World Series Game 5: The most decisive moments in MLB history
The most decisive moments in the history of World Series game 5, topped by Scott Brosius' memorable 2001 home run.
There have been 19 World Series sweeps, but that still leaves 99 Game 5 entries from which to select 10 most pivotal moments.
That list turns out to be both strong and talent-laden. No fewer than six of the 10 most decisive moments in Game 5 history involved members of the Hall of Fame. That’s more than for any other selection of games highlighted in this series.
The Game 5 highlights are singular for another reason, that being the author of the list’s No. 1 entry. He is the same player who led a previous entry in this series, making him the only player ever to have produced the most decisive moments in the history of two distinct World Series games.
The Arizona Diamondbacks and Texas Rangers will try to write some history of their own as they play Game 5. But as they do, it might be fun to look back on the best moments from past Series.
The standard of measurement is Win Probability Added, a relatively new statistic that calculates the extent to which the play in question influenced the game’s outcome.
You can keep an eye open for installments looking at the 10 most decisive moments from World Series Games 6 and Game 7.
For tonight, here are the 10 most decisive moments of World Series Games 5
t-8. Alex Bregman, 2017 Houston Astros. Game 5 of the 2017 World Series was a frustrating one for the home town Astros. In a Series deadlocked at two games each, they carried an 11-8 lead into the eighth inning only to see the Dodgers rally for four runs (three in the top of the ninth) to create a 12-12 tie.
When the game moved to the bottom of the 10th, Dodger closer Kenley Jansen retired the first two batters he faced, Evan Gattis and Marwin Gonzalez. But he made the mistake of walking Brian McCann and complicated his problems by hitting George Springer, moving pinch runner Derek Fisher into scoring position.
That gave Bregman a window of opportunity, and he crashed through it. He lined Jansen’s first pitch for a solid single into left field, scoring Fisher with the winning run. The Astros won the Series in seven games. Bregman Win Probability Added: 39 percent.
t-8. Jimmie Foxx, 1930 Philadelphia Athletics. The fifth game of the 1930 World Series between the defending champion Athletics and St. Louis Cardinals at Sportsman’s Park was a pitching masterpiece. Through seven innings, Philadelphia’s George Earnshaw and St. Louis’ Burleigh Grimes matched shutouts. Lefty Grove took over for Earnshaw in the eighth and picked right up where he had left off.
Entering the top of the ninth, the Cardinals and A’s had combined for only seven base hits, with only one runner advancing as far as third base. Grimes opened the ninth by walking Mickey Cochrane, but retired Al Simmons on a popup and then faced his biggest challenge, first baseman Foxx.
The A’s first baseman was a consummate hitter in an era replete with them. That season he hit .335 with 37 home runs and 156 runs batted in on his way to a Hall of Fame career. So when Grimes missed in the strike zone with his first pitch, Foxx was ready; he sent it on a high arc into the left field seats for a two-run home run.
Grove shut down the Cardinals in the bottom of the ninth to complete the 2-0 shutout. Two days later, back at their Shibe Park home, the A’s finalized their World Series repeat. Foxx Win Probability Added: 39 percent.
t-8. Del Unser, 1980 Philadelphia Phillies. The 1980 World Series was tied and the American League champion Kansas City Royals looked to make it a sweep at Kauffman Stadium as the fifth game advanced into its late stages. Behind starter Larry Gura and closer Dan Quisenberry, Kansas City led just three outs from victory.
But Quisenberry, who had absorbed both a blown save and a loss in Philadelphia’s Game Two win, was about to suffer a repeat of that nightmare. Mike Schmidt opened with a base hit, and Unser – pinch hitting for Lonnie Smith – sent a game-tying double screaming into the right field corner.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, two outs later Manny Trillo singled Unser home with the winning run. When the Series returned to Philadelphia for game Six, the Phillies wrapped it up. Unser Win Probability Added: 39 percent.
t-6. Mel Ott, 1933 New York Giants. From the moment of his arrival as a skinny teen-ager in the 1920s, Mel Ott was a centerpiece of the Giants’ offense. But in Game Five of the 1933 World Series, as the Giants looked to wrap up their first championship since 1922, Ott knew only frustration.
In a 3-3 tie game, Ott had been held hitless in four at bats, striking out twice. That included a first-inning whiff with teammates at first and third. As the game moved in to extra innings, Ott hoped for a fifth chance.
Washington Nationals pitcher Jack Russell started the top of the 10th inning at Griffith Stadium by retiring Hughie Critz and Giants player-manager Bill Terry easily. Ott came up next. With its deep reaches and high fences, Griffith Stadium was known as a homer-averse park, but the future Hall of Famer laid into a Russell pitch and sent it flying over the 419-foot distant barrier in right-center to break the tie.
When Giants starter Dolf Luque struck out Nats first baseman Joe Kuhel moments later, New York had that four-games-to-one World Series victory. Ott Win Probability Added: 40 percent.
t-6. Harry Hooper, 1915 Boston Red Sox. The strength of the 1915 Boston Red Sox was its sensational outfield of Duffy Lewis, Tris Speaker and Harry Hooper. Eventually, Speaker and Hooper would both be inducted in Cooperstown.
Against the National League champion Philadelphia Phillies, the trio combined to bat .364, Lewis and Hooper both topping 1.000 in OPS. Presented with an opportunity to clinch that Series in Game Five, Lewis and Hooper led the way.
The Sox trailed Philadelphia and left-hander Eppa Rixey 4-2 at Philadelphia’s Baker Bowl when Lewis launched a game-tying two-run home run into temporary bleachers in center field. Normally center field in Baker Bowl – 408 feet deep with a 47-foot high wall fronting the clubhouses – was a place where potential home runs went to die. But Phillies management, in search of additional World Series profits, had installed temporary bleachers on the field, shortening the distance considerably.
One inning later, one out into the ninth, those bleachers came into play a second and even more fatal time. Rixey got two strikes on Hooper but left his third pitch out over the plate and the Red Sox right fielder poled it into the temporary seats as outfielder Dode Paskert watched a ball he normally would have caught sail beyond his reach.
When Red Sox pitcher Rube Foster retired the final three Phillies batters without incident, Boston had its World Series win. Hooper Win Probability Added: 40 percent.
5. Josh Devore, 1911 New York Giants. Down three-games-to-one to the Philadelphia Athletics and trailing 3-1 entering the bottom of the ninth inning of Game Five at the Polo Grounds, the New York Giants were in serious trouble. Jack Coombs, a 28-game winner during the regular season, had held them to that single run and just six hits through eight innings.
Coombs dispatched Buck Herzog on a ground ball, gave up a double to Art Fletcher, then sat down Chief Meyers on another ground out, leaving him just one out from a Series-clinching victory. New York's only hope was Doc Crandall, a relief pitcher forced by circumstances to take the at bat. Somehow, Crandal produced a two-base hit that scored Fletcher and brought New York within one run at 3-2.
It also brought up Devore, New York’s leadoff hitter, seeking redemption for a miserable afternoon. In his four previous at bats, Devore had gone hitless with a double play and stranding two baserunners.
This time Devore would not be denied. He singled on Coombs’ first pitch, scoring Crandall with the tying run and sending the game into the 10th inning, which was when the Giants won it 4-3.
Their joy would be short-lived, the Athletics winning the Series the following day in Philadelphia. Devore Win Probability Added: 42 percent.
t-2. Johnny Mize, 1952 New York Yankees. In an earlier installment, it was noted that Johnny Mize had been the hero of New York’s Game 3 victory over Brooklyn in 1949. But Mize wasn’t through torturing the Dodgers. In Game Five of the 1952 World Series at Yankee Stadium he did it again, albeit this time with less ultimate success.
The Series was tied at two games each but the Dodgers led 4-0 halfway through the fifth game. Then Hank Bauer opened the bottom of the fifth with a base on balls off Carl Erskine, Billy Martin followed with a single, and Irv Noren chased Bauer home with another base hit.
Two outs later Mize came up in a 4-2 game with Gil McDougald and Phil Rizzuto on base. His three-run home run erased that Dodger lead and gave the Yankees a 5-4 advantage.
Unfortunately for the Yanks, their bullpen couldn’t hold the lead. Brooklyn tied the game in the seventh and won it on Duke Snider’s 11th inning RBI double. Fortunately for the Yankees, they won the final two games at Ebbets Field to claim the Series in seven. Mize Win Probability Added: 43 percent.
t-2. Jack Billingham/Joe Morgan, 1972 Cincinnati Reds. Billingham was a rotation starter called on by Reds manager Sparky Anderson to relieve his beleaguered bullpen at a critical moment in the 1972 World Series at the Oakland Alameda County Coliseum.
The A’s led 5-4 with one out and Gene Tenace at first base when Billingham was summoned as Cincinnati’s sixth pitcher of the afternoon. Two days earlier he had worked eight shutout innings in Cincinnati’s 1-0 Game Three victory.
The first batter he faced on this day, pinch hitter Dave Duncan, singled, moving the tying run to third base with just one out. Bert Campaneris, Oakland’s shortstop and contact-hitting specialist, was next.
Campaneris managed a foul pop down the right field line that Reds second baseman Joe Morgan chased down. The pop up was just deep enough and Morgan’s momentum carried him just far enough away from the plate that Blue Moon Odom, pinch running for Tenace at third, broke for home with the potential tying run.
Morgan slipped but recovered and fired to catcher Johnny Bench just in time for umpire Bob Engel to call Odom out on a play that doubtless would have gone to replay review had such a thing existed at the time. Billingham/Morgan Win Probability Added: 43 percent.
t-2. Mule Haas, 1929 Philadelphia Athletics. The National League champion Chicago Cubs had a powerful lineup featuring Rogers Hornsby, Hack Wilson and Kiki Cuyler. But against the Philadelphia Athletics in the 1929 World Series, they were twice done in by late rallies, and Haas played a central role in both.
One day earlier at Shibe Park, the Cubs had carried an 8-0 lead into the seventh inning only to watch Philadelphia score 10 times thanks in large measure to a three-run inside-the-park home run by Haas. Two days later, back at Shibe Park, Cubs starter Pat Malone was two outs from victory when Haas struck again.
Following Max Bishop’s single, Haas homered over the high right field wall to tie the game 2-2. Moments later, Bing Miller wrapped up the Series for Philadelphia with a two out double that scored Al Simmons. Haas Win Probability Added: 47 percent.
t-2. Highpockets George Kelly, 1922 New York Giants. They called Giants first baseman George Kelly ‘Highpockets’ because he stood 6-4, a substantial height in those days.
Kelly leveraged his height well, batting .328 for the Giants, and helping John McGraw’s team to victories in three of the Series first four games against the Yankees, the other game having been called by darkness as a tie.
Eventually, Kelly’s abilities with the bat would earn him a Hall of Fame plaque.
Seeking to keep the Series alive, the Yanks led 3-2 behind Bullet Joe Bush as the ninth inning began. But with one out, things got lively. Within moments, the Giants had loaded the bases with two out for Kelly. His line single over the shortstop’s head scored both Frank Frisch and Irish Meusel, and giving the Giants a 4-3 lead. Moments later they won the game 5-3 and in the process wrapped up the Series. Kelly Win Probability Added: 47 percent.
t-1. Tom Tresh, 1964 New York Yankees. Tresh was heroic in a losing effort for the Yankees against St. Louis in the fifth game of the 1964 Classic at Yankee Stadium.
New York trailed 2-0 having been shut out by Bob Gibson as the game moved into the bottom of the ninth inning. Gibson had shut out the Yanks on just four hits. But when normally sure-handed Cardinal shortstop Dick Groat fumbled Mickey Mantle’s grounder to open the ninth, a window opened.
Gibson responded by fanning Elston Howard and retired Joe Pepitone on a grounder – for what would have been the game-ending out – as Mantle advanced to second. Tresh was next and he exacted a major penalty for Groat’s misplay, driving a Gibson pitch into the right-center field seats for a game-tying home run.
Ultimately, it wasn’t enough. The Cardinals rode Tim McCarver’s three-run 10th inning home run to a 5-2 victory and won the Series in seven games. Tresh Win Probability Added: 49 percent.
t-1. Scott Brosius, 2001 New York Yankees. Brosius is the only player to have produced the most decisive play in the history of two different World Series games. His 1998 hit was recounted in the installment covering Game Three. Against the Arizona Diamondbacks in Game Five of the 2001 World Series, Brosius did it again.
The Series was tied at two games each but Arizona led 2-0 late in the fifth game behind starter Miguel Batista. To begin the ninth, Diamondbacks manager Bob Brenly turned to his closer, Byung-Hyun Kim for the final three outs.
Kim had been touched for two home runs one day earlier, surrendering a 3-1 Arizona lead. With two out and Jorge Posada at second base, history stunningly repeated itself.
Brosius got a fat 1-0 pitch and pulled it into the seats down Yankee Stadium’s left field line. His two-run home run tied the game, and the Yankees went on to win in 11 innings. Arizona, however, came back to win Games 6 and 7 in Phoenix and win the Series. Brosius Win Probability Added: 49 percent.
feed