Adventures in Leverage, NatsTown, 15 May 2009

Rather than post links for Washington-based stories, I've gone to a Philadelphia paper in order to highlight something important about perspective. Note that the Inquirer's story doesn't mention the three walks given up by Kip Wells. These were far more important than Ibanez' single in the outcome of the game, but nobody likes to win because the other guy screws up, do they?

Anyway, yesterday's brief introduction to Drinen's P turned out to be a useful curtain-raiser to a study of yesterday's Phillies vs Nationals tilt.

Reliever    Inning   P         Situation             Net Value
Mock         5.2   .770        1st&3rd, 2 out, up 2      -.279
Villone      5.2   .665        1st&2nd, 2 out, up 1      +.070
Colome       7     .683        empty, 0 out, up 1        -.446
Beimel       7     .460        1st&3rd, 0 out, up 1      -.742
Tavarez      7     .195        1st&3rd, 2 out, down 2    +.073
Hanrahan     9     .082        empty, 0 out, down 2      +.170
Wells       10     .500        empty, 0 out, tied       -1.000

It's Wells who is the villain of the piece, but Beimel tried hard to beat him. Also, when you add everything up, the Nationals lost more than one game last night. They lost exactly 2.154 games, a quirk of this system that is a product of not awarding value to offensive contributions. Thankfully for them, it only counts as one in the standings.

I feel sorry for Kip, by the way. He pitched his heart out in the 11th, but looked tired in the 12th. Acta's quote, though, is ominous: "[Wells] was starting [at AAA], stretched out to 78-80 pitches down there already. He got Victorino on two pitches. After that, he loaded the bases. No excuses. No explanations. We[!] just basically walked ourselves into death."