February 9, 2010
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Killer B’s: This Time It’s Backeby David GasskoOctober 17, 2005 In the warm Texas night, the St. Louis Cardinals overheated, losing 2-1 to the cool and collected Astros. Even when the Cardinals’ win probability was 52.8%, after a Larry Walker single put men on first and third with no outs in the ninth inning, the Astros never doubted their world-class pitching, and Brad Lidge got three outs to finish the game. Though it was Lidge who put those two runners on, he was the Astros’ pitching hero, putting up a .173 WPA, second on the team behind Jason Lane, whose fourth inning home run tied the game at one. Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa was thrown out by home plate umpire Phil Cuzzi in the seventh inning, and Jim Edmonds was tossed in the middle of his at-bat in the eighth after the two argued with Cuzzi about his liberal strike zone. They had a legitimate gripe—Astros pitchers threw 73% of their pitches for strikes while only 57% of the Cardinals’ pitches were called to be in the strike zone. Edmonds was replaced by John Rodriguez, who promptly contributed a -.058 WPA. The Cardinals took an early 1-0 lead on a sacrifice fly by Albert Pujols in the top of the fourth, and had a win probability of 63.5% at the time. However, Lane’s home run tied it up in the bottom of the fourth and Jason Marquis gave away Jeff Suppan's brilliant effort (.135 WPA) in the seventh inning, first walking Orlando Palmeiro, then making an error on a sacrifice bunt by Craig Biggio (-.079 WPA), and then walking Lance Berkman to load the bases. Morgan Ensberg, who posted a .075 WPA, then hit a sacrifice fly to drive in Palmeiro. Had Marquis not made that error, the sac fly would have been the third out of the inning. That would be all the scoring. Brandon Backe pitched 5.2 strong innings, striking out seven, and Houston’s bullpen was perfect in another 3.1 innings, earning .427 WPA. A strong effort by the middle of the Cardinals order (the 2-4 hitters combined for a WPA of .319) was overshadowed and undermined by the black hole at the five and six slots, where Reggie Sanders and John Mabry combined for a -.715 WPA. They made the last three outs of the game; Sanders with a ground ball that resulted in Pujols being thrown out at home, and Mabry with a game-ending double play, which combined resulted in a -.528 WPA. Despite his stellar performance, this was only Lidge’s twelfth appearance of the season without a strikeout. Player Offense Pitching WPA Avg. P Walker 0.205 0.000 0.205 .1141 Suppan -0.027 0.163 0.135 .0446 Pujols 0.093 0.000 0.093 .1070 Grudzielanek 0.038 0.000 0.038 .0644 Edmonds 0.021 0.000 0.021 .0828 Eckstein -0.034 0.000 -0.034 .0796 Rodriguez -0.058 0.000 -0.058 .0635 Molina -0.078 0.000 -0.078 .0476 Marquis -0.076 -0.031 -0.107 .1013 Sanders -0.261 0.000 -0.261 .1932 Mabry -0.454 0.000 -0.454 .1252 Cardinals -0.632 0.132 -0.500 .0782 Player Offense Pitching WPA Avg. P Lane 0.196 0.000 0.196 .0534 Lidge 0.000 0.173 0.173 .3500 Backe -0.056 0.205 0.149 .0587 Wheeler 0.000 0.126 0.126 .1357 Qualls 0.000 0.092 0.092 .0547 Ensberg 0.075 0.000 0.075 .1049 Berkman 0.067 0.000 0.067 .0567 Palmeiro 0.051 0.000 0.051 .0870 Biggio 0.040 0.000 0.040 .0601 Gallo 0.000 0.036 0.036 .0391 Taveras 0.013 0.000 0.013 .0154 Everett -0.115 0.000 -0.115 .0349 Burke -0.119 0.000 -0.119 .0881 Ausmus -0.136 0.000 -0.136 .0716 Lamb -0.148 0.000 -0.148 .0832 Astros -0.132 0.632 0.500 .0898 
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