On Monday, Mark Buehrle re-defined the phrase, "kick save, and a beauty," with his spectacular fielding play in the top-half of the fifth inning on the way to a win over the Cleveland Indians.
Buehrle was downright masterful in his seven innings on the bump for the Sox (still, the best pitcher in the Sox rotation was sitting on the bench,) and that dominance extended to the bats of the South Siders, as they struck for a total of six runs across four Cleveland pitchers.
However, this dominating victory was rendered somewhat bitter-sweet, as I awoke this morning to find sports radio personalities, as well as both amateur and professional sports journalists, lauding Ozzie Guillen's introduction of "small ball" tactics in Monday's win.
One Chicago sports journalist (you know, the kind that gets paid to think and write about the game) penned that "Ozzie is 1-0 in I-told-you-sos [sic]."
I sat before my morning paper and computer screen, befuddled.
Surely these people cannot actually be lauding Ozzie Guillen for tactics that had zero impact on the outcome of yesterday's game, I thought. They must be joking.
But no, the accolades already being thrust upon the White Sox manager are not tongue-in-cheek remarks, but rather are serious expressions of admiration and gratitude.
So then, after a deep sigh and a palm to the forehead, I decided to take a look at what actually happened at U.S. Cellular Field yesterday.
First, two of the three instances in which White Sox baserunners were able to advance on wild pitches were rendered moot. When the two wild pitches in question occurred, the batter at the plate promptly earned a base on balls and loaded the bases.
Got that? The bases would have been loaded anyway, regardless of whether the runner on second advanced on the pitch .
And what about that third wild pitch that allowed a runner to advance?
It was rendered useless as the next batter up harmlessly grounded out to third (thereby holding the newly-advanced runner at second) and the following batter ended the inning on a soft lineout.
What a strategy employed by Ozzie, right?
However I am willing to give credit where credit is due: it was nice to see Carlos Quentin leg it out from third base to score a run on one of the four wild pitches thrown by Westbrook.
Though the sad truth is, that run should have scored anyway, had Ozzie Guillen decided to put a legitimate hitter in the DH spot in the lineup and fifth in the order.
Secondly, while there were both spectacular and encouraging shows of defensive prowess yesterday, they either had a negligible impact on the outcome of the game or were so spectacular that no player could reasonably be expected to make a similar play ever again.
For instance, the double play turned by Mark Teahen and Gordon Beckham, while initially promising, becomes mundane (and almost mandatory) when it is revealed that the two Cleveland runners responsible were Matt LaPorta and Travis Hafner. Speed demons, those two are not.
Need more proof?
How about when Alex Rios made a diving catch in center field to end the game, a spectacular play, right? It didn't matter.
In 2009, a team leading by six runs with two outs and no one on-base in the top of the ninth (the exact situation right before Rios' catch) could reasonably expect to win the game 100 percent of the time. Simply put, they have a Win Expectancy of 1.
Now, let's say that in laying out for the line-drive hit by Travis Hafner, Rios misses the ball terribly and it scoots all the way to the wall for an easy double. What's the Win Expectancy for the home team then?
You guessed it: 1.00.
So, while Rios' display of athleticism was surely exciting, the absence of such a spectacular play would not have had a marked affect on the outcome of the game, meaning the presence of such a play had an equally insignificant impact.
Though, for whatever reason, some people just cannot accept that the White Sox Opening Day win was not generated by the implementation of some long-overdue baseball tactic, but rather was garnered on the strength of five walks, timely power-hitting and lights-out pitching. That's it, and that's all.
-Jonathan Platek
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