MLB: The greatest hits of week 18

Olson, Chapman and Thaiss all produce in the clutch

It was a productive week for MLB players on the West Coast named Matt.

On Sunday, Matt Olson delivered the game-winning hit as the Oakland Athletics rallied in the ninth inning to beat the Texas Rangers.

That same day, the Angels’ Matt Thaiss beat Baltimore with a walk-off home run.

Two days later, Olson delivered again, this time with a 10th inning home run that broke up Oakland’s 2-2 tie with Milwaukee.

Then on Thursday, it was Matt Chapman’s turn to sink the Brewers. His eighth inning home run off Josh Hader turned a 3-2 Brewers lead into an eventual Oakland victory.

That made for an odd coincidence: four of the week’s six most impactful hits being struck by California-based players named Matt.

This countdown recognizes the 10 most game-critical base hits of the past week. Our measuring stick is Weighted Win Probability Added, which is the percentage improvement in a team’s chances of victory brought about by the hit in question. Where ties exist, they are broken by Weighted Win Expectancy, which is the probability of a team’s winning the game at the conclusion of the play.

Weighted Win Probability Added is one of those so-called New Stats, but it’s based on data that’s been around a while. Simply put, every at bat improves or harms a team’s chances of winning, depending on the game situation and the at bat’s outcome. A home run hit in the late stages of a tight game is far more susceptible to move the Weighted Win Probability needle than the same home run hit in the early stages of a blowout.

From 10 to 1, here’s the full list of the 10 most meaningful base hits – or non-hits — of the past week.

10. Josh Donaldson, 37 percent

The Washington Nationals’ ongoing effort to haul in the division-leading Atlanta Braves came to a head during the decider of a three-game mid-week series in Washington. Having leveled the series the previous night, the visiting Braves gradually built a 4-1 lead through seven innings of the Wednesday finale, only to see the Nats rally. Matt Adams’ home run brought Washington a run closer in the eighth, then in the ninth the home team turned three hits plus a walk into two game-tying runs.

To start the 10th, the Nats called on their veteran closer, Sean Doolittle, to  keep the Braves in check. Doolittle, who has 24 saves atop six victories, faced the heart of the Braves’ order beginning with Freddie Freeman, who he retired on a groundout.

That brought up Josh Donaldson. Doolittle worked carefully, building the count to 1-2 before missing over the middle of the plate with his next pitch. It was all the leverage Donaldson needed. He drove it deep over the center field wall for a home run that restored Atlanta’s lead, if only at one run.

The Nats made a game comeback attempt in the bottom of the 10thj, Adrian Sanchez singling with one out and taking second on a walk to Trea Turner. But Josh Tomlin got Adam Eaton to pop out, then coaxed a line fly out of Anthony Rendon that Adam Duvall got in front of in left field for the game-ending out.

9. Harold Ramirez, 37 percent

From the standpoint of pure drama, Thursday afternoon’s 5-4 Marlins victory over Minnesota in Miami was the week’s best. The fact that the contest was tied 4-4 through nine innings is a story unto itself, one we’ll get to later in this countdown.

For present purposes, it is sufficient to know that the game proceeded into extra innings where, by and large, nothing really decisive happened. Both teams were retired in order in the 10th, and again in the 11th.

Miami pitcher Jeff Brigham continued that pattern in the top of the 12th, running the string of consecutive Twins batters retired to 11. In the bottom of the inning, Cody Stashak, who had set down the Marlins without incident in the 11th, returned.

Because they have the last at bats, the odds at the start of the last half of an extra inning tie game generally favor the home team, in this case by 63 percent. Harold Ramirez, a rookie outfielder, was the first Miami hitter against Shashak in the 12th.  Ramirez came up having already contributed a second inning triple that delivered Starlin Castro to home plate with the Marlins’ first run.

Against Stashak, he worked the count to 2-2, then got a pitch he could handle and lifted it over the left field wall for a game-ending home run. It was the sixth of the season for Ramirez, and almost certainly also his biggest.

8. Seth Lugo, 39 percent

It’s rare when the probabilities of an entire game turn on an out – game-swinging base hits are far, far more common. But that’s what happened when the Mets and White Sox opened an inter-league series Tuesday night in Chicago.

The Mets held a 2-1 lead entering the bottom of the eighth inning, both runs having scored on infield outs. That turned out to be sort of a theme for the evening. But in the eighth, the White Sox finally got to Mets starter Noah Syndergaard.

Yolmer Sanchez began the threat with a base hit to right, and Adam Engel followed with a ground single past the left side of the Mets infield. Syndergaard recovered enough to strike out Leury Garcia, giving manager Mickey Callaway just enough time to warm up left-handed reliever Justin Wilson.

Jon Jay was Wilson’s task, and he tried a bunt but popped it up, only to see the ball fall harmlessly between the mound and first base for an infield hit.

Jay’s hit created one of those unusual situations where the White Sox, although trailing, were actually the statistical favorites to win by a measure of 56 percent. With the bases loaded, those odds were only helped by the presence of slugging first baseman Jose Abreu as the next hitter.

But Seth Lugo, summoned to face Abreu, turned the tide back in New York’s favor with one pitch. On a  3-2 count, Lugo coaxed a sharp grounder to third that Todd Frazier turned into an around-the-horn double play to end the inning and preserve the lead.

The White Sox were by no means through, tying the game in the ninth. But Lugo’s retiring of Abreu killed the home team’s best opportunity, and in the 11th New York scored three times to clinch a 5-2 extra inning decision.

7. Austin Romine, 41 percent

With Gary Sanchez injured, the Yankees are leaning more and more on backup catcher Austin Romine. Wednesday afternoon in the Bronx, Romine delivered the big hit to defeat the visiting Arizona Diamondbacks.

Arizona led 3-2 entering the bottom of the seventh, and the prospects for a change did not look good when Yoan Lopez opened the inning by retiring Gio Urshela and Cameron Maybin. Then D-Backs manager Torey Lovullo made the mistake of fixing something that wasn’t broken; he summoned left-hander Andrew Chafin to replace Lopez on the mound. Chafin surrendered a double to Mike Tauchman, prompting Lovullo to remove him in favor of Yoshihisa Hirano.

Romine faced Hirano first and took the fullest possible advantage, lifting a fly ball into Yankee Stadium’s inviting right field seats for a home run that sent New York on top 4-3.

The Yanks added three more runs in the eighth, enough to withstand  two late Diamondbacks runs and preserve a 7-5 win.

For Arizona, it may have been one more lesson in the lottery game that is summoning the bullpen. When he was pulled, Lopez had retired all five hitters he had faced. His three successors faced 10 hitters and gave up hits to six of them, allowing four runs to score.

6. Matt Thaiss, 41 percent

Thaiss is a rookie trying to make his name on a fluid Angels infield setup. Since debuting a month ago, he’s made 13 starts, splitting time between first and third bases and showing enough power to produce five home runs in his first 50 plate appearances.

Angels manager Brad Ausmus installed Thaiss at third base for Sunday’s series finale with the Orioles, and he delivered a two-run second inning home run that put Los Angeles on top. The Orioles responded with four runs, but another two-run home run, this one by Albert Pujols, established a 4-4 tie as the game moved into the late innings.

Then for three innings nothing much happened. The Orioles mounted a two-out threat in the seventh, but Luke Bard stifled it, retiring Trey Mancini on a fly ball. Neither team moved a runner into scoring position through the eighth, and in the top of the ninth Angels reliever Taylor Cole retired the Orioles in order.

Andrelton Simmons opened the bottom of the ninth against Mychal Givens, but grounded weakly to third base. Thaiss was due up next. He fouled off the first pitch, missed the second, then took two balls off the plate. Another foul was followed by a third ball filling the count.

In that 3-2 situation, Givens challenged Thaiss with a four-seam fastball that caught plenty of the plate. Challenged accepted: Thaiss cut on it and lifted a fly ball that carried over the center field wall for a game-ending home run.

5. Matt Olson, 42 percent

The opener of Oakland’s three-game series with the Milwaukee Brewers Tuesday in Oakland was closely fought. Khris Davis’ eighth inning home run gave the Athletics a 2-1 advantage, but that edge was short-lived. In the top of the ninth, A’s closer Liam Hendricks delivered a meatball to Eric Thames that the Milwaukee slugger lined just inside the left field foul pole for a game-tying home run.

In the ninth, Freddy Peralta walked leadoff batter Robbie Grossman, who stole his way to second base with two out. But Peralta coaxed Marcus Semien into an inning-ending fly out, sending the game into extra innings.

The visiting Brewers sent their two most consistent offensive threats – Lorenzo Cain and MVP Chris Yelich – to the plate in the top of the 10th, but Blake Treinen dismissed the side without incident, fanning Yelich for the final out.

For the Brewers, that Yelich whiff turned out to be their last gasp. After Josh Hader struck out Matt Chapman to open the  10th, Olson came up and smashed Hader’s first offering over the wall in dead center. It not only hung a loss on Hader and the Brewers, it served as an omen. Two days later, Matt Chapman would similarly blast a late-game first-pitch Hader offering for a decisive home run…see below.

3. Matt Chapman, 46 percent

The Brewers and A’s, each team desperate for victory in their parallel post-season runs, followed the split of their first two games in Oakland with a see-saw battle Thursday afternoon. Milwaukee led 3-1 in the seventh – thanks in part to a run-producing wild pitch by Jake Diekman in the process of fanning Ryan Braun — when Oakland manufactured a run on a base hit, a walk, an infield out and a wild pitch to move to within 3-2.

Facing Josh Hader to open the eighth, Robbie Grossman worked the count to 3-2, then walked on a low-outside fastball.  That brought up Chapman, Oakland’s best power threat with 24 home runs and a .524 slugging average.

Chapman didn’t wait around, driving Hader’s first-pitch knee-high fastball over the center field wall for a two-run home run. Before the hit, the A’s stood only a 41 percent chance of coming back to win; Chapman’s blast swung those odds by 46 percentage points.

Those odds improved even more later in the inning when the A’s added an insurance run on Jurickson Profar’s sacrifice fly, which drove home Khris Davis, who had singled. In the bottom of the ninth, Liam Hendricks sealed the deal, setting down the heart of the Milwaukee lineup on just 10 pitches.

2. Rougned Odor, 46 percent

Saturday night’s game between the Tigers and Rangers in Arlington was an at-times tense, back-and-forth affair complete with overtones of brushbacks and ill will. It was not, in other words, the kind of tame August contest one might expect from two non-contenders.

Odor was right in the middle of the fireworks, taking umbrage when Matt Boyd hitting him with a one-out pitch in the sixth inning of what was at that point a 4-2 Tiger lead. Odor and Boyd exchanged unpleasantries, although nothing directly came of the incident, Odor being stranded at first.

His time for revenge, although not against Boyd, came in the 10th, the Rangers having rallied or game-tying runs in the seventh on Delino DeShields’ double and Elvis Andrus’ sacrifice fly.

Detroit threatened but failed to score in the top of the eighth, and neither team managed anything more impressive that Shin Soo-Choo getting in the way of a pitch to lead off the bottom of the ninth.

The 10th appeared to be equally passive when Jose Leclerc set down the Tigers in order and Nick Ramirez retired Hunter Pence and Willie Calhoun, both also without incident.

Odor was next, and he sent everybody home happy. He got a 3-2 pitch and propelled it over the right field wall for a walk-off home run.

1 Matt Olson, 49 percent

Olson’s show-stopping home run Tuesday against Hader was big, but statistically not as big as a mere single he produced two days earlier in another late-game scenario.

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The A’s trailed the Texas Rangers 5-4 entering the bottom of the ninth inning of their Sunday contest in Oakland. Oakland had rallied with three runs in the sixth for a 4-2 lead only to surrender that advantage when the Rangers posted three runs of their own in the eighth inning.

When Jose LeClerc took the mound for Texas to start the ninth, the odds of an Oakland victory were just 21 percent. Chris Herrmann’s leadoff single and Marcus Semien’s base on balls did improve those prospects a bit, but LeClerc retired Matt Chapman on a fly ball for the first out. As Olson came to the plate with runners at first and second, Oakland’s victory prospects still registered just 34 percent.

LeClerc fell behind 2-0, then fed Olson a pitch he grounded up the middle, finding its way through the Ranger infield for a single that sent Herrmann across with the game-tying run. By doing so and sending Semien to third base with one out, that scratch single swung the momentum fully in Oakland’s favor, elevating the home team’s chances to 83 percent.

One intentional walk later, the A’s cashed those chances when Khris Davis worked LeClerc for a base on balls on a 3-2 pitch.