It’s an odd feeling, watching your favorite team’s trade-bait closer from earlier in the season close out a World Series game. It’s so specifically familiar. Every closer’s every outing can go well or badly, but individual pitchers usually have it go well or badly in an individual set of ways. When things are sharp, you’ve seen it before. When things start spinning, you’ve seen it before.
Anyway, happy for David Robertson. That was a heart-pounding inning, but the man battled, and he rallied, and the Phillies have a 1-0 lead in the World Series after one of the best baseball games in recent memory, a game full of heroes and goats and a star catcher showing up like a superstar. Lose tonight, and they still have home field advantage. Win tonight, and they’re going back to Philadelphia with a chance to bury the Astros in Game 3. Let’s talk numbers:
How Big Is the Phillies Advantage?
Referencing our favorite measures, the first two of which come from FanGraphs:
Depth Charts: 62.2% Phillies
ZiPS: 58.9% Phillies
Betting Markets: 51.8% Phillies
There’s a funny thing with postseason series where yes, the Phillies currently have somewhere between a 52% and 62% chance of winning this series, or something like that, but there’s also a binary environment. Win tonight, it jumps past 80%. Lose tonight, it’s back around where it started, down below 45%. Every game is extremely high-leverage, and somehow that leverage still grows with each day that passes.
Tonight’s is expected to be a game between Zack Wheeler and Framber Valdez, but last night’s was expected to be a game between Aaron Nola and Justin Verlander, and it did not turn out that way. Considering bullpens, the Astros’ edge grows. By regular season standards, only Bryan Abreu threw enough last night to be assumed to be unavailable. Regular season standards don’t apply here, and Abreu may be available and Luis Garcia may not be, but a tired pitcher is a worse pitcher, so worth noting. On the Phillies side, Zach Eflin and Seranthony Domínguez both pitched across innings, Ranger Suárez pitched across innings and is also, like Garcia, accustomed to pitching on a starter’s start/bullpen cadence, and Robertson threw 25 pitches, many of them high stress. We’ve seen Wheeler go deep into games, but remember: This guy is still stretching back out after an injury. The Phillies may need to score early, and we may be looking at a long appearance by Noah Syndergaard or Bailey Falter.
Again, it’s a funny thing, that binary environment. This series feels one way now and it will feel exactly one of two possible ways tomorrow morning at this time. There are only three possible states of being.
This Was Supposed to Be a Big Game
Applying that same numbers approach to Iowa State’s game against Oklahoma, because I like it (SP+ and FPI belong to ESPN, Movelor belongs to us):
Movelor: 59% Iowa State
SP+: 59% Oklahoma
FPI: 62% Iowa State
Betting Markets: 52% Oklahoma
Nobody has an effective way to measure college football.
Really, it’s interesting how disparate college football projection systems and betting markets (led by their own projection systems) are compared to MLB ones. The gap between the FanGraphs models and the markets on the World Series seems large. This is larger. But I distract myself.
Iowa State hasn’t won since September. Iowa State hasn’t won a Big 12 game. Oklahoma has only won once since September. Oklahoma has only beaten Kansas. Each team had last week off, an opportunity to reset, but man: How this game has fallen. Even if only for a year (hopefully only for a year).
Dillon Gabriel’s injury was a big piece of the Sooner swoon, and Iowa State enjoys no similar ready-made excuse. But, Iowa State’s losses have come by a point here and a point there. Oklahoma’s losses have come by dozens and dozens of points. It’s very hard to know how good Oklahoma is, but we have a good idea of how good Iowa State is, and Iowa State is good enough to hang with anybody in the Big 12 but possibly only good enough to beat West Virginia. The league is tight. Iowa State’s in the thick of it in terms of quality, but the results are absent.
You would think today would be an easier situation in which to move the ball than Iowa State’s had in a while, playing a mediocre defense on a beautiful day. Is Oklahoma’s defense that bad, though, especially after a week off for fine-tuning? And can Iowa State’s offense take advantage of opportunity? On the other side, those guys in Crimson sure can light up the scoreboard, and the Cyclone defense has been great, but it may need to be even greater. This is a bad Oklahoma by Oklahoma’s standards, but it’s still Oklahoma, and everyone knows the stakes: Lose this, and ISU needs to win at least once out of trips to Stillwater and Fort Worth to keep the bowl streak alive. It isn’t the most important thing for the program, but it’s important. This is a key game.
**
Viewing schedule, second screen rotation in italics:
World Series
- 8:03 PM DT: Philadelphia @ Houston – Game 2, Wheeler vs. Valdez (FOX)
College Football
- 12:00 PM EDT: Oklahoma @ Iowa State (FS1)
- 12:00 PM EDT: Ohio State @ Penn State (FOX)
- 12:00 PM EDT: TCU @ West Virginia (ESPN)
- 12:00 PM EDT: Notre Dame @ Syracuse (ABC)
- 12:00 PM EDT: Arkansas @ Auburn (SECN)
- 3:30 PM EDT: Oklahoma State @ Kansas State (FOX)
- 3:30 PM EDT: Wake Forest @ Louisville (ACCN)
- 3:30 PM EDT: Illinois @ Nebraska (ABC)
- 3:30 PM EDT: Cincinnati @ UCF (ESPN)
- 3:30 PM EDT: Georgia vs. Florida (CBS)
- 4:00 PM EDT: Missouri @ South Carolina (SECN)
- 7:00 PM EDT: Kentucky @ Tennessee (ESPN)
- 7:00 PM EDT: USC @ Arizona (P12N)
- 7:30 PM EDT: Michigan State @ Michigan (ABC)
- 7:30 PM EDT: Mississippi @ Texas A&M (SECN)
- 8:00 PM EDT: Pitt @ North Carolina (ACCN)
- 10:30 PM EDT: Stanford @ UCLA (ESPN)
