The World Series has become a heavyweight bout, and we’re about the bout. 24 hours after the Phillies pounded Lance McCullers’s arsenal deep into the Pennsylvanian sky, Cristian Javier took the very same mound and held the home team hitless, his bullpen cleaning up the last three innings while also doing the whole no-hit thing. Game 1 felt like a great game, with the comeback and the Castellanos catch and the Realmuto home run before David Robertson made everyone in the country hold their breath. Game 3 was as much an instant-classic as a 7-0 game can be, home run after home run turning the crowd raving mad in its euphoria. Game 4 was a defiant no-hitter, and the series might not go seven games, but it’s officially going back to Houston after tonight.
We have, then, a great World Series, and to do the annoying big-picture talk, I think it’s a great World Series for any casual fan, too. It’s a great World Series for the middle-aged dad (thinking of my friend’s father-in-law here) who doesn’t follow sports too much but cares about the World Series the way he wants to know which movie won the Oscar for Best Picture. It’s a great World Series for the folks who talk about sports at lunch at work because that’s what they talk about at lunch at work. The World Series is a cultural phenomenon, and it’s not what it was in the days when there weren’t so many options, but what is? There are people who keep tabs on the World Series each year through societal motivations. This is a World Series to reel those people in.
It’s also not a bad series market-wise, contrary to the narrative that you need the Dodgers or the Yankees in it to get people to watch. With two quietly-big-market teams competing (Philadelphia is fourth in Nielsen TV market size, Houston is eighth; the two are each among the six most populous cities in the country and among the seven most populous metropolitan areas), it’s likely more of a success in terms of its newsiness than TV ratings suggest. TV ratings are important for the sport’s health, and the ratings aren’t great, and that’s bad, but that’s also a long-term phenomenon. Ratings have been better for these games than for those of other recent World Series, and MLB is presumably getting a lot of growth—quite possibly long-term growth—in the potent Philadelphia market.
It’s funny to say, but this has been a good World Series. The best since 2019, and possibly 2016 or ’17. Better than any of the last four Super Bowls. Better than any NBA Finals since 2016, and any Stanley Cup Finals since 2019. The moment has lived up to the moment. That doesn’t always happen.
Game 5
The reads from FanGraphs’s projection systems, and from the markets:
- Depth Charts: 53.4% Astros
- ZiPS: 59.9% Astros
- Betting Markets: 63.0% Astros
There was a lot of talk during last night’s game about how good Cristian Javier has been lately, and to be clear: Cristian Javier has been very good this year. He posted a 2.43 xERA in the regular season. He posted a 3.16 FIP. He didn’t work deep into starts very often, but that wasn’t his role, and that wasn’t what he had to do last night either. Still, markets and projection systems didn’t put a lot of weight into him, and the Astros didn’t even put a lot of weight into him, opting to set Lance McCullers up for two World Series starts rather than Javier.
What happened?
Well, Javier’s young. He hadn’t had a good FIP/xERA year before this one. He’s thrown a lot more innings than he’s thrown in the past. All of these are warning signs about regression. Should the Astros have used him in Game 3 instead of McCullers? Maybe. It’d sure be nice for them now to have done that, now that they know that McCullers might be tipping his pitches or—worse—might just be Philadelphia hitters’ favorite prey.
Cristian Javier had a great start last night. One of the best in World Series history. It was awesome. But that doesn’t mean anyone was dumb for not expecting it. Expecting it, for many who did, was a result of oversimplicity.
It’s against this backdrop that the Phillies “missed their chance,” losing with their ace opposing the opponent’s fourth starter. This isn’t really what happened—last night’s Cristian Javier was the best pitcher the Astros have—but because reasonable expectations were so much lower, the series flips hard, especially with the Astros now putting their best guy on the mound against the Phillies’ fourth-best, with Game 5 a Justin Verlander vs. Noah Syndergaard affair. To get around to making the point of all this: The Phillies didn’t miss a chance last night. The Astros took that chance away. More specifically, Cristian Javier took it off the table.
Markets are still overvaluing the Astros, but they’re getting tighter with ZiPS, which I believe incorporates pitching matchups in a way Depth Charts doesn’t. Both bullpens are more or less fresh. The Astros have the Game 5 advantage, but it’s negated slightly by being on the road. Games 6 and 7 are tossups, but that’s pulled slightly towards the Astros because they’ll happen in Houston. We said before Game 1 that the Phillies are good enough to not be a big underdog in any one game of these. Last night was a good reminder that the Astros are good enough to make that true of themselves as well.
Housekeeping
Just an acknowledgment, for those wondering, that we’re working on some other things this week besides blogging, with college basketball coming up and college football heating up. It’s a busy time of the year. All the things are happening. Hopefully our content cadence has been fine this week, and hopefully it gets a lot better next week as we start basketball season, and hopefully on the betting side we get a Phillies championship and thereby amnesty from our losses this spring. Thanks for bearing with us on all fronts.
**
Viewing schedule for tonight, with the Sun Belt’s modern rivalry and a terrifying NFL spread the undercards (second screen rotation in italics):
- 8:03 PM EDT: Houston @ Philadelphia – Game 5, Verlander vs. Syndergaard (FOX)
- 7:30 PM EDT: Appalachian State @ Coastal Carolina (ESPN)
- 8:15 PM EDT: Philadelphia @ Houston (Amazon Prime) – Holy shit I just realized this is the football matchup tonight, that’s funny. Looked it up and it’s the first time this has happened (World Series/NFL crossover between the same two cities) since 2011, which feels surprisingly recent?
