Picture this: a game lasts over four hours, uses 41 players, features 374 pitches, has two blown saves, and ends in a walk-off hit by pitch — by Mariano Rivera.<\/p>\n
Welcome to\u00c2\u00a0Yankees-Rangers, September 11 (and part of 12), 2010<\/p>\n
It was a peculiar game to say the least, and it was no surprise that such an odd game was perpetuated by a series of unorthodox managerial moves. This game featured moves as simple as a pinch hitter, to as questionable as a 3-0 sac bunt.<\/p>\n
Back up. A 3-0 sac bunt? In the top of the ninth inning, with the Yankees already leading by one run, the Yankees had a runner on second and nobody out. Eager to get the run in, Yankees manager Joe Girardi called for a sac bunt, even after the count had been worked to 3-0.<\/p>\n
As if this doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t sound ridiculous enough, it should be pointed out that it was the first sac bunt on a 3-0 count in all of Major League baseball this season.<\/p>\n
Why is it such a ridiculous thing to do, and thus so rare? To start, the league combined has a .413 batting average and a .893 slugging percentage on a 3-0 count, so sac bunting becomes just a waste.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, if you look deeper, sac bunting with a runner on second and nobody out not only destroys the at-bat, but also destroys the inning.<\/p>\n
Based on run expectancy data collected from 1999-2002, the Yankees had a run expectancy of 1.189 when they had a runner on second and nobody out. After the sac bunt, now with a runner on third and one out, their run expectancy actually\u00c2\u00a0decreased <\/em>to .983.<\/p>\n So, what Girardi thought was helping his team actually sunk them in two ways: he destroyed a great chance to get a hit with a 3-0, and he destroyed a great chance to score with a runner on second and nobody out.<\/p>\n Thus, the Yankees failed to score and lost the game in the bottom of the ninth inning.<\/p>\n E-mail me at\u00c2\u00a0jess@jesskcoleman.com<\/a>, follow me on\u00c2\u00a0Twitter <\/a>and\u00c2\u00a0Digg<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Picture this: a game lasts over four hours, uses 41 players, features 374 pitches, has two blown saves, and ends in a walk-off hit by pitch — by Mariano Rivera. Welcome to\u00c2\u00a0Yankees-Rangers, September 11 (and part of 12), 2010 It was a peculiar game to say the least, and it was no surprise that such […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":754,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,9,5],"tags":[631,1049,9914,10800,1349,10796,8791,6200,191,10798,5105,10797,3095,10799,1818,344,7383,10776,556,321],"class_list":["post-8012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-general","category-statistical-analysis","tag-batting-average","tag-bunt","tag-bunting","tag-digg","tag-e-mail","tag-error-costs","tag-jess","tag-joe-girardi","tag-major-league-baseball","tag-managerial-moves","tag-mariano-rivera","tag-mathematical-error","tag-ninth-inning","tag-odd-game","tag-pinch-hitter","tag-pitches","tag-sac","tag-september-11","tag-slugging-percentage","tag-twitter"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/754"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8012\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}