Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1130: From Game 5 to Eternity

Episode Date: October 31, 2017

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about the madness of World Series Game 5, including slick balls and home runs, Clayton Kershaw and Yuli Gurriel, and the many moments when the game appeared to be over but refused to end. Audio intro: Love, "Five String Serenade" Audio outro: The Jayhawks, "Five Cups of Coffee"  iTunes Feed (Please rate […]

On my easel I drew, while I was thinking of you. But on the roof of my head, here came my five-string serenade. Hello and welcome to episode 1130 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangrass, presented by our Patreon supporters. My name is Ben Lindberg. I'm a writer for The Ringer, joined by Jeff Sullivan of Fangrass. Hello, Jeff. How are you? Hi. Hi, Ben. How are you? I'm doing okay. How much sleep are you working with right now? Hi, Ben. How are you?

I'm doing okay. How much sleep are you working with right now? Not a measurable amount, but, you know, just another case where I'm thankful to not be on the East Coast because that would have made things a lot worse. Right. Yeah. No, I think you probably got less sleep than I did on this particular instance. So I look forward to seeing how you hold up throughout this episode. Look forward to seeing how you hold up throughout this episode. I think everyone who writes about baseball and, frankly, watches baseball is running on fumes right now after three games this weekend and the epic craziness of Game 5. So that's what we're going to talk about. We don't really have a plan here. We're just going to talk about whatever aspects of these games in this series we want to talk about.

Of course, you and I did another patreon live stream during game four fortunately for us we did it during game four not oh my five oh my god somebody tweeted at us uh i think it was well one of one of the listeners tweeted at us like oh i wish that you had done a recording for game five instead and even just the thought of it was enough to just give me the shivers i couldn't imagine look we basically did that with game two yeah but this it was no i i can't that's look it was fun glad we did it that would be an absolute nightmare i can't believe that we're talking about another game like this because I think we must have talked about I know I talked about somewhere I mean just the nature of game two and again it's kind of weird to want to put

a number on a game's excitement but we do have a stat for that baseball has a stat for everything in this case win probability added not always the most useful from an analytical standpoint but pretty useful if you just want to capture how exciting a game felt. And as I noted after game two, that game was the 15th most exciting World Series game of all time, just using total change in win probability added as your metric of choice. So one team goes ahead, their odds of winning the game go up. The other team fights back, their odds of winning the game go up. You add all those changes together, you end up with one number. And obviously a game like this, like these, that went to extra innings with a ton of twists and turns and comebacks is going to rate pretty highly. So game two was 15th all-time in the World Series. Did not expect that

to be equaled or topped in this very same series, but it was. And now Game 5 is sixth all-time on that list. And this is the second World Series ever after the 1924 series to have two individual games in the top 20 of that ranking. So that maybe doesn't surprise us, but it confirms what we all felt as we were watching. These were classic games. This is a classic series. What I like about looking at this leaderboard on the baseball gauge, which the listeners are not also doing that, but the link that you sent out, it has all these World Series games sorted by the total change in win probability added, which is cool, a very useful statistic.

In the column next to two columns over yeah average there is the yeah the average leverage index of the game which basically is a an attempted shorthand reflection of how intense the game was in in any given plate appearance and what's funny to me is if if you look down that column then the two games that stand out for being low average leverage are the two games from this world series and what that basically means which i think everyone has sensed is that it's not that each individual plate appearance has been tense in that there have been a bunch of runners on pitchers are constantly working out of jams it's that things have happened in the blink of an eye because there have just been home runs every swing has been a

home run there have been 57 home runs in the last two nights alone the game has been turning not because of like drives to the wall or or critical walk. There have been walks. And I mean, Bregman didn't win the game, game five with a home run, but they just happened so fast. Brandon Morrow didn't allow a home run in the season. And he allowed two and six pitches. Now, look, I know that the second one of them was a silly home run. It wasn't a real home run. That ball doesn't even leave my living room if the baseball were played there, but it still counted. That's the ballpark. It's a real home run that ball doesn't even leave my living room if the baseball were played there but it still counted that's the ballpark it's a real home run according to the rules of minute made park it's just it's i just you take over take over i can't okay so uh pirates pitcher trevor williams last night tweeted out uh before the game was over but as the game was building

yeah i think it was right after pretty sure it was right after carlos correa's home run that made it 11 to 8 boy was it not over then trevor williams pirates pitcher tweeted out from uh john quote socrates jso baseball is weird such as life yes official quote and motto of effectively wild yeah this was a good game for that yeah i mean i think this game was better than game two, more entertaining than game two. One thing, it's just later in the series, so the stakes feel a little higher, feels like we're closer to a resolution here. And it was just more of everything, more runs, not more home runs, actually. There were a mere seven home runs in this game compared to the eight in game two but i think also game two the craziness started late that was a normal game for the first seven innings or so and then everything was packed into a few innings which was exciting but i think this one the craziness started in the fourth or fifth inning and just stayed crazy for the next whatever it was three

and a half hours or something this started looking like it was going to be Clayton Kershaw solidifying his new narrative of he can pitch in the postseason, and then everything fell apart all of a sudden. And just heading into the game, the story about slick baseballs was dominating the discussion, and that did not change, I guess, when we saw so many home runs hit, many of them on flat sliders or breaking balls. And I had no idea what to make of this story. I think that unlike the large and sort of big sample juiced ball discussion that we've been having for a couple of years now, I mean, I believe that the ball is different, is bouncier, has lower seams. And that has a lot to do with the rise in home run rate.

It's not all of it, but it's a lot of it. And I believe that because we have a lot of data to that effect showing that it's based on stats, it's based on physical testing of the baseball over big samples. And we don't have that for this new claim in the World Series. We have a few pitchers saying that the ball seems slicker feels slicker and i don't know what to think when a pitcher comes out in support of the juiced ball theory or now the slick ball theory which just sounds even more sexual probably than the juiced ball which is difficult but you never know what to think because obviously pitchers are the ones who have incentive to think or to say that the ball is different.

And that doesn't mean they're making it up. Maybe they actually believe it, but maybe they've talked themselves into it. So when you get this many players openly saying it, it's somewhat persuasive. But I don't know that we can determine anything unless we actually get our hands on some of these baseballs and test them, which maybe people will do. But statistically speaking, it's tough to do. And I think Travis took a look at that. Eno took a look at that. And just over five games with the variability and movement and spin and all of these factors that we see ballpark to ballpark and game to game and weather to weather, we're going from extremely unseasonably hot for a World Series game and humid to not that,

to indoors and climate controlled. And it's just hard to control for all of these factors and say, yeah, the ball is different. And yeah, it's affecting certain pitches in certain ways. And we saw Clayton Kershaw throw plenty of sliders in game one and was great. And we saw him throw sliders in game five and was lousy so i don't know what to make of this as far as how it's affecting this series itself right we're looking at the playoffs and last i checked the strikeout rate in the playoffs is still higher than it's ever been offense is not way way up and even in the tom verducci article where he was introducing this theory to the public it ended sort of buried at the end was rich hill saying no everything's fine

everything seems fine and and this is rich hill who's who you think would be most sensitive or more sensitive to a change in the ball than almost anyone if the ball is super different in the playoffs why is lance mccullers throwing curveballs all the time why is he being successful like it just doesn't rich hill made comments earlier in the year about thinking the ball was different then when he was having his blister issues so yeah i mean so if you're rich hill you can it's it's possible for the ball to be different in 2017 or 2016 which i think there is some evidence to suggest as much but it also then to suggest that there's another change for the world series i i understand why you why pitchers would maybe want to think that i can even understand i mean i don't

know why they'd be lying the ball feels slicker course, you'd sort of be aware of that, but it just seems like a small sample or looking for an excuse or what. But the pitchers are not unanimous in this. The numbers don't reflect that offense is like way out of control. These are two very good offensive teams going at it head to head in the World Series

where all the pitchers are just like beaten to death. I don't want to like overstate the effect of fatigue because the Astros were just getting one hit into the ninth inning the day before. But I mean, look, watching game five to me, it's like both teams had pitching staffs full of all the names that we know, all the usual pitchers that we've talked about for months.

But none of those names meant anything because those pitchers just weren't those pitchers. They were just randomly generated men in uniforms trying to throw the baseball as best as they could. Like they were trying their hardest, but they seemed to collectively have nothing. I know Brennan Morrow threw some fastballs at like 96 miles per hour. That's hard, but he was gassed. Kenley Jansen looked gassed. Clayton Kershaw looked gassed.

Everybody just looked like they were defeated. I don't know how there were, what, 58, 59 outs recorded in the game. I don't know how that happened. Baseball has sort of a PR problem here potentially. I don't know that it's a crushing kind of problem because I think whether the baseballs are slick or juiced or whatever, we've all agreed that this series has been extremely fun. So if that is in some part because of the baseball or changes in the baseball, I don't know that anyone really minds all that much. Maybe they'd mind if this were the regular season, but even then, I'm not sure people cared. So I think this isn't necessarily an existential threat to baseball or anything, but it's not a great look for the sport when you have your own players criticizing and questioning the most central, most important piece of equipment. now where every time we see something, we wonder whether the ball had something to do with that. When Kershaw gave up his home run to Gurriel on a flat slider, you wonder, well, is that just a bad pitch? Is that just a flat slider because of Kershaw? Or is it a flat slider because the ball is different and strange? And maybe it seems to affect the competition a little more than a two-space ball, which might affect certain pitchers more than others, but on the whole, it has some effect on everyone, whereas if there's a slickness that's affecting certain pitches in particular, then that hurts certain pitchers in particular and affects pitch selection in a way that the juiced ball might not to the same extent. Like, even when Quinta Maeda gave up a home run, it was on a four-seamer, and I think

Smoltz immediately afterwards said something like, well, you can't trust the slider, so you go to the fastball. And so every time something happens, it was like, well, was this the ball? Did the ball have something to do here? And when you have players coming out and kind of questioning whether the competition is fair or on the parameters that everyone thinks it is, and even if there's nothing to it, even if it's just something that they're convincing themselves of, I think baseball has opened itself up to that kind of question just because the ball does seem to be different in some ways. And MLB's denials haven't really been very convincing when presented with all the evidence to the contrary that we have. They haven't shown us much evidence of their own other than to say that we're doing testing and they haven't really put the reports out there publicly. I've seen some of them and

even those, I'm not sure really show what they conclude that they show. So at this point, MLB's credibility when it comes to the baseball has really eroded. And so that opens up the sport to these questions about, well, now it's slickness, which is something we weren't even really talking about before. So maybe that's not a great story for the sport, but if it has contributed to these games, maybe it's not harmful. It certainly hasn't detracted from the fun that we've all had here. Yeah. If you're a baseball, I don't know what you do about it.

Maybe one thankful point for them is that far, far more people are aware of how exciting the series has been than are aware of the slick ball theory. I mean, that's something that's been passed around, you know, kind of a Twitter bubble kind of thing where everyone on the internet knows that maybe the baseballs are slick, but the average fan watching at home has no real idea. Yeah, it was mentioned on the broadcast because, you know, Verducci's on the broadcast and Smoltz is a pitcher. So there's some breakthrough there. Yeah. But I don't know that the typical casual fan watching really cares all that much. Yeah, but what makes it difficult

for baseball is that you can't, I don't know, there must be some kind of like a measure of slickness. But look, baseball isn't going to run its own test. It's not going to have any results anytime soon about the baseball.

And I think we can assume it's going to be inconclusive or they're going to say, well, the balls are the same. And you know what? Maybe or even probably they are the same but when you have a case like altuve hitting the home run and smolt saying well maeda couldn't trust the slider well that at bat began with six sliders or cutters and then he threw a fastball so it's like oh you can't

trust the slider but then if kershaw throws a slider gives up a first pitch home run to guriel it's like well shouldn't have thrown the slider because he can't trust it so you can't like the argument fits almost every single case you yeah you look at well why is ken giles struggling well he hasn't been able to locate his slider very well in the playoffs well maybe maybe that's what's going on kelly jansen's main page is basically like a slider variation of a fastball he hasn't been very good in the world series but then i mean again you have i don't know if there's anything more counter convincing that's not a word. That's two words.

But like the fact that Kershaw was so dominant in game one of the World Series, throwing that slider a whole bunch. I mean, that's that's the same World Series ball. He made it work until he didn't make it work. So it's not like the slider has been killed. But I don't know. Baseball could probably use like a two to nothing game six with like a whole bunch of breaking ball

strikeouts just to kind of feel normal again i don't know if that's what i want but baseball could could really use that and it's god what it's verlander hill right rich hill yep it's gonna yeah well if he uh it let if rich hill makes it five innings then it's been a successful breaking ball and and maybe the this theory could be put a little bit to rest. Yeah. I mean, we've certainly seen a lot of strikeouts. Game one was a pitcher's duel. There have been some other games that weren't particularly high scoring. So yeah, I mean, game two and game five, that's what we're going to remember from this series, unless game six and seven, if there is one, is also crazy. But we'll probably remember this series for the constant home run barrage. And that's not what it's been entirely at all times,

but that's been what it looked like at a tie point. So yeah, I mean, I don't know what to say about this game. It was crazy in most of the ways that game two was crazy and some others. And I think, you know, early on, it looked like Clayton Kershaw was going to be great. Then he gives up the home run to Gurriel, which was like a confluence of just the worst storylines that none of us wants to devote as much time to it here, but I'm in camp, should have been suspended, and yes, maybe it would have been deferred anyway, but it would have sent an important message, I think, to say that even World Series games are not above the desire to take action when something like this occurs, and instead, you know, Manfred said

something about moving on, like, let's put the focus elsewhere on this series by deferring the suspension until 2018. And I know there are other factors involved, his financial salary losses, Gurriel's and players' union considerations, and not punishing the fan base for the action of one player, which I don't find to be a compelling argument. And the fact that Yu Darvish took the high road here, I think to his credit and was very gracious, but to me that doesn't necessarily affect the decision. Anyway, I think if Manfred was trying to just put this behind baseball, I don't think that's really what he accomplished here. I mean, there was no good outcome that would satisfy everyone because if you had suspended Gurriel, even if he had served the suspension, I think, people would have been upset obviously Astros fans would have been upset some people would have felt it was an overreaction as it is some people felt it was an under reaction and it still hangs over the series and lingers into next season now because he will be serving the suspension next year so it'll be a story again then. And you opened yourself up

to the risk that a pivotal play would come because of Yuli Gurriel in this series. And that happened, though it was one of a dozen pivotal plays in game five, but it was one of the more momentous ones and one of the ones that stood out to us early when Clayton Kershaw gave up the home run to Gurriel and, you know, that reinforced the Kershaw narrative, which, you know, you can't really deny what the stats say. He's been worse in the postseason. And then you have Gurriel being one of the heroes in a game for which many felt he should not have been eligible. And then, of course, it was on a flat slider. So you get slick balls in there too too but ultimately that didn't turn out to be the story because there were so many more stories and so many more heroes and so many more goats and I guess Kershaw's kind of off the hook he didn't actually take the loss and no pitcher was good in this game but you know it looked like he was undoing his poor reputation and now he has

undone any hope of having a positive takeaway from this postseason. And again, I still don't believe that there's some kind of mental weakness in Clayton Kershaw that is contributing to his struggles in the postseason. But you can't deny that there have been struggles in the postseason. There have been a lot of home runs, and I thought early on in my more naive innings of Game 5, I thought, well, maybe my article after the game is going to be about Clayton Kershaw's home run troubles in the playoffs. And I knew even before doing any research, like, well, this is going to be unsatisfying because it's always unsatisfying to look up your home run problems because here's what happens. Well, it looks like he gave up some home runs on unhittable pitches. He made and might have made some mistakes. Usually he doesn't get punished so much for those mistakes.

And Clayton Kershaw throws a lot of pitches in the zone if anything he's like the the best starting pitcher in baseball like getting away get getting positive results on pitches over the middle so it was going to be i'm i'm glad i didn't have to write that article then maybe it's something that comes after the playoffs are over and and kershaw could still have his uh sort of full at 2016 nlds and maybe make an appearance out of the bullpen in game seven. And he can have another redemptive moment as if he hasn't had enough of them in the playoffs. But I mean, that that game had so many pivotal moments. It was like he was a game in a constant state of pivoting. It was like, I don't know, you have like a circle of assailants with swords around one man who's like trying to fend them all off. And he's just like constantly turning around

to try to hit the next guy with the sword. That doesn't make any sense. But neither did the game. one man who's like trying to fend them all off and he's just like constantly turning around to try to hit the next guy with the sword that doesn't make any sense but neither did the game there are two things and this is a little more from the writer's perspective and not even necessarily my own but firstly you had this was game five not game three not game four this was game five which means it was the game before the travel day which means all the media people who were at the game had like flights out of houston mostly early in the morning on monday which means that they had miserable miserable evenings trying to get stories written and filed in some time sensitive manner and also i don't want to by no means do i intend to make this a political podcast but i think we all knew

hanging over our heads was no matter what gets written about game five it's going to get published monday morning which is going to be competing it's just like what we knew was going to be some huge breaking news uh having to do with indictments and you know a political campaign so there's already like i don't know there's it it feel i don't have the numbers for it but it feels like since roughly last november or maybe before that that there's been a slightly reduced demand for maybe the non-essential kind of media content online. Because the people that we cater to and the people that much published online content is catered to are like office workers. And office workers have a certain limited amount of time to read the news, read the stuff that they don't need to be reading, but they want to be reading. And there have been divided priorities.

Maybe a little less time has been spent reading about sports and a little more time has been spent reading about other stuff. And this is this is such an interesting confluence of like one of the biggest national news stories of the year and one of the most insane sports games of the year, all hitting the Internet like at the exact same time because i don't know how many people publish their game stories right when the game is over because that was going to be like three o'clock local time and yeah it just was everything was going to get scheduled for the morning then i woke up well look we all know how it worked but there's just just such a even stepping away from baseball what what a what a time to be alive right yeah i mean well there's a some new political craziness seemingly every day, every week

Which is how baseball feels right now does not usually feel this way So, I mean, what else is there to say? I guess, you know, we can talk about the fact that both bullpens were bad And frankly, maybe baseball is better when bullpens are bad Bad bullpen baseball is good baseball because you get a lot of comebacks. I mean, when Kenley Jensen comes in and closes the game, as he almost always did until this series, that's kind of fun, I guess, to watch him be dominant, but not nearly as fun as watching him be human and watching the Astros come back and make him pay and win the game against him

when you're not expecting that. And what the Dodgers had never blown a four run lead at any point during this season, I think I heard. And of course, they'd never lost a game this season that they'd been winning after eight heading into game two when that happened. So, you know, it's just a succession of unlikely events. And we talked about bullpenning so much last postseason and this postseason heading into this series and I don't think anything we said is rendered irrelevant or obsolete by this single series it's five games there's only so much you can take away from it

but we're certainly seeing bullpens not be a factor in this except for being bad and coughing up leads and I don't know what. Hinch does at this point. He has already demoted his closer, Ken Giles, who's had one of the worst postseasons of all time, really, certainly for someone who hasn't pitched a whole lot of innings and seemed like Chris Davensky was someone he could trust. And that backfired. He blew a save, gave up three runs in Game 5. The old bring-in-the-starter plan didn't work either because Colin McHugh gave up runs. So there's really nothing you can do at this point except start Justin Verlander, which is what he will do in game six and hope that he throws another complete game. from game one the start by darvish which you and i discussed in the patreon stream but probably the

worst start of darvish's career which helped fuel the slick balls and sliders narrative but he had nothing and he only got five outs and so roberts i think had to do what he did and try to keep the game close and use his best arms and that put him in a position where brendan morrow was trying to pitch for the first time in his career in back-to-back days and he didn't seem to have anything he gave up what four runs on six pitches or something which is remarkably efficient it felt like he was out there forever but he was actually not throwing many pitches they were just all doing damage and yeah everyone was tired and it had something to do with the fact that it's the last week of October, but also just the lingering effects of that disastrous starfish start in game one.

The current bullpen ERAs in this World Series, the Dodgers are at 5.32, the Astros are at 7.58. Does seem like there's been a lot of mounting fatigue and, you know, whatever, maybe the baseball theory, who can really say? fatigue and you know whatever maybe the baseball theory who can really say but you talk about bullpenning and if you if you go back last year the the indians had a world series bullpen area that was in the twos so you know no one no one was using their bullpen more than the indians were last season but they were able to kind of keep it together there and until the end and i guess we did see sort of a role this chapman start to show signs of serious fatigue at the end of last season so look pitchers get extremely tired because they have been pitching for like eight months almost non-stop and i have never

been i don't know if you know this i've never been a professional baseball player i've barely been an amateur baseball player but it seems to me there's a i think there's talk about pitchers being ahead of the hitters or something early in the season i don't know if that's maybe i'm getting that backwards but i think that's what the theory is and that hitters just have to i don't know spend time catching up but if i had to guess i wonder if hitters kind of make up some ground at the end when pitchers are just running on fumes and look i get that position players are tired too but it's a different kind of tired and this could just be reasons you buy us after what we just saw in game five because that was a that was all hitters the pitchers had no answer but seemed like

the hitters were fresh and if anything maybe they were relieved to finally be seeing like hittable pitches it's been so long since in the playoffs that there were so many hittable pitches so i don't know what you do i don't know if this means that you need to worry about bullpenning or calling to question its longer term strategy seems like if there's a message here and it's easy to say in retrospect but maybe especially in the dodgers case they should have trusted their non-top relievers a little more when they had opportunities in the series use brandon mccarthy a little more use josh fields ross stripling a little more when they've had the opportunities like i don't know even game four well i guess look i i might have i might have forgotten about the course of game four that was not a l i might have i might have forgotten about the course of game

four that was not a lopsided game that actually was another incredible baseball game that was then decided late but there have been some opportunities in hindsight where the dodgers could have used their non-elite relievers given the top guys a break it's uh really easy to say now and i don't know how that would have worked out because on the other side you want to say well any lead in the world series you want to seize it you want to take advantage and you want to make sure you don't give it away but i don't know maybe the important thing is that after a game like game five there just are no answers you can't talk your way out of it it's just like as a manager it seems like as a manager for that game you're just sitting in the dugout watching and thinking well i can't do anything there's nothing

for me to do yeah which is you know how you know, how baseball should be, really. I mean, we don't necessarily want the manager to play a pivotal role. We kind of want managers to get out of the way and not make dumb decisions. But ultimately, we want the players' successes or failures to dictate the outcome of the game. And that's what we're seeing here. And, yeah, you mentioned game four being closer than the score suggests. You mentioned game four being closer than the score suggests. It was tied 1-1 after eight innings and somehow ended up 6-2 in nine innings.

But it was not like that for most of the game. And yeah, by the way, the pitchers ahead of the hitters or vice versa thing, Max Markey wrote an article about that for Baseball Prospectus a few years ago before he went to work for the Indians. ago before he went to work for the Indians. And he found that the hitters are ahead of the pitchers early in the season if you account for temperature and everything. Run scoring is highest at that point and then sort of levels off in mid-June, and then it's the same for the rest of the season. So it suggests that pitchers are behind the hitters early in the year. Maybe they are again behind the hitters at this point in the year. I don't know. But, yeah, I mean, it's just crazy. Like, it just felt like being drunk on baseball, and we were all giggling and laughing and kind of semi-delirious, certainly in the Ringers baseball Slack channel,

where people who hadn't participated in baseball discussions all year were popping up and dropping in just to say, I'm watching this and just, like, register that they were a part of this. It felt like that. And this is just like, you know, best case scenario for the second consecutive World Series. Really, we've had two great teams, teams with arguments for being the best teams in baseball, young players who are, you know, the faces of the sport for the next decade or more, very expressive, demonstrative players, particularly in this series. And they're doing the things that they do and they're starring. And both of these series have totally delivered because that was not predetermined.

It was not a given. We knew that this was a good matchup talent wise, but we didn't know it would be a good series. It could have been a sweep. Someone could have just looked lousy or someone could have rolled right over the other team. Didn't happen. We're getting at least a six game series and at least two all-time classic games and other good games also. So I mean, this is baseball is sending us off into the long cold winter with the perfect reminder of why we miss it when it's gone. Carlos Correa hit a home run with a launch angle of 48 degrees.

I don't know. Seven seconds it was in the air. It felt like an eternity. So there's an old scouting theory. I'm sure you've heard this. Maybe you even told me this. There's an old scouting theory that one measure of a guy's power is hang time, which now that makes sense because you need to hit the ball hard and high

to achieve hang time. Now, usually a really high hang time reflects bad hits because you hit the ball too high but you know this is houston 48 degrees okay look uh one of the things i do a lot when i'm reading about a mountain i want to climb is i'll look at like the maximum slope of the mountain and it'll say i don't know like 35 40 degrees and i'll sit at my desk and i'll try to estimate that with like my arm as a protractor and i'll look at it and i'll be like, kind of steep. Hold your arm out. You're listening to this.

Great. If you're driving, use your other arm. Just make sure that you don't pay attention to what you're doing except for your arm. 48 degrees. Hold your arm out. Hold it parallel to the ground. That is zero degrees. Nice job.

You achieved a flat line. Now bend it up to 45 degrees, like almost like half of a right angle, and then add three more degrees. You see that? You see that that trajectory that's a home run that's somebody who hit a home run in game five and it was a big one it was such an emotional home run that as Correa went down to first base he came to a complete stop and did like a fist bump and like jumped in a circle he came to a complete stop during his home run trot before he got to first base he hadn't gotten to first base in the seven seconds it took for the ball to get over the fence which was like

you know 250 feet away but he hit the ball really hard the exit velocity was was high i think it was like 105 or 106 miles per hour like it was really good contact i don't know how you make that kind of contact with a 48 degree launch angle in the first place but that is such a look obviously it's the highest angle home run of the season of course it is what could possibly be higher than that anything above that is classified as a pop-up but what and like i i think i don't know how i'm gonna approach this if you're listening to the podcast then you will already know the answer i bet but like the home run that yasiel puig hit in the ninth inning was also stupid but it was like differently stupid it was another one of those crawford boxes home runs but he like he kind of pull side todd frazier

at it where he like yeah reached out for a low i assume it was a change up because it was defense and he just kind of like poked at the ball and then it flew out of the yard look that was also a dumb home run this game had some dumb home runs in it this series has had some dumb home runs in it i don't know which was dumber like puig looked worse but correa's i think like was worse 48 degrees i didn't i didn't look up the numbers quickly enough just to see how players have done this season when they achieve a uh a launch angle of 48 degrees but i'm uh i'm going to tell you because i'm looking it up right now league wide numbers i'm just going to do tell you what let's make it easier let's do 47 to 49 degrees launch angle let's just give ourselves

like a like a little window there what would you prefer to look at batting average or slugging percentage uh let's look at slugging percentage okay this was a home run what is your guess i'm gonna do regular season and playoffs so this counts this was a home run. What is your guess? I'm going to do regular season and playoffs, so this counts the home run. What's your guess for the league slugging percentage this season on balls hit between 47 and 49 launch angle? Oh, man. So, I mean, most of these are going to be pop-ups, which are caught 99-point-something percent of the time, and then routine flight balls. I mean, gosh, like I can't even imagine.

You get some bloopers, I guess, but there's so much hang time that you have time to get to it so i'm gonna say slugging of 150 now subtract 100 from that oh boy it's like a percentage of 0.050 that is one base per 20 of these hit into play uh that's including the home run again and the uh the batting average is 0.033 so you have an isolated power of 0.017 look these are bad these are bad balls to hit in play or in korea's case not in play home run unbelievable unbelievable home run and it's just one of look there is an entire art there's an entire article to be written about bill miller's like insanely ridiculous strike zone that he was calling there's an article to be written about puig somewhere there's an article to be written about everything there are so many articles that it's so overwhelming to

think about how to try to write this game out and i I think for a lot of people, it was just, well, let's just put words down and go to freaking sleep or go to the airport. Yeah, I guess that's the saving grace here is that each team has something that you could criticize as cheap. It's like you could criticize Puig's home run as not being a legitimate home run, shouldn't have been a home run,

must be juiced balls or slick balls or whatever. But then you basically have to say the same thing about Correa's home run or other home runs in the series. Or if you're complaining about Bill Miller's zone, which I think was not surprising. We know he's an extreme pitcher's umpire. He has a huge zone and didn't seem to be all that consistent either. But I don't know if the calls evened out exactly, but certainly each team and each team's fans had calls they could complain about. So both of these factors, whether it's Bill Miller or whether it's slick slash juiced baseballs, they are affecting both teams and both teams have triumphs and failures that have resulted from these things.

So there's only so angry and bitter you can be about it, I guess, because, you know, and for those of us on the outside watching from afar, neutral parties, I mean, you have to be happy that Puig hit that home run because it was a three-run game and then it was not a three-run game and it was super exciting for all of us. So it was, I mean, I don't know that we would want baseball to be like this every day. For one thing, it was five plus hours. I don't think any of us would survive. But this is the kind of game that is just, I mean, it surpasses anything that regular season baseball can offer. And it just kind of makes you think, I mean, like people say, you know, writing advice when you're telling a story, whether it's fiction or nonfiction, start as close to the action as you can. Like, you know, don't have a lot of throat clearing and preamble. Just get to the good stuff and hook people. Maybe you can circle back later. And that's kind of what I'm feeling with baseball right now. The postseason is just so much more exciting and suspenseful that it almost feels

like overkill to have 162 games preceding that. And I know that's kind of antithetical to what baseball has always been, which is the game that is a constant part of everyone's routine. And it's the background to your whole summer. And it is telling. It reflects true talent because there are just so many repetitions. But man, it just feels like let's get to the good stuff faster i don't want to have to wait 11 months to see this again out of all of those balls hit between 47 and 49 degrees carlos correa's was the third hardest hit of the season at 106 miles per hour the hardest hit this won't surprise you it's aaron judge it was a fly

out hit a ball 110 miles per hour and the guy in between them Tyler Saladino? Okay. But in any case, weird home run in a game full of weird events. I'm thankful for the fact that we didn't end up having to have a game that was defined by its strike zone but that was most certainly part of the story of it

because that was weird. But what would the score have been if the zone were smaller? It never would have ended. It's still going. I know. I know. I mean, some people look at these as like the worst things about baseball are things that the sport needs to correct,

like the juiced ball and the juiced ball controversy and the variations in the strike zone and the lack of consistency there. But ultimately, I think this game was a product of those things that can be weaknesses at some times and in some contexts but in this particular game just created a classic so i think that's where we are and you wrote a post about this game called all the times that game seemed over were there any that we have not touched on that you want to single out in particular either for their improbability. Or how pivotal they were or whatever.

I mean there were four moments for me. That I thought the game was over. It was 4-0 Dodgers. I thought okay that's basically it. The Astros are playing sloppy. Keuchel's already out of the game. Kershaw's not going to blow it. How do you blow the 4-0 lead? Then as soon as the Astros answered.

Cody Bellinger answered right back. With a three run home run. And it felt like okay. The Astros aren't going to do that again. Not against Kershaw in the bullpen. And then, of course, they did almost immediately. And then it was like two innings later, I think, a sequence, I guess, that kind of gets lost. Seventh inning, I think it was. Let's say seventh. 7-7 game, and the Dodgers had a run around first. And Cody Bellinger, this is shortly after the weird Kike Hernandez bunt attempt, I think, right?

That was that inning. And Justin Turner led off with a double. And then Hernandez came up to try to bunt him to third. And it felt like a weird game to be playing for like one run. But I looked at the splits and like, you wouldn't believe how terrible Kike Hernandez is against Druddy's and how good Brad Peacock is against Druddy's. So as I was looking at that, I thought, well, actually, this is a really bad matchup for the dodgers it just so happens that her name is put down one of the worst bunts i've ever seen this side of dallas keitel so anyway the bunt was erased because cody bellinger hit

that sinking line drive to center field and george springer tried to dive to catch it which is bad you're not supposed to do that that's like fundamental center field or outfield or really any outfielder defense you don't dive for a line drive in front of you and uh and springer did i thought as the ball got past him that bellinger was going to come all the way around because it wasn't backed up yep didn't even hit his cap yeah that was the new thing in baseball didn't uh i thought as as the ball got by him like oh where's the backup but the backup didn't have time to get there because it was a line drive to center field like you just didn't give the outfield their time Bob Bellinger was going to score he didn't but he did get to third so it was like a one-out triple it was eight seven Dodgers at that point and I thought

that might just do it right there because the Dodgers only need nine more outs they have chance to maybe get six of them boy was that naive and I thought it's only eight seven but now Bellinger's on third I I thought there's a pretty good chance of Bellinger coming in to score. He didn't, and it took one pitch for George Springer to get complete redemption. One pitch. I think he referred to it later as it was an angry swing because he hit the crap out of the ball. Yes. First pitch is off from Brandon Morrow.

I don't know if it's true, but it seems like this has been a series of some really aggressive first pitch swinging. Not necessarily always getting the results. There have only been three first pitch home runs, but yesterday there were at least two of them and i don't know maybe all three i don't recall but it was fun to see that instant redemption from springer but there was again it's just one of like 30 storylines in the game that just kind of gets swallowed by by everything else and i couldn't believe and then later like when the astros went ahead 11 to 8 and then the dodgers they nearly mounted their rally in the eighth inning when they made it 11 9 they had two runners in scoring position and then turner like lined out and just kind of some bad luck for him and and then when brian mccann hit the home run at the bottom of the eighth i thought okay that home run that's the

exclamation point like this game is over now way to go brian mccann we're all done no because stupid home run and then chris Chris Taylor like does such a good job of staying back on that two strike Davinsky change up like look Chris Davinsky allowed a home run he allowed three runs in the ninth inning he blew the game but the when Davinsky needed to make his best pitch he kind of threw it he kind of threw it to Chris Taylor and Taylor hit it anyway because that's just what kind of game it was we've been talking about it for 45 minutes and I don't know if we've arrived at anything but just what a bad day to pitch yeah I mean this is the third consecutive podcast I've recorded mostly about this game and I still don't think I've hit on everything and yeah there were these

moments where someone who could have been the goat of this game instantly redeemed himself, whether it was Springer making that misplay and then hitting the home run, or Chris Taylor, who it seems like misheard Chris Woodward, the third base coach's instruction to score on what could have been a sack fly, didn't end up scoring. But then Chris Taylor drove in the run anyway to score Austin Barnes, I think the very next inning. So players just sort of bailed themselves out of being the goats of this game. And ultimately, I don't know, maybe Kershaw's remembered for having the 4-0 lead and blowing it, but he has a lot of company in that corner. Just pitchers who just could not get the job done, whether through their fault or just through hitters being good hitters. I mean, it was just crazy. We're very fortunate to have gotten two games like this in the same series. We're going to be podcasting again Wednesday morning. Do you think that we're going to be

talking about the World Series being over? Odds are probably yes, right? I mean, you know, Justin Verlander is probably better enough relative to Rich Hill at this point and likelier to go deep into the game that that overcomes the home field advantage or just Dodgers talent advantage, but it's pretty slim, I think. So the odds are not that much better than even that we will be talking about the end of the series as opposed to setting up game seven.

So a pitcher who wasn't tested in game five, Ken Giles, I guess, I don't know how much more we have to say on this podcast. You've talked about this game probably enough by now, but Ken Giles, unused, probably unsurprising he was unused. Recency bias is strong with this one. Now, if you are, or if you listen to Mitchell Lichtman,

he will tell you, and he wrote the other day fairly convincingly that Ken Giles is probably fine and that he did a quick little study looking at relievers who have been recently great or recently blasted and then he looked at how they did in their next game and it was the same the answer is always it's the same Ken Giles's struggles probably not predictive his velocity is basically fine his locations are you know more or less fine but he's given up some insane contact in the playoffs I was looking at his exit velocity relative to the regular season it's up eight miles per hour in the playoffs that's bad he was unused but let's assume justin verlander doesn't throw a complete game in game six yeah do you think well i guess two things one do you think aj hinch will use ken giles in the

rest of the series if it's not an emergency and And two, do you think that he should? I don't think he will. I think, I mean, he said something to the effect of, you know, he's not going to be saving games or closing games and they want to have him out of that position right now. And I think at this point it's gotten to the point where I think Hinch would be blasted for using him. So it's not only what does Hinch think is the right move, but maybe in the back of his head, what is the move that is going to get me criticized endlessly here if he fails again? And I just, I don't know. I mean, MGL's study is pretty convincing.

Obviously, people like us, we usually take the large sample over the small sample. We know that there are some small samples that are meaningful. And again, it's hard to detect with Giles. Like if it's the way that he's pitching, you'd expect to see that in something, the spin, the speed, the movement, whatever it is. And according to people who have looked into the numbers, that's not really standing out there. And I mean, I think we said this on the Patreon broadcast, maybe when Giles was giving up runs again, is that this is why you have Hinch. This is why you have pitching coach, you know, Brent Strom or anyone who's in the dugout and has decades of experience in theory. They're supposed to be able to give you some information that the numbers don't.

And they're supposed to be able to gauge the pitcher's mechanics and psyche and make meaningful judgments in small samples that MGL's projections and historical stats cannot capture in this specific instance. And I'm sure there are times when that's the case. There are also times when it's deceptive and misleading, and it's better not to have that personal connection with the player so i don't know whether i mean would i go with giles now in a high leverage moment i mean he's probably not my top option even if he would have been heading into this month just because you have to wonder like even if he was okay and things were just going wrong for reasons unrelated to his psyche or something. You just, I mean, after this amount of ignominy and notoriety, you have to just wonder whether it would get to him,

whether he would be overthinking things. So probably I would not go to him in the same situation at this point. But on the other hand, there's no one else I feel really great about going to. So, you know, based on the recency effect, like no one else has had great recency unless it's you know i guess lance mccullers or or someone if you can bring back one of the starters who's been good in this game but he's been pushing some of those guys pretty hard too like peacock has been pitching an awful lot right for me this is this is really easy for me to say because no one's going to test

me on it i would i would use giles and i would use him because i've seen how good he is i saw him in the other game where his most recent meltdown you'd like the first city allowed was kind of fluky and he before he allowed i think i don't even remember what did he give up a home run was it a home run that he allowed in the most recent game i don't know but it started with a weak grounder right that barely got through i think yeah and then things fell apart from there yeah i think he was preceded by like a really good breaking ball that the hitter just kind of laid off and i thought well i mean that's a good pitch he just didn't get the result that he wanted i don't know i think i would still use giles i i think it helps aj hinge that no one else has been great like technically luke

regerson has been the most effective astros reliever in these playoffs but i have no memory of them him even pitching but he's allowed no runs in three innings with Forrest Rager. It's a way to go, Luke Ragerson, but he's not going to do it. Like, Davinsky, his ERA is over nine. Joe Musgrove, his ERA in the playoffs is almost eight. Obviously, Hinch isn't going to use Liriano at any point. Brad Peacock, I don't know what he has left. And Will Harris is there, and he's been a high leverage reliever this season, but obviously Hinch hasn't trusted him a whole lot so like I think the the lack of options might make it easier for Hinch to go back to Giles I think the Giles still has powerful stuff that's that's apparent to anyone who's watching he was so good all season long and and if you look if if Giles doesn't succeed then of course Hinch is

going to get excoriated if there's the opportunity but then if the Astros lose in the rest of the world series he's going to get ripped anyway that's just what it is being a manager but you know if if giles is successful then you get to say oh look at what a tough decision that hinge just made but look at clearly the astros won because their manager had so much faith in their players even when they were down hinge never lost trust except for the fact that he clearly did lose trust in game five but that point aside you know you're going to be second guest almost no matter what if you are a unless you are the world series winning manager and i would still go back to giles i wouldn't feel i wouldn't feel good about it if i were hinge you know it's a it's a one run lead of the in the ninth inning in game six or game

seven i wouldn't be like ken giles and this is great but i think i'd i'd still do it although i'm not gonna lie if it gets to uh to the ninth inning of game six and it's a one-run lead for the Astros and Verlander's throwing like 105 pitches, I'm probably against my better judgment. And I'm saying this now, and I'm not even involved, but against my better judgment, probably still lean on Verlander in that situation just because I would feel more comfortable about it. Yeah, I mean, Hinch has shown faith in players in this postseason, has been rewarded for it. Lance McCullers had not had a good And, you know, sometimes showing faith in your players and running the risk of being blasted in the press is the best thing that a manager can do. So I am sympathetic to that too. It's tough.

I mean, he's had a rough go of it this postseason because whenever he has made the right move, it is very often not worked out, which is not to say that every move has been right. But at least in this series, there's no signature managerial move for me yet in these games. I mean, there are decisions you can quibble with, but to me, at least these games have been decided the way they should be decided, which is by the players. And I don't think there's been any managerial mistake that has really marred any of the action for me. Did you know that Charlie Culberson played yesterday?

I don't remember. What did he do? He apparently, not only did he play, he started. Did you know that? He started? He started the game. Charlie Culberson was the starting second baseman for the Los Angeles Dodgers. I feel like I just blacked out after that game.

Yeah, no memory. Large swaths of it. Anyway, hey, Ben, I think we've talked enough. I think we have too. All right. So we'll be back later this week to talk more World Series. You can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. Five listeners who have already pledged their support for the podcast include Adriana Taylor, Anthony, Matthew Sanders, Brian Beyer, and Ben E. Thank you. Wild on iTunes. As mentioned, I've been doing a lot of podcasting today. You can also hear me

on the Ringer MLB show with Michael Bauman, who was at Game 5. We talked about it in a slightly different way. We also had our friend and colleague Shea Serrano on. He is a new convert to baseball as a Houston area resident, so that was fun. And I was also on Slate's Hang Up and Listen podcast today, too. That's always a treat. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for editing assistance on Effectively Wild. You can keep your questions and comments for me and Jeff coming. Send some to us for our mailbag episode, which will be coming up at some point this week. You can reach us via email at podcast at fangraphs.com

or via the Patreon messaging system. We will talk to you soon. And the long black dream is over As the snow falls on and on And it takes five cups of coffee to calm down before I sleep.