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The Colorado Rockies nearly buried the Arizona Diamondbacks with a 10-3 win at Coors Field on Thursday to take three of four games in the series. On August 22, the Diamondbacks dominated the NL West by 1½ games and FanGraphs gave them a 43% chance of winning the division and a 65% chance to play in the playoffs. Since then, they have gone from 6 to 14 and the odds have fallen to 1.5% and 3.1%.
Colorado's Trevor Story once again took the lead, scoring two innings of four, scoring three points and running this long home run to give the Rockies a 4-1 lead in the third set:
Rockies season home record for a shortstop! Oh … and it was 471ft !!
Volume 3, Chapter 33 # The hour of the story ? pic.twitter.com/jVRX0FBaJM
– Colorado Rockies (@Rockies) September 13, 2018
When you hit it at 471 feet, you can flip your bat.
In D.C., the Chicago Cubs went to town to face the Washington Nationals for a make-up match and won 4-3 in 10 innings. Javier Baez, who skated earlier in the game, led the race with a simple bunt:
Do not ask questions, take the race. pic.twitter.com/dm5tWFPOf2
– Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) September 13, 2018
With the Milwaukee Brewers, the Cubs take a lead of one and a half match in the NL Central. Kris Bryant, who was third after a brace from Sean Doolittle, said he was lucky that Ryan Zimmerman did not catch the ball.
"I did not know whether he was going to catch it or not," Bryant said. "Fortunately, he did not do it because I was probably too far from the bag, we needed something to fool us and that was certainly the piece we had made."
This brings us to the discussion of NL's MVP, in which Baez may be the favorite at the moment and Story makes a late effort to fit in the argument. (The three most important players in the National League were the pitchers Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer and Aaron Nola, but there does not seem to be any momentum for MVPs like Clayton Kershaw in 2014 or Justin Verlander in 2011.)
Numbers:
Baez: 295 / 0.329 / 0.568, 31 HR, 103 RBI, 92 runs, 21 SB, 5.3 bWAR, 4.8 FAR
History: .292 / .347 / .559, 33 HR, 102 RBI, 81 runs, 25 SB, 4.8 bWAR, 4.5 fWAR
In most seasons, no player is likely a strong MVP candidate. But no NL player sets up a dominant season, so the race remains open. Baez leads the league in the RBI with Story One behind, and although MVP voters do not venerate the RBIs as they did in the past, their supporters will certainly use that number as the MVP justification. Baez ranks fifth and sixth in the Baseball-Reference game and FanGraphs WAR and Story ranks ninth and eleventh (before Thursday's games).
When the offensive matches Clayton Kershaw, L.A. seems to be the engine we thought to be. But that does not happen often enough.
The Cubs are getting closer Pedro Strop will have an MRI Friday after injuring his hamstring to a 10th striker. He said that he expects to go out at least two weeks. Director Joe Maddon says that he has no idea who will close on Friday.
It was DJ LeMahieu's turn to play the role of hero as his two-run duel gave Colorado a huge win in the tight NL West match.
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Baez is certainly one of the most unique MVP candidates I have ever seen. His barred ratio of 146 to 24 is usually that of a player sent to Triple-A rather than that of one of the best players in the league. He still has no discipline on the board – his pursuit rate of 45.2% is the last of 145 skilled hitter killers – but with his fast club speed, he kills the ball if you leave him there. marble top. His OPS on pitchers in the strike zone is third in the majors behind only J.D. Martinez and Mike Trout (so imagine he was controlling some of these swings on grounds outside the box).
The .329 de Baez OBP lowers its value. He produces races, but he uses outs to do it. Over the last 50 years, only two MVP winners achieved OBP of less than 0.350: Jimmy Rollins in 2007 (.344) and Andre Dawson in 1987 (.328). Dawson is widely regarded as one of the worst choices of MVP.
Baez, of course, has a hidden value in his positional flexibility. He started 72 matches in second place, 39 at the short stop and 18 at the third. His ability to bypass the diamond allowed the Cubs to trade with Daniel Murphy to play the second goal. In addition, Baez was the only force of the season in the Cubs lineup. Anthony Rizzo took a slow start and Bryant missed most of the season due to injury.
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SSJ Chicago's Javier Baez tied the match with a RBI double and home runs to give the Cubs a one-goal lead.
One thing to note is that the RBI total of Baez does not reflect particularly well runners on base (as is the case for Alex Bregman in the AL). Baez hit .285 / .352 / .528 with runners in marker position and .277 / .322 / .473 with runners. His highly leveraged numbers are not special – .243 / .284 / .439 – as he ranks 14th among players in the NL position in added victory probability (entering Thursday).
While playing for the Rockies, Story has the usual battle that all Colorado hitters face in MVP voting. He hits 301 / .358 / .659 at home, .283 / .336 / .459 on the road. He leads the majors in isolated power at home and ranks 82nd on the road (DJ LeMahieu and Charlie Blackmon have more power on the road).
Indeed, the story line is nothing special for a Rockies player. Since the Rockies installed the humidifier in 2002, its 0.906 OPS would rank only in 25th place. Blackmon had a record of 1,000 OPS last season, while leading the NL with .331 and 137 points, finishing only fifth in the MVP vote.
What helps Story's case is that he does it as a short stop and that he sometimes committed the offense in the second period. He hit .358 / .409 / .617 in July and reached .313 / .340 / .833 in September with seven homers and 17 RBIs in 12 games (as Nolan Arenado struggled). The big games in September help and if the Rockies win the West, Story will be very credited for its end-of-season heroism.
Still, he's probably behind Baez in the call right now – but a lot can change in the last two weeks. As good as Baez has been and as exciting as it is, I'm not sure that a guy with an OBP of 0.329 can be the most valuable player in the league. I see no evidence that he was particularly engaged. Still, I suspect it could happen to Brewers' Baez and Christian Yelich, and the prize could go to the player whose team won the Central.
Cubs lose the Strop: Pedro Strop is getting closer to the Cubs since Brandon Morrow joined the DL in July and did a good job with 11 saves on 13 occasions. He won on Thursday, but only after getting injured. After the Baez run and a march towards Willson Contreras, Strop beat the loaded bases, failed in a double play and was hamstring injury. He told reporters that he was going to miss at least a few weeks.
Cubs manager Joe Maddon said he was not sure who would close on Friday. "I have no idea," he said. "All these guys are on the vapors."
The big question here: why the hell was Strop beating over there? Tommy La Stella was still available on the bench. I understood that Maddon had already used seven throwers, including Strop, so he did not want to go further in the game, but you had the chance to shoot twice more with a base shot. Twitter did not understand the decision either:
Pedro Strop has just hit the tenth round of a one-leg match with the bases loaded. It's September. The lists have increased. The Brewers are one game less.
– BP Wrigleyville (@BPWrigleyville) September 13, 2018
This is one of the side effects of bullpenning: when you blow up all your relievers in nine innings, what is left to throw if the game ends? Strop had already launched 1 ings innings and launched 21 shots. In any event, Maddon's questionable decision and injury made her even more painful. At least Randy Rosario made his entry and made an easy stop in 1-2-3.
The Dodgers are getting closer to the Cardinals: It was a precarious victory over the Cardinals to roll back the Dodgers in the wild-card race, but L.A. will take it. With an 8-1 lead behind Clayton Kershaw, they kept the 9-7 win, as the Cards scored twice before Kenley Jansen in the ninth and the draw took place at Matt Adams.
Jansen did not see much action on his cutter and hit two batters as he went through 29 shots. His two previous outings were 1-2-3, but those easy innings were rare and very recent. He launched two days in a row, so he is probably unavailable for the second game of the Friday series.
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