GDT 10/26/21: Braves @ Astros - World Series Game 1

I'm usually pretty passive about the umps one way or the other, but even to me, that was bad. It's crazy how many things the Braves have to overcome on a nightly basis, and they do it with a big smile on their faces because they WIN!

This includes losing Morton, which doesn't bother me a whole lot. It's one game. This would be bigger if it was during the season, or like game 1 of the NLDS. But we can cover one game. The pre-game pitching matchup advantage has very seldom come into play in the postseason anyways. Bullpen games have done very well this postseason.

If it were me, I'd give Smyly a chance to start game 4, as a regular starter, and then go bullpen game in Game 5. We'll see what Snit comes up with. The best solution, of course, is to sweep, and it won't matter!
 
Well the call in the bottom of the 9th turned a 1 out nobody in situation into a 1 on nobody out situation.

You can look up the expected runs scored in those 2 scenarios, and I bet the difference is close to 1 run just on that call alone.

Ahhh gotcha. Thanks for the explanation. That makes more sense when you frame it in the situational context vs in a vacuum.

D’Arnaud has historically always been a good pitch framer but I imagine his grade for this postseason wouldn’t look all that good. Probably small sample size shenanigans but it makes you wonder if it could be fatigue or injury related.
 
I mean, the ump just so happened to blow a few calls at bad times for the Braves. It’s a little cry baby ish to claim it was intentionally screwing the Braves.

Go look at the ball call against Smith. It was perhaps the worst framing job ever by TDA.

It's easy to focus on the plus/minus for each team, but even in a badly called game they're still in the mid-90s percentage wise.

As a fan of a SEC football program, I would sacrifice a live virgin to see them get within 15% of that level of accuracy.
 
I'm usually pretty passive about the umps one way or the other, but even to me, that was bad. It's crazy how many things the Braves have to overcome on a nightly basis, and they do it with a big smile on their faces because they WIN!

This includes losing Morton, which doesn't bother me a whole lot. It's one game. This would be bigger if it was during the season, or like game 1 of the NLDS. But we can cover one game. The pre-game pitching matchup advantage has very seldom come into play in the postseason anyways. Bullpen games have done very well this postseason.

If it were me, I'd give Smyly a chance to start game 4, as a regular starter, and then go bullpen game in Game 5. We'll see what Snit comes up with. The best solution, of course, is to sweep, and it won't matter!

Losing potentially 2.5 Morton appearances in a 7 game series is enormous. We will need to replace his innings with a low leverage pitcher.

I’m not sure what the best metric to measure the impact by, but Charlie was worth about ~.03 WAR per inning this year. If you assume he could have pitched 10 more innings the rest of this series and that his replacement is replacement level (which isn’t unreasonable looking at our options beyond Smyly), that’s about 0.3 WAR or 3 runs to replace. That’s not insurmountable but it could be enough to swing an individual game.
 
Losing potentially 2.5 Morton appearances in a 7 game series is enormous. We will need to replace his innings with a low leverage pitcher.

I’m not sure what the best metric to measure the impact by, but Charlie was worth about ~.03 WAR per inning this year. If you assume he could have pitched 10 more innings the rest of this series and that his replacement is replacement level (which isn’t unreasonable looking at our options beyond Smyly), that’s about 0.3 WAR or 3 runs to replace. That’s not insurmountable but it could be enough to swing an individual game.

Getting early leads like last night go a long way.

Offense/Fried/Bullpen are going to be what win us the series.
 
Losing potentially 2.5 Morton appearances in a 7 game series is enormous. We will need to replace his innings with a low leverage pitcher.

I’m not sure what the best metric to measure the impact by, but Charlie was worth about ~.03 WAR per inning this year. If you assume he could have pitched 10 more innings the rest of this series and that his replacement is replacement level (which isn’t unreasonable looking at our options beyond Smyly), that’s about 0.3 WAR or 3 runs to replace. That’s not insurmountable but it could be enough to swing an individual game.

Then you have to factor in the umps giving the Astros another 1.8 runs
 
Getting early leads like last night go a long way.

Offense/Fried/Bullpen are going to be what win us the series.

It certainly helps that the Astros don’t have a single starter that should shut down the Braves. I thought every hitter last night had an excellent approach.
 
I'm usually pretty passive about the umps one way or the other, but even to me, that was bad. It's crazy how many things the Braves have to overcome on a nightly basis, and they do it with a big smile on their faces because they WIN!

This includes losing Morton, which doesn't bother me a whole lot. It's one game. This would be bigger if it was during the season, or like game 1 of the NLDS. But we can cover one game. The pre-game pitching matchup advantage has very seldom come into play in the postseason anyways. Bullpen games have done very well this postseason.

If it were me, I'd give Smyly a chance to start game 4, as a regular starter, and then go bullpen game in Game 5. We'll see what Snit comes up with. The best solution, of course, is to sweep, and it won't matter!

The problem is, it may force the bullpen to be overworked by late-series. If this series goes deep, it could end up costing us.
 
The problem is, it may force the bullpen to be overworked by late-series. If this series goes deep, it could end up costing us.

Yes. Similar to how the LCS went for the Dodgers. One way to combat this is to score a lot of runs. Offense was great late night. Couldn't push many runs across late but we had lots of opportunities.
 
The problem is, it may force the bullpen to be overworked by late-series. If this series goes deep, it could end up costing us.
Thank god for travel days. Last year’s format would have sunk us.

It would be nice if the Gods would grace us with a game 4 rain out in Atlanta. That solves all of our problems.
 
Yes. Similar to how the LCS went for the Dodgers. One way to combat this is to score a lot of runs. Offense was great late night. Couldn't push many runs across late but we had lots of opportunities.

Astros were very fortunate we didn’t add on more. We stung a few balls for outs with runners on base.
 
I don't think there's a conspiracy against the Braves. The overall quality of umpires is getting worse and worse. A couple of those games in LA, the Dodgers got squeezed badly. I appreciate the chart, but the guy last night missed way more than eight takes. That's laughable.
 
Astros were very fortunate we didn’t add on more. We stung a few balls for outs with runners on base.

Yeah - I feel pretty good moving forward on the offense. Especially with Soler in the lineup. Guy looks ready to breakout.
 
Yeah - I feel pretty good moving forward on the offense. Especially with Soler in the lineup. Guy looks ready to breakout.

Hard to say someone is ready to breakout when he's already had a 48 homer season. But he helped carry the team in the 2nd half. 132 WRC+ as a Brave.
 
Where did you find that stat? Does it show xWOBA?

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/gamefeed?gamePk=660897

And I can't find xWOBA anywhere for the game. Might be hidden somewhere though.

box score

Something interesting from the box score from last night. Valdez got lit up. 8 hard hit balls against him. Braves only had 5 more hard hit balls the rest of the night. Every Braves pitcher gave up at least one rocket.

Brantley had 4 himself and Tucker had 3. That lineup is stacked.
 
Thank god for travel days. Last year’s format would have sunk us.

It would be nice if the Gods would grace us with a game 4 rain out in Atlanta. That solves all of our problems.

Well there is rain in the forecast for Game Friday and Saturday in Atlanta. Doesn't appear it will be enough to rain out a game though
 
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