The Seventh Inning

The Indians blew a 3-1 lead, but I don't think "collapse" is an appropriate term. Personally, I never felt particularly confident. After going up 3-1 they immediately had to face Beckett, which is never pleasant. Then it was back to Boston, and although I thought Carmona had the edge over Schilling in Game Six, I knew we were dealing with a 23-year old who had thrown way more innings than ever before, and his performance was extremely unpredictable. I never got the feeling that it was within reach; the Indians never had a lead in any of the final three games, and the latest the game was tied was the third inning (in Game 5).

Having said that, the Indians certainly had their chances. The seventh inning on Sunday night featured a ridiculous sequence of momentum swings, which I have tried to portray in the graph below. The y-axis is Boston's % chance to win the game throughout the inning, and I'll explain what each point represents below.


1. At the beginning of the seventh, Boston's win expectancy (or WE, which can be approximated here) was 73%.

2. Jhonny Peralta led off the inning with a fly out to right, which was neither controversial or interesting. Boston up to 76%.

3. Kenny Lofton then popped one up to short left, and Julio Lugo simply dropped it. The red dot represents what Boston's WE would've been if he had caught it; 80%. In reality, it was down to 68%, as the Indians had the tying run on second with one out.

4. Franklin Gutierrez followed with a sharp single right over the third base bag. As you may remember, third base coach Joel Skinner held Lofton at third, even though it seems like he would have scored easily. If Lofton scores there, Boston's WE drops to 51%. Even with Lofton at third, the Indians were in good shape, as Boston's WE had decreased to 60%.

5. On the next pitch, Casey Blake grounds into a 5-4-3 double play, and just like that the rally has ended, and Boston is up to 82%. So, in the span of less than a minute, a questionable decision by the third base coach and a Casey Blake ground ball caused the Indians' chances of winning the AL Pennant decrease from 49% to 18%. This was fun.

6. But Blake wasn't done, as he botched an easy grounder off the bat of Jacoby Ellsbury to start the bottom of the inning. If Blake makes that play the Indians have a 20% chance of winning. When he didn't, Boston's % increases to 90%. So, in the span of two batters, Casey Blake has personally cost the Indians nearly 1/3 of the Pennant.

7. The only interesting thing about Lugo bunting Ellsbury over to third was that it actually decreased Boston's chance of winning, from 90% to 89%.

8. Finally, Betancourt leaves a fastball up, and Dustin Pedroia hammers it over the monster, increasing Boston's lead to three, and their WE to 95%.

From the timestamps in the live-blog, Skinner's hold of Lofton happened at about 10:52, and Pedroia homered at 11:02. So in ten minutes the Indians went from having the go ahead run on first to being down three with six outs left in their season.

The Indians did rally in the eighth, and got the potential tying run to the plate, as Papelbon came in. Hafner proceeded to strike out on three pitches, and Victor hit what should have been an easy DP ball, reaching when both Pedroia and Lugo struggled with the transfer. That brought Garko up, and he actually hit the ball well, but to the wrong part of the park. Coco made the catch on the run, and the game was essentially over.

Posting is going to be minimal this week, as I have an unbelievable amount of work. But I'll try to get something up tomorrow night, as I understand there's another series to be played.