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05/03/2005: I'd already gotten offline by the time this had happened....
Amazing comeback last night by the Cardinals; down 9-3 against the Cincinnati Reds in the top of the ninth inning, they exploded for 7 runs to comeback and beat the Reds, 10-9. Over at The Birdwatch, Rob has an interesting take on the last inning of the game, analyzing each play in the context of a win expectancy matrix (for those of you not playing the home game, the win expectancy matrix analyzes the historical trend for a team at bat to win a game given a particular situation (e.g., 1 out, baserunner on second base, trailing by n runs)). In a comment to Rob's post, Brian "Redbird Nation" Gunn puts the Cardinals' feat in perspective:
In the words of Jack Buck: "I don't believe what I just saw!"And the game adds a data point in favor of Will Leitch's observation:
I was just checking out the win expectancy finder, and discovered that there were 3,360 games from 1979 - 1990 in which a team trailed by six runs entering the ninth. They won 2 of them. Two! And there were 880 games in which a team was trailing by 5 runs with two outs in the ninth. No team won any of those games. (Although I believe about 3 1/2 yrs ago the Pirates won such a game vs. the Astros.) Amazing. Clearly we were stockpiling clutch hits over the weekend -- all the ones that didn't drop in vs. the Braves came back to us tonight.
The Reds are a fun team to watch, because they score a ton of runs and give up even more.
Len on 05.03.05 @ 07:02 AM CST
