Jake

Better that he didn't swing at that since all you can really do is hit into a double play

Feels like every AB lately Chase takes a pitch above the strike zone for a strike

Good result aside, Peters is such an awkward looking athlete

What, you weren't convinced by three weeks of lucky offense in Charlotte?

I'm sure the pitchers faced are different in those innings and that it may have something to do with it but, for instance, he has a career .000 BABIP in the 9th inning which I doubt is totally attributable to the pitchers. I expect overmatched Colson to have a ton of strikeouts but that's not really what I see in the numbers (although a bit elevated).

I mean probably not so much that you bother putting Jarred Kelenic on the 40 man just to take him back off and lose whoever you had to cut to make room for him (and lose Kelenic to the waiver wire potentially although I doubt it).

As for Colson in the clutch, to me we've got bad batted ball luck/small sample variation written all over it. Depending on which way you define it, it's <.150 BABIP and the Statcast metrics look just fine. And also FWIW, if you simply look at his "high leverage" splits, which doesn't really require late innings even though it helps, that's his best split with .960 OPS in high leverage.

Hays is the obvious replacement on the roster.

Too bad for Tanner. Have a feeling it's a mix of pain from whatever's wrong and knowing this could be his last shot at the big leagues.

Good stuff.

FWIW, Newcomb has not historically had very pronounced platoon splits. They are reversed this year but it's a small sample.

I'm not seeing a hit batsman here

Seems increasingly likely this game will be decided by the jamshot + SB combo.

Does this mean the people yearn for Bryan Hudson?

Not sure the right strategy with Burke here. May not be a good idea to let him face Wood again even with the low pitch count. On the other hand, I don't love anyone in the bullpen.

Sox have squared up their pitcher several times in the past couple of innings. If I was the Nats, I don't know that I'd send back out there.

Well that's somewhat baked into the calculation so I wouldn't necessarily blame it on that. I'd guess that heavy ground ball approaches are going to be more vulnerable to stretches of bad luck since you're not getting any of the three true outcomes to stabilize the results. Would also be more likely to have stretches of good luck for the same reason of course.

Hasn't been worth harping on, but Luisangel's batted ball luck has been pisspoor this season. Not so much that he's lowkey hitting well or anything crazy like that. But his xwOBA is above the likes of Tanner Murray and Edgar Quero and will be ahead of Tristan Peters after today.

Interesting, so really you want that thing to pop off near the bag since it can only help you by bothering and/or blocking the fielder

Rules question: suppose the tag had only hit Woods's helmet, as it was leaving his head. One could argue that the helmet would have blocked the fielder's tag from hitting Woods's body efficiently. Do we treat the helmet as part of his body for some period of time even if it has stopped being in contact with his head?

Vargas continues to hit into tough luck

72mph exit velo jamshot to start the inning. Grant doesn't give up much hard contact but also doesn't get quite as many whiffs as you would think given how great his stuff looks.

Saw this in the WBC as well but Sam's chasing MLB pitching out of the zone. Combined with his passivity early in the counts that could limit his ability to do much damage.

I agree with you. I just meant that if it wasn't called interference then he would be out.

Well, if there's no interference, then Miguel really was out. But I don't know why he called him safe first. And obviously there was interference so ump should probably be calling that before he rings up the baserunner.