Aftermath: Mets vs Phillies (05/23/2006)

Game 1: Mets 9, Phillies 8

(Source: fangraphs.com - what's this?)

Steve Trachsel's line from Game 1:

 IP   H   R  ER  BB  SO  HR   PC-ST   GS
5.0   7   6   6   4   2   1  102-66   27

For comparison, here is Ryan Madson's line in relief for the Phils:

 IP   H   R  ER  BB  SO  HR   PC-ST   GS
7.0   4   1   1   4   6   1  105-67   67

Mr. Met:

• Hitting: Carlos Beltran, 33.5% WPA
• Pitching: Darren Oliver, 59.6% WPA

Mr. Regret:

• Hitting: Carlos Delgado, -28.2% WPA
• Pitching: Steve Trachsel, -35.8% WPA

Good soldier Madson compiled a WPA of 69.2% for the game even after deducting the Beltran homerun! I don't have the exact WPA for the homerun, but I would venture to guess that Madson's WPA would have been better than 100% had the Phillies won this game in the 16th or 17th.

What can you say; another day, another come-from-behind win for the Mets. It has definitely felt as if the Mets' bats really kick it into gear when the game gets into the late innings, but what do the numbers say? It looks like our intuition is right on this one.

          AVG    OBP    SLG
Inning 1-6    .254   .319   .432
Inning 7+     .269   .353   .463

That's a pretty significant difference, and for once it's nice to see the "facts" back up what we "feel" in our "guts".

Last night's win was a great one for the Mets, but they were certainly the beneficiaries of two ill-fated substitutions by Phillies' manager Charlie Manual. First, Chris Roberson was brought in to pinch run for Pat Burrell in the top of the ninth. In the bottom half of that inning, David Bell was double-switched out of the game in favor of Abraham Nunez. Roberson and Nunez would bat six times in extra innings, going 0-for-6 with two strikeouts. In the first nine innings, Burrell and Bell had gone 4-for-8 with two walks, a double, a homerun, 6 RBIs and two runs scored. There's no guarantee that the Phillies would have won had they been in the game for the duration, but what is incontrovertible is that they would certainly have been in a better position to win.

Them's the breaks, I suppose. The Mets prevailed in the end, despite another crummy outing from Steve Trachsel and an 0-for-6 from Carlos Delgado. Lots of heros for the Mets, from Endy Chavez beating out that infield hit in the 8th, to Jose Reyes's two-run homerun to tie the game two batters later, to the Mets bullpen (save Aaron Heilman) shutting down the Phillies' offense, to Carlos Beltran's walk-off, game-winning homerun. The Mets beat the Phillies, the Braves lost to the Padres, and Alay Soler makes his debut for the big club tonight. Things could be a whole lot worse.