Let’s start by placing the blame squarely where it belongs: the Dodgers scored in the ninth inning on Monday night not because of anything Pat Murphy did or didn’t do, but because Abner Uribe had a bad night. He came on to pitch the top of the final frame, but didn’t really have it. He walked the first batter he saw, in Max Muncy, and then allowed a single through the right side by Kiké Hernández. Two batters later, with the bases loaded, he issued another walk, forcing home the second Dodgers tally in what ended up a heartbreaking 2-1 loss.
In between that single by Hernández and the walk to Mookie Betts, though, the whole game happened. Each team made an old-fashioned managerial decision, and the Dodgers ended up with the better side of the exchange. Let’s talk about how.
First, with two on and nobody out, Andy Pages laid down a sacrifice bunt. That was a very strange choice, in the modern game, but in that specific instance, it was a defensible one. You don’t see teams bunt runners over with any regularity anymore, but with runners on first and second and zero outs, even the numbers say the bunt is reasonable. Technically speaking, the Dodgers’ run expectancy for the rest of the inning dipped from 1.49 to 1.41 runs when Pages gave himself up to move over the runners. However, Pages is an average hitter against right-handed pitchers, whereas on-deck batter Shohei Ohtani is worth roughly 0.11 extra runs per plate appearance against them. Apply that math to the run expectancy framework, which assumes that everyone is average, and the Dodgers’ run expectancy actually rose to 1.52 after the bunt.
That left the Brewers with a dilemma, in a position even sharper than the one Dave Roberts had just faced. Ohtani was stepping to the plate, with runners on second and third and one out. The run expectancy, as we just discussed, was 1.52, if Uribe pitched to Ohtani—but that’s not the number that mattered to the Brewers, really. In fact, arguably, it wasn’t the number that mattered to the Dodgers, either. This was a situation in which, although the batting team already led, both teams were playing with one run (and one run only) in mind.
Two or three insurance runs would have been great, from the Dodgers’ perspective, but their focus was on maximizing the chances that they would score one. One run would double the advantage and give them a much, much greater margin for error. The bunt only helps from an overall run expectancy standpoint once you account for the difference between Pages and Ohtani and the platoon matchup in question, but even if you revert to treating everyone in the situation as average, bunting the runners over decreases the likelihood of being held scoreless from 36.3% to 32.0%. There are these two different numbers in play: overall run expectancy and chance of scoring at least once. To the Dodgers, both numbers mattered, but they cared more about the second one.
To the Brewers, overall run expectancy almost didn’t matter at all. Pat Murphy’s responsibility was to manage toward that probability of zero runs being scored. It would have felt awful to have the game break open, at that point, after all the good breaks the Brewers had needed to get that far and keep everything that close, but a 2-0 Dodgers lead was going to be almost insurmountable. (That proved out at the end of the contest, of course, when the Brewers mounted a stirring rally but could only nudge across one run.) Murphy had to try to keep the game 1-0, even if it meant risking it becoming 4-0.
In that light, it’s easy to understand why he elected to issue Ohtani an intentional walk. Again, if we treat all hitters as average, the chances of holding a team scoreless with runners on second and third and one out is 32.0%. With the bases loaded and one out, that number rises almost imperceptibly, but it does rise: 32.8%. The question is: once we account for all the relevant actual people involved, were those the real numbers of the situation? Did Murphy’s gambit make sense?
First, we should establish Uribe’s splits, since Ohtani bats left-handed and Betts bats right. Here’s how Uribe did against each type of hitter this season:
- vs. RHH: .211/.268/.283, 29.5% K, 6.6% BB, 48.0% GB
- vs. LHH: .171/.303/.216, 31.1% K, 12.1% BB, 60.9% GB
All year, Uribe has been phenomenal, and he’s not especially vulnerable against anyone. However, there are important differences in his profile, depending on who’s at bat. He doesn’t walk righties very often; he’s much more prone to doing so against lefties. On the other hand, he gives up even less power to lefties and strikes them out more, in addition to inducing lots of ground balls from them.
Let’s also look at Ohtani’s and Betts’s numbers against right-handed hurlers, because those, too, will be important:
- Ohtani vs. RHP: 25.9% K, 14.7% UIBB, 33.6% Whiffs/Swing, 22.1% Put-Away Rate with 2 strikes, 96 MPH Exit Velocity, 16° Launch Angle, 38.4% Ground Balls/BIP
- Betts vs. RHP: 10.3% H, 9.2% UIBB, 15.7% Whiffs/Swing, 11.2% Put-Away Rate, 88.9 MPH EV, 19° LA, 30.4% GB
Note: For Ohtani, both the strikeout and the walk rate listed strip out intentional walks, meaning that those walks aren’t counted toward the numerator but also aren’t included in the denominator for either strikeouts or walks.
The trick, in these types of situations, is that specific outcomes can have disproportionate impacts, but it’s imperative not to let the probabilities of those particular outcomes swell in your head, overshadowing others. With Ohtani at bat, the Brewers could have gone for the strikeout, and there’d have been a strong chance of one—something approaching 33%. They also could have played the infield halfway in, with the slow-footed Muncy at third base, and tried to cut down the run on any grounder to an infielder. There’d have been a good chance of preventing a run and getting an out that way, too. However, the chance of a ground ball wasn’t great, and even if he’d hit one, Ohtani probably would have hit a hard one—which would have a high likelihood of getting through an infield voluntarily shortening its own range by playing in enough to cut down Muncy on a fielded grounder.
Of course, Ohtani is a good bet to hit a fly ball in that type of situation, and that probably would have scored the run—but, given that it was Uribe on the mound and that he allows so little power, it probably would have been a flyout, not a homer or double, so it would only have scored one run and would have left the Brewers with a good avenue to escape the inning. As much as they wanted to get out of it with zero runs, that was one high-probability outcome that would have struck a fine compromise. And, just as obviously, there would have been a very high chance (somewhere north of 13%) that Uribe would walk Ohtani, even if he tried to get him out.
Mapping out all those possibilities, I have a rough estimate of the likelihood that the Brewers would have carried of escaping the inning without allowing a run, had they simply pitched to Ohtani: 45.8%. Because of the large likelihood of a strikeout (and the helpful lack of speed from Muncy at third), they could have significantly boosted their chances of not allowing a run by going after Ohtani.
There’s another wrinkle to consider, though. Remember, the baseline chances of escaping an inning without allowing a run once the bases are loaded and there’s only one out are 32.8%. However, with Uribe on the mound against Betts, the chances turn out to be a fair bit higher. That might sound crazy, because Betts doesn’t strike out (which is one very helpful thing when trying to defuse a situation with runners on base and fewer than two outs) and hits most of his batted balls in the air. However, Uribe’s outlier skills as a strikeout artist shake up the math slightly. He makes a punchout more likely than Betts’s baseline, but still less likely than in an average at-bat. The strikeout rate is higher than Betts’s baseline, but his ground-ball rate on balls in play is also higher than his baseline, because Uribe (though not as good at inducing grounders against righties as against lefties) is a ground-ball guy. For a fly-ball hitter, Betts grounded into a surprising 11 double plays against right-handed pitchers this year. The reason is that he doesn’t strike out as much as most fly-ball hitters, so while grounders are a lower share of his batted balls, they’re not as small a share of all his plate appearances as you might think.
A grounder by Betts there could have thwarted the rally completely, which is a hugely valuable proposition. A fly ball off his bat still would have been less likely (although only incrementally so) to score Muncy than would one from Ohtani. The chances of getting out with zero runs allowed, based on a bases-loaded situation with one out and Uribe and Betts fighting it out and gettable pinch-hitter Alex Call behind him, were around 37%.
Both Betts and Ohtani made it more likely that the Dodgers would score multiple runs than it would ordinarily be, although Uribe’s skill set also pushed against that likelihood. The Brewers were in trouble as soon as those first two batters reached, and if you believe Uribe simply didn’t have his best stuff or command that night, perhaps their chances not to allow a run never rose to even 30% after the Hernández single. On balance, though, they didn’t give themselves the best chance to make that escape, anyway. That best chance rested in pitching to Ohtani, to chase the strikeout and (even) the possibility of intentionally walking Betts to face Call. Murphy erred by defaulting to walking the superstar, a common mistake even in the modern game. We’ve all but cured the plague of the misguided sacrifice bunt, but the intentional walk is the bunt’s cousin from Run Prevention Land, and it’s as much of a knave as the bunt is. Murphy failed to put his team in the best position to win Game 1 because he didn’t trust his relief ace to get out the other team’s best hitter, when he should have. The Brewers never had a great chance to win, but they ended up with a worse one because of that decision.
