There’s an aspect of Manny Machado’s cinematic home run off Mackenzie Gore in Tuesday’s barn burner against the Nationals that needs to be fleshed out. The prodrome of Tuesday’s heated showdown is important context. In the game the night before, tied 3-3 in the 10th, the Nationals took the lead when Enyel De Los Santos gave up a two out double to Keibert Ruiz driving in the go ahead run, followed by a home run from Nick Senzel. The Padres would stop the bleeding but faced a 6-3 deficit going into the bottom of the tenth. Donovan Solano started the Padres half of the inning with a double. Jake Cronenworth, on second as the Manfred man, could only advance to third on the play as the ball hung up on its way to the left field warning track appearing for a moment that it might be caught. Jackson Merrill followed, and added to his sublime rookie campaign with a two run single cutting the deficit to 6-5. After Ha-Seong Kim walked to put runners on first and second Tyler Wade dropped a sacrifice bunt putting runners on second and third with only one out. But David Peralta popped out foul in the next at bat. Suddenly there were two outs and the Padres still trailed 6-5. The Nationals would opt to intentionally walk Luis Arraez to load the bases and face Jurickson Profar instead. Profar would quickly fall behind 0-2. This is when the first of several moments of melodrama transpired. Nationals reliever Hunter Harvey’s next pitch was a 98 MPH fastball a few inches from Profar’s head:
Those bat speed stats blew my mind, but now I'm wondering what Manny's bat speeds were on his following at-bats in that game? What was left in the reservoir after he dipped into it to gain superhero speed? And where do you find this stuff?
I really look forward to your articles Archi, every single one has something interesting to say. The way you blend storytelling and analytics is excellent. Reminds me of Eno Sarris of the Athletic. You should be getting way more attention for these!
Not just Manny's intent contributed to the bat speed, but I've got to think adrenaline played a huge part. I was levitating just watching the situation--I'm sure Manny isn't immune after all these years.
When you wrote "analytics revolution... at the turn of the century" my mind immediate thought you were being coy with calling the "scientific revolution" in Europe 'analytics'. Same diff, I guess!
Great article. Puts a little bit of the magic back in the game!
Those bat speed stats blew my mind, but now I'm wondering what Manny's bat speeds were on his following at-bats in that game? What was left in the reservoir after he dipped into it to gain superhero speed? And where do you find this stuff?
I embedded the links to Statcast search, just click on the bat speeds above.
The rest of the game Machado took seven swings that averaged 74.6 MPH - exactly back to his season average
Reliver
Apparently a real word, who knew?
I really look forward to your articles Archi, every single one has something interesting to say. The way you blend storytelling and analytics is excellent. Reminds me of Eno Sarris of the Athletic. You should be getting way more attention for these!
Glad you’re enjoying!
Not just Manny's intent contributed to the bat speed, but I've got to think adrenaline played a huge part. I was levitating just watching the situation--I'm sure Manny isn't immune after all these years.
I bet you’re right
When you wrote "analytics revolution... at the turn of the century" my mind immediate thought you were being coy with calling the "scientific revolution" in Europe 'analytics'. Same diff, I guess!
Great article. Puts a little bit of the magic back in the game!