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Here's how it could have been different: Eduardo Nunez was playing 115 feet from the plate. The average third baseman this year, with two shots on Gleyber Torres, played 117 deep feet.
And if Eduardo Nunez played at 117 feet of marble? And if he had played up to 116 feet, as he had on the field 1-1 against Torres (but not on 0-0, 0-1 or 1-2)? The play at first would have been close. Nunez, he had not missed it, he had not eaten it, he had not clutched it badly and did not eat it. had not thrown on the right field line, he would probably have made a throw to first base that Torres would have had close up. beat out. The referee might still have called Torres, and the Boston Red Sox might still have been celebrating cautiously around the mound, but in the scenario of a 116-foot depth, the New York Yankees would have won the challenge and the call would have been reversed. The game would have continued.
"Believe me," Xander Bogaerts said after the Red Sox's 4-3 win in the American League Division on Tuesday night. "I played the third goal and I know that the match could have been a two-way match – a different ball game."
Would it have been a better ball game? With our heartfelt congratulations to the Red Sox fans – you can be excused from this article now – heck, yes, it would have been better, no matter who won. For ever, it would have been better because it would have prevented the result. The result is always the worst.
The only thing we can say for sure is that Andrew McCutchen versus Craig Kimbrel – the striker who would have followed the Torres situation – would have been an unprecedented success. moment. At Baseball Gauge, Dan Hirsch calculated the importance of each game in post-season history, using what is known as the championship leverage, which is a way of saying uncertainty. A game that is particularly in the balance – and a world series run that is particularly in the balance – has a high cLI.
If McCutchen beat the heavy bases and two outs in the ninth inning on Tuesday night, cLI would have been the 14th most significant plaque appearance in LDS history. That would have been the eighth biggest moment of the Red Sox-Yankees in the playoff history. That would have been 215 times more important than the average game on the first day.
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Craig Kimbrel details the last outs of the Yankees' Red Sox win and talks about Chris Sale's release from the envelope.
Such calculations can not include the details of each situation. They can not include, for example, that Craig Kimbrel – arguably the second best close to the story, the second closest thing to the automatic in the story of the game – was on the mound. In theory, Craig Kimbrel gets things done. It exists in sport to achieve a result.
But the calculations also do not include Kimbrel's sweat-soaked forearms, nor the three mound visits that the Red Socks had ever used that sleeve, nor his irregular fastball and the fact that he threw twice as many curved bales as usual. Joe Kelly warms himself in the pen – a six-word novel in itself – is not part of this calculation. The situation itself had become one of the least certain moments in Craig Kimbrel's career.
Kimbrel had already thrown 28 throws. (And, in fact, he threw 29, as a long ball was dropped after the last minute of his receiver.) He would certainly have stayed in the match to deal with McCutchen because of Kelly's monthly monthly auctions. June and July. and September were all over 8, and the point where Kimbrel's protection and preservation require relief from Joe Kelly is probably north of 40 or 45 locations.
Kimbrel threw more throws than Tuesday in many appearances during his career, but he rarely had to throw more throws in a heat. Indeed, during his career, he has covered one-third of the 21 batters he has faced after throwing 28 in a round, which is certainly not decisive, but it is certainly consistent with anxiety that such an account begins to provoke.
A march towards McCutchen would have linked the match, but the Red Sox did not have to fear this ride. Kimbrel unleashed more wild shots than almost everyone else in the game – only nine throwers tossed more, adjusted for the frequency with which men found themselves at the base this year. Kimbrel's pitch that hit Neil Walker earlier in the inning – a curve ball in the first pitch – would have been a completely crazy pitch if he had not hit Walker's foot.
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In the most basic mathematics, the Red Sox would have always been clearly the favorites of the game, even if Torres had reached the stage of the base. (According to the Victory Expectation Patterns, the visiting team goes up one lap with the loaded bases and two outs to the ninth is a 76% favorite.) They would probably have won again and the fans Red Sox would probably have gone to bed just as happy. . Or Boston would probably have won the fifth home game behind Chris Sale on Thursday, and Red Sox fans would have gone to bed that night just as happy.
But for those extra moments, we would all have lived with incredible uncertainty. After eight years of watching Craig Kimbrel dominate – he has the lowest career career in the history of live-ball – we would see him as the most vulnerable and the most important issue, and for those moments we are going We would not have known if it was good or bad, or if the Red Sox or the Yankees were a better team.
It is no exaggeration to say that the fact that Craig Kimbrel would one day become the Hall of Fame would have been dependent on what Andrew McCutchen did on field # 29, or on a field shortly thereafter. It is no exaggeration to say that, in a different result, the heroic manager of Boston, Alex Cora, could have been hurt – for not having shot Kimbrel, for not wanting to add another player of quality to the training his team, for having shot Sale after an 11th eighth pitch, or, if the Red Sox continued to lose the match 5, for having used Relief in Match 4 at all. All of this is based on the unobserved difference between Eduardo Nunez standing 115 feet deep and standing at 116 feet deep. These possibilities would have all weighed on the arms of Craig Kimbrel against Andrew McCutchen. In those moments, we would have been ready to believe almost anything.
That's why, unless you're a Red Sox fan – even if you hate the Yankees – you probably wanted Torres to be safely called and you probably wanted to see the Yankees come back and win Match 4, just so that we can live with uncertainty a little longer. Or, at least, so that we can have a baseball game Thursday night.
Nunez playing 116 feet back is just one of the ways it could have been different. The truth is that there are endless ways, starting with Nunez's correct decision not to attempt to throw the ball with his bare hands. No, starting with the decision of the Red Sox not to play for Nunez with Rafael Devers in the eighth. No, starting with the decision of the Knickerbockers in the 1850s to set the bases at a distance of 90 feet. No, starting with any scalable force causing the company's "foot" to 12 inches. All those "and if" that led Gleyber Torres to plant his heel on the ground, but not quite to land on the base before the Nunez throw hit the back of Steve Pearce's glove and put an end to the division series of the American League. The truth is that everything is so ambiguous, and it is only in the conclusion that we are obliged to treat the only possible result as real.
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