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Monday, April 19, 2010
The 20-inning game
Eno Sarris / ESPN:
Even still, those plays may not have been the biggest errors of the night. Ryan Ludwick’s caught stealing in the 19th inning cost his team 21.6 percent in win probability. Had he been ruled safe, the Cardinals odds of winning would have increased by just 4.2 percent. In other words, he would need five successful steals in that situation to cancel out just one caught stealing, and Ludwick had a career 57 percent success rate prior to the attempt. Henry Blanco, the Mets catcher, has thrown out 43 percent of all base stealers in his career. The odds were simply not in Ludwick’s favor, and getting thrown out was a huge blow to the Cardinals. It was yet another bad decision on a night full of them. The Cardinals threw away three great opportunities to win, and eventually, the Mets won by default.
Average win expectancy: .520 (closer to .500, the more each team had a chance of winning)
Average LI: 2.1 (the farther from 1.0, the tighter the game)
