MLB Rankings: Baseball’s Greatest Hits of Week-22

PHILADELPHIA, PA - AUGUST 26: Sean Rodriguez #13 of the Philadelphia Phillies celebrates with Bryce Harper #3 and Corey Dickerson #31 after hitting a walk-off solo home run in the bottom of the eleventh inning against the Pittsburgh Pirates at Citizens Bank Park on August 26, 2019 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Phillies defeated the Pirates 6-5. (Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images)
PHILADELPHIA, PA - AUGUST 26: Sean Rodriguez #13 of the Philadelphia Phillies celebrates with Bryce Harper #3 and Corey Dickerson #31 after hitting a walk-off solo home run in the bottom of the eleventh inning against the Pittsburgh Pirates at Citizens Bank Park on August 26, 2019 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Phillies defeated the Pirates 6-5. (Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images)
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(Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images)
(Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images)

MLB Rankings: Greatest Hits in Week-22

1. Corey Dickerson, 60 percent

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Through seven innings of Monday’s Pirates-Phillies game at Citizens Bank Park, Pittsburgh held a 4-2 lead. Tasked with navigating the bottom of the eighth, Pirates reliever Richard Rodriguez got things off to a good start. He fanned Logan Morrison and Rhys Hoskins. At that moment the odds of a Pirate victory reached 90 percent.

The potential third out, however, was Bryce Harper, who has begun living up to his paycheck. Harper homered to right-center, narrowing the Phillies deficit to a single run. J. T. Realmuto followed with an infield single that Colin Moran could not make a play on at third.

Still, Pittsburgh’s victory prospects measured 76 percent as Dickerson came to the plate. Rodriguez got him in a 1-2 hole, then delivered a fastball that Dickerson sent over the center-field wall for a two-run home run. In giving Philadelphia a sudden 5-4 lead, the home run raised the home team’s victory prospects all the way to 84 percent.

Josh Bell’s ninth-inning home run tied the game and sent it in extra innings where, as previously noted, Sean Rodriguez would win it with a walk-off blast. But Rodriguez’s winner would never have occurred without the eighth inning heroics of Harper and, particularly, Dickerson.