was the only position player left on the St. Louis bench, so Matheny had no substitute for Kozma. So did Farrell make a mistake? Maybe, but it’s tough to say for sure. Mitchel Litchtman did the math, and in this case, the expected outcomes of both scenarios are surprisingly similar, largely because Uehara issues free passes so rarely that he’s not a big risk to hand out a walkoff walk. Still, I’d guess that most managers wouldn’t have made the choice Farrell did. And had someone other than Jay been up, we probably wouldn’t be trying to parse what the rulebook says about obstruction. 4. The Red Sox let Brandon Workman hit in the ninth. Rosenthal threw three fastballs right over the plate, as if he hadn’t noticed Workman was there. And in the ways that mattered, he wasn’t. I don’t need to make the case for why a pitcher who hasn’t hit before shouldn’t be allowed to cross “Have a big-league at-bat” off his bucket list in the ninth inning of a tied World Series game. Farrell made it for me, acknowledging that he should have double-switched after Jarrod Saltalamacchia made the last out of the eighth, inserting Workman into Saltalamacchia’s spot in the order and batting backup catcher David Ross ninth. The offensive gap between Ross and Workman in one plate appearance would have more than made up for the offensive gap between Saltalamacchia and Ross in any subsequent at-bats, had the game gone to extra innings. And since Ross is a superior defender, he might not have made that fateful wide throw to third in the bottom of the inning. (Another way to think about this: Brandon Workman batted; Mike Napoli spent the game on the bench.) 3. The Cardinals bring in Randy Choate to face David Ortiz and Seth Maness to face Daniel Nava with two outs in the sixth. Because he went with Choate, Matheny had to make another move after Ortiz singled, going with Seth Maness. Maness hasn’t had a platoon split (either this season or over the previous two in the minors), and he’s an extreme groundball guy, which is what Matheny wanted with men on first and third. But Nava is so superior from the left side that it would’ve been worth sacrificing some groundball double play potential to turn him around. And while Siegrist is a fly ball guy, he also misses bats much more often than Maness. Maness got his grounder, but only after Nava singled to tie the game. You have to wonder whether Ortiz’s homer off Siegrist in Game One was a factor for Matheny; if so, it probably shouldn’t have been, since that was essentially the only time a lefty had hit a ball hard against Siegrist all season. And Ortiz entered that at-bat 3-for-9 with a walk against Choate, so if you want to play small-sample matchup, both lefties had been burned before. 2. The Cardinals let Joe Kelly start the sixth. If Matheny has an obvious flaw, it’s his slow hook with his postseason starters. And in Game Three, it came back to bite him again. 1. The Cardinals let Joe Kelly hit for himself in the fourth. ***
Ben Lindbergh is an author of Baseball Prospectus. Follow @benlindbergh
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Last night definitely felt like a strategy-heavy game in that a manager's decisions could actually make a big difference. Nice article.
And on another note, anyone catch Ortiz running his fingers through Salty's locks late in the game during a mound meeting?