Tigers 2, Yankees 1:  It’s kinda crazy that the following two things are both true: (a) Justin Verlander didn’t have his best stuff; and (b) Justin Verlander took a two-hit shutout into the ninth inning.  That’s every bit the testament to the Yankees’ offensive futility as it is to Verlander’s greatness, of course. The big […]

The ALCS resumes, and WPS Recap is there. And by “there” I mean several hundred miles from the game site but a few feet away from a TV monitor. Once again, let me acknowledge FanGraphs, which provides the running data from which I produce the WPS Index for each game this postseason. Game 1 2 […]

Giants 7, Cardinals 1: Apart from the Angel Pagan homer the Giants dinked and dunked their way to the win in Game 2.  The biggest story of the game, however, was the b.s. takeout slide of Marco Scutaro by Matt Holliday in the first inning. No word yet on how bad Scutaro’s injury is — […]

50 years ago today, one of the greatest Game Sevens of all-time took place. It was a game featuring one of the most climatic final seconds of any contest you’ll ever see. Despite that, it’s often an overlooked and underappreciated contest. I do believe it’s also the last great game played that we no longer […]

After several days in the League Division Series with four games played across 12 hours, we’ve now had two of the last three days with just one game being played. The days are going to seem so empty when there aren’t any games. Cue the obligatory A. Bartlett Giamatti quotation. Before proceeding to the lone […]

Tigers 3, Yankees 0: Anibal Sanchez: great midseason pickup, no?  And I don’t care if it would or would not have made a difference in the outcome of the game, Joe Girardi’s postgame comments about the need for Major League Baseball to get on the stick with instant replay are on point. The call on […]

A full day of League Championship Series action, through the lens of Win Percentage Sum and in the funhouse mirror of my own observations. I’ve mentioned before how THT’s Dave Studeman came up with his own game-excitement index based on Win Percentage Added numbers, revealing it in the 2007 Hardball Times Annual. In the comments […]

Forty years ago today was a great World Series game from arguably the most closely played Fall Classic of them all. The game itself isn’t especially well remembered, but it has one play that’s on the short list of the greatest defensive moments in any October. Oct. 15, 1972, was Game Two of the 1972 […]

Before we move into the League Championship Series, a bit of housecleaning from the LDS. In a private e-mail, frequent THT commenter and occasional co-author Paul G. asked, “Is this the most exciting first round of the playoffs ever?” First, I like how he phrases it “most exciting,” as that is what I claim for […]

The further back in time one goes, the more foreign the game of baseball seems to us. This is especially true when you go to the 19th century, with its massive error totals and comically huge innings for pitchers. But no single event is stranger to us or better demonstrated how very different the game […]