Blogservations 06/09/09. Marlins 4, Cardinals 3

I regrettably was unable to watch this pitching duel of a game, so I had to do the old browsing of the box score. Luckily, FanGraphs has an excellent box score, game graph, and play-by-play setup for each game, and this yielded plenty of interesting information. Let's dive in.

I love Josh Johnson

It wasn't the prettiest of his outings, but his peripherals still looked excellent. JJ went seven innings, striking out six and walking just one. Looking at the PBP, it seemed he had a rough second and third inning, where he gave up the majority of his hits. From there, he retired 12 of his next 14 batters, allowing one hit and the lone walk, an intentional one to Rick Ankiel. He certainly outdueled fellow ace Chris Carpenter, who went six innings and gave up the same number of runs with only two strikeouts and one walk.

JJ's numbers are certainly excellent right now, but there is reason to expect some regression. This is the lowest walk rate he's posted so far in his career, so it will be interesting to see him keep it up. Also, he's allowing the lowest HR/FB rate of his career at 5.9%, well below his career values before the season of around 8-9%. He's been forcing far more grounders than previously seen as well.

The HR/FB should surely go up a bit, but it doesn't mean he still won't have a Cy Young caliber season. zIPS projects a 3.17 ERA and 2.96 FIP and a slight increase in his HR totals. Mind you, this is in 27 starts. If JJ can stay healthy all season, you can realistically expect 200+ innings with similar rate values, which should put him in contention with the likes of Johan Santana and Tim Lincecum.

The Marlins blew some high leverage situations.

It was a bit frustrating to see leverage indexes over 2 and Marlins hitters whiffing on the opportunities. This has been a common complaint about the Marlins, voiced often by the team's official announcing crew of Rich Waltz and Tommy Hutton, that the Marlins are missing out on the "big hit." This game was no exception, even with the walk off by Hermida. Discounting Hermida's walk off home run which added .354 to the win probability (obviously, as it won the game), the team went 1 for 4 in situations where the leverage index for the play was at 2 or higher, with a win probability added (WPA) of -.127. Remember, a leverage index of 1 is a neutral situation with regards to run scoring, with higher values relating stronger to run scoring, and win probability added is a percentage change in the chances of winning based on the result of a play. The only thing that saved that value was Emilio Bonifacio's RBI single worth .132 in WPA.

Timely hitting has a problem for the Fish all season long, and in this game it was no different. At least until a certain walk off blast to right field.