Edgardo Alfonzo vs. Roberto Hernandez, 8th inning. Alfonzo's the tying run, two outs, 1-2 count. Hernandez keeps trying to put him away; Alfonzo keeps fouling pitches away, waiting for Hernandez to miss with a pitch he can drive. And I'm wondering at my loyalties. I'd switched to the radio at that point, but I could practically see Alfonzo anyway. Because after all, we'd seen at-bats like this for years: Alfonzo wasting pitches, working the count back to even and then to his favor, determined to tire the reliever out.
Not this time: Roberto got him. I pumped my fist, swallowed a bit — and apologized to Edgardo. Is it too much to ask that one day, Alfonzo will return to us as an ace pinch-hitter? Edgardo becoming Rusty Staub II would make me very, very happy. Heck, Edgardo becoming Lenny Harris II would make me pretty darn happy.
Speaking of divided loyalties, we've also seen plenty of Tom Glavine games just like that one: a homer, a bunch of hits, but just one run, and you're left wondering how you lost. I don't think I'll ever get over my cognitive dissonance about The Manchurian Brave, but the cognitive dissonance disturbs me a lot less when TMB wins.
The rest? An early-summer game like many another, which isn't to say it wasn't a wonderful time. Nice to see a little luck for Piazza, who's certainly endured its absence. Also nice to see Willie keep the pedal on the floor: Cliff Floyd and David Wright may not be your archetypal double-steal combination, but they certainly caught Matheny napping. I was irked at Moises Alou's Cadillac around the bases, until I remembered he was 49 years old (young for a 2005 Giant) and realized that was probably as fast as he could go.
Then there was the team of Brennaman and He Who Shall Not Be Named. They sure did gush about Carlos Beltran's poor decision to bunt with runners on first and second and nobody out in the 5th. They shouldn't have. The base-out matrix — which has to be coolest part of sabermetrics (as well as being mercifully easy to grasp) — is pretty clear on this: On average, 1.573 runs score when you've got runners on first and second and nobody out. Second and third and one out: 1.467 runs. (There may be a more-canonical version of the base-out matrix — which I first discovered in Alan Schwarz's awesome The Numbers Game — but regardless of the values, the pattern and the lesson are always the same.) You could say Carlos was bunting for a base hit (which would have put us in a situation yielding 2.417 runs on average), but with his bad leg that doesn't seem like a good play either. Indeed, Beltran was out by a whisker.
It's nice to know Carlos is an unselfish player, but there's such a thing as not being selfish enough. Outs are precious.
And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm back to scoreboard watching. Let's go, Pirates and Nats! I want to see first place, even if we have to share it.
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