If you are a Nats player, look in the mirror, and do a deep introspective. Blame sometimes has to be on the players and stop looking to the manager to bail you out. Matt Williams didn’t walk all those Mets in the 7th inning. Matt Williams didn’t throw that pitch to Cespedes that cleared the bases—-Drew Storen did.
Look at this chart, the baby blue pitch to Cespedes. Look at all the green for balls.
Property of Brooks Baseball
Look at where Ramos was set up on Cespedes at the knees inside and look at the chart above were the ball ended up on the inner 3rd middle of the plate.
Screengrab from SNY broadcast. All rights to SNY.
Here is the video link to the Cespedes bases clearing double off of Storen:
CESPEDES BASES CLEARING DOUBLE OFF OF STOREN – MLB VIDEO
Here is Treinen’s chart:
Property of Brooks Baseball
Here is Felipe Rivero’s chart:
Property of Brooks Baseball
1. Two management decisions come to mind: Trea Turner pinch-hit in a low leverage spot earlier in the game when you need to save him for later in case you need his speed in a think ahead manner.
2. With no outs and Jayson Werth on 1st in the 9th inning, Anthony Rendon was in bunt mode all the way through a 3-1 count and executed a hard bunt that the Mets threw out Werth at 2nd and almost turned the doubleplay. The element of surprise was gone as Rendon was squaring early and it became a lower success rate given many reasons including Rendon’s adeptness at bunting which didn’t look comfortable in his 1st attempt and he only had 4 prior sac bunts in his MLB career, and even if it works, the Mets would intentionally walk Bryce Harper who was on-deck. In a 3-1 count, why wouldn’t you want Anthony Rendon swinging away where he slashes in his career:
| .300BA | .526OBP | .520SLG | 1.046OPS |
Maybe he draws a walk which would be a win-win or gets a hit. Advanced stats from FanGraphs says scoring a run with no outs and a runner on 1st was .831 runs in that situation but when runners are on 1st and 2nd with no outs it goes up to 1.373 according to FanGraphs. The success rate of Rendon getting down the bunt wasn’t good and once Rendon made the out the run expectancy dropped to .489. When Bryce walked with 1 out and Rendon on 2nd the run expectancy did go to .908 until the doublpleplay ended it. With Werth on 1st and Rendon in the 3-1 count, look at where pitch #5 was for Rendon to hit off of Familia:
Property of Brooks Baseball
Lost in all of this debacle was the great starting pitching from Jordan Zimmermann giving up 1 run pitching into the 6th and 6 K’s and 3 hits of which one probably should have been caught. Bright spots are hard to find in a game like this but they were there including another clutch hit by MAT in clearing the bases.
