Facts and Figures, Game Six

Connect the following dots, if you dare: The Rays and Dodgers combined for ten hits last night in LA’s 3-1 win in game six of the World Series; the teams used 12 pitchers between them. That’s right, there were more pitchers than hits. And, according to Paul Sullivan in today’s Tribune, this was the least-watched Series through five games. Rays’ manager Kevin Cash pulled starter Blake Snell after 5.1 innings, despite Snell having yielded just two hits and no walks with nine strikeouts; Snell was pitching on five days’ rest, by the way. A 1-0 lead quickly turned into a 2-1 deficit and, eventually, a 3-1 defeat, with the Series going to the Dodgers. It doesn’t matter whether or not analytics led Cash to lift Snell; analytics dictated the 12 pitchers. There could be no repeat of game seven of the 1991 Series, when 36-year old Jack Morris pitched a 10-inning complete game shutout for the Twins over the Braves; working on just three days’ rest, Morris yielded seven hits and two walks on 126 pitches. Last night, Snell was gone after 73 pitches. The game took 3:28 to play, while Morris and the Twins finished up in 3:23. Long games, lots of pitchers (and strikeouts, another 27 yesterday vs. two homeruns) and low, low TV ratings—that’s where analytics has taken the national pastime. Maybe the powers that be are hoping that, once baseball gets declared a disaster, people will tune in the way bad accidents draw a crowd. Some silver lining, that.