MLB Rankings: Greatest Hits in Week-13
5. Hunter Dozier, 48 percent
The Royals suffered through another 2-4 week, and for one of the rare times, Hunter Dozier suffered right along with his teammates.
Dozier is having a brilliant season for the desolate Royals, carrying a .292 batting average and a .943 OPS. This week, however, he managed only four hits in 24 at-bats. Fortunately, two of those were Dozier’s 12th and 13th home runs, and one turned around one of the team’s only two wins.
It came in the ninth inning of a Tuesday game in Cleveland that the Royals trailed 6-3. When you carry a three-run lead into the ninth against any team, your odds of winning are about 97 percent; against this season’s Royals, the outcome is a near-certainty.
But not an absolute certainty, as Indians closer Brad Hand learned.
Hand faced five batters in that ninth and failed to retire any of them. In fact, Kansas City batters required only 12 pitches to erase the lead. It was a result in stark contrast to Indians pitching to that point, which had scattered eight hits across the first eight innings. Yet in quick succession Martin Maldonado doubled on Hand’s first pitch, Whit Merrifield singled on an 0-2 count, Nicky Lopez singled on a 1-2 count, and Alex Gordon singled on a 1-1 pitch.
That made the score 6-4 and loaded the bases with none out for Dozier. The fusillade also improved KC’s chances of a win, although they still measured just 43 percent. Then Dozier rocketed Hand’s first pitch deep into the left-center field seats for a grand slam home run, and a 43 percent chance became a 91 percent likelihood.