Another Runner In The Night

This game started early, and the sun fields left me Blinded By The Light. In any case, I’m still thinking about the Manfred Man. I did some research on the rule prior to this year. Here’s what I found:

At the start of an extra inning, the visiting team is held scoreless 41% of the time. 30 % of the time they score 1 run, and the remaining 29% of the time they score 2 or more runs. (I should note that the “1 run” scoring counts are not always the Manfred Man. For example, if the Manfred Man is thrown out on the bases and someone scores subsequently. But even some of those are directly attributable to the Manfred Man, as when he is thrown out at the plate after a single and the batter reaches second base, a throw that never would have happened but-for the Manfred Man I have ignored these cases because they require a bunch of programming to separate out and I’m pretty sure they’re rare. I have spent some time looking at those circumstances where the Manfred Man didn’t score but his team did. I have to do this by hand because it’s complicated and so far I have found no exceptions to the general principle that the Manfred Man contributed to the run. but I haven’t looked at every one yet.)

In those innings where the road team is held scoreless, in 40% of cases, the home team doesn’t score either and we go to the next inning. 60% of the time, the home team wins. (Again I will assume that that is by scoring the Manfred Man, although that is probably a small overestimate.)

In those innings where the visitor scores only one run (for the last time, I assume that is the Manfred Man) the home team loses 42% of the time, goes to another inning 31% of the time, and wins 27% of the time.

This year, the Braves as home team has held the visitor scoreless in four out of five innings (80%) and as the road team has held the home team scoreless in the only road extra inning thus far (100%). The Braves offensive numbers in these extra inning games are not far from average. To be sure, this could be just luck, but a focus on stopping the Manfred Man from scoring has a lot to do with the fact that the Braves are currently 4-0 in extra inning games.

So if you’re the road team, should you invest in a one run strategy? What this really means in practice is to answer the question whether you should give up an out to get the Manfred Man to third? Moving the man to third with one out increases the chance of scoring by about 6 percent from 59% to about 65%, but total run expectancy falls from 1.13 to 0.97 — you increase your chance of scoring one run by lowering your chance of scoring two or more. I’m going to do some math in the next few days and I’ll get back to you.

The Game

The Pirates struck first in the bottom of the third on a solo homer by Alexander Canario. Could there be a better name for a Pittsburgh Pirate? Maybe if Ed Lafitte had played there. Or Chris Hook. Possibly the late Chet Lemon, RIP. Bryce Elder pitched well otherwise until the sixth, when he gave up another two runs. His last few starts have earned him strange new respect. But I’m not sure dominating the Pirates gives you much information about your progress. And I’m really sure that giving up homers to guys without home run power every couple of innings is no way to make a living as a pitcher.

Meanwhile, our fellows were showing the futility that typefies them whenerver they have been within shouting distance of 0.500 – two pedestrian singles through seven innings. The team seems to have settled into a mode where they won’t start scoring until the 8th inning, and the only question is how far behind they are. I think they’ve taken a page from the strategy of The Freeze, But nobody really cares about The Freeze’s record — there are no outfield race playoffs. Giving your opponent a big head start is entertainment, not competitiveness.

There was a slight stirring in the eighth with two singles, but the other three at-bats were strikeouts. Bernie went back to his Weekend.

In the 9th, Eli White led off with a triple. This was followed by a groundout, and a sac fly that broke up the shutout. Alex Verdugi singled, and the Braves had their third at-bat with game-tying potential in the last two innings. Last night’s hero Drake Baldwin came in and singled in Verdugo who had defensive indifferenced his way into scoring position. Just-called-up Luke Williams, running for Baldwin, stole second. But Ozzie flew out to center and the Bucs 7 game losing streak was over. His career record as a manager is now the inverse of Ted Turner‘s.

The game starts earlier tomorrow, so let’s start hitting earlier, shall we?