Do Rats Really Desert Sinking Ships?

Yep… it’s me again. Rusty S. had something better to do. I didn’t even ask, because almost anything is preferable to this. Hello to all of you who have remained on board, even as the prow points to the bottom of Davy Jones locker, which I’m looking forward to because I assume it is full of Monkees paraphernalia.

Buehler?

I indirectly speculated on Friday that we might see Walker Buehler very soon, and I was correct, as he will be wearing Phillies garb tonight. (Actually… he has to pass a physical first, but I assume he’s lurking somewhere.) The MLB press release says that the Phillies will only be responsible for around 1/6th of the MLB minimum, but if I were Buehler’s agent I suspect I could have (and did) get more than that. There aren’t a lot of starting pitchers, even iffy ones, who can appear out of nowhere in time to make their playoff roster, so I suspect Buehler had a lot of leverage.

Even more interesting, the Red Sox would have had to hold Buehler on waivers first, so that anyone who wanted him could have him for about $4 million or so for the rest of the season and the Phillies obviously didn’t bite. I’m sure there’s something I don’t understand here, so maybe the rest of you can tell me why the Phillies risked not getting Buehler just to save a lousy few million dollars if they really thought he could start playoff games for them.

The Game

Third against Jesus Luzardo. Both began K-K-43. This got me thinking about trying to find games where both pitchers did exactly the same thing in the same inning. More about that later.

Both pitchers were very good. Third loaded the bases with one out in the third but got Schwarber to strike out and Harper to bounce out. He served up a meatball to Marsh in the 4th and it was 1-0. That lifted his ERA just above 1.00.

Luzardo didn’t give up a hit until the fifth when Harris singled with one out. Harris got out of a pickle — the first time I’ve seen that in a while — and White walked to get him to scoring position, but Murphy’s strikeout ended the threat.

Third came out after 6 2/3 giving up only 4 hits and striking out 9, though he did walk 4, one intentionally, His ERA now sits at a Gibsonian 1.01. Luzardo also exited after 6 2/3 having only given up 2 singles to Harris.

In the 8th, Orion Kerkering (which I believe is Greek for “Hunter Stratton“) loaded the bases with no outs before being replaced by Tanner Banks. Olson tied the game on a groundout, bailing out Third. A strikout and groundout ended the inning tied.

For the third night in a row, the teams were tied 1-1 going to the bottom of the eighth. (Something else to check when I get a chance…) Tyler Kinley had an uneventful 8th. In the top of the 9th, Fraley reached on a Alvarado misplay and Baldwin unleashed a two out homer to give the Braves a 3-1 lead.

For some reason, Snit chose not to go to Hunter Stratton for the save, going instead with Raisel Iglesias. He used 8 pitches last night, but he was really inefficient tonight — 11 pitches.

Statistical Anomalies

Well, I ran the program to see how often two pitchers have had exactly the same thing happen to their respective hitters in an inning. I got the answer, but then I looked back to the boxscore and I misremembered Olson’s at bat in the 1st inning, which was a groundout, not a strikeout. So this was not a game that matched the pattern I was looking at.

As it tuens out, there appear to be only 196 innings in MLB history in which the pitchers matched one another exactly. All of them were 1-2-3 innings. A lot of them have occurred recently, and all of them are innings in which both pitchers struck out the side (9 times last year).

The last time one of these innings came without a strikeout was this game 24 years ago. In the sixth inning, Maddux went lineout to left field followed by two 4-3 groundouts. Todd Ritchie did the same thing in the bottom of the inning.