2007 Walk-off plate appearances
Posted by Andy on February 25, 2008
Here is a summary of all the walk-off PAs in MLB in 2007. By the way, I've always thought the term "walk-off" was stupid. If your closer strikes out the side in the 9th, your team walks off the field as winners just the same as if you'd lost the game.
Anyway, some interesting tidbits:
- Nick Markasis, of all people, had the most walk-offs in 2007 with 4.
- Of the 210 total PAs, there were 179 hits (including 12 doubles, 3 triples, and 60 homers), 7 walks, 2 hits-by-pitch, 1 sacrifice, 13 sac flies, and 4 reaches-on-error.
- Toronto gave up the most walk-offs (12), followed by Colorado and San Francisco (11 each.)
- The 8th-place batter (!!) had the most walk-offs with 30, just ahead of 4th-place and 5th-place.
- Third basemen had the most, with 32.
- Of the 210, 115 of them came in extra innings. Of course, walk-offs always come at home since it has to happen in the bottom of the inning, and any extra-inning game won by the home team will always be of walk-off variety, since the game ends as soon as the go-ahead run scores. Only 95 of these PAs came in regulation, all of course in the 9th inning.
- 188 came when tied, 19 when down by 1 run, and 3 when down by 2 runs. That accounts for all 210 times, meaning nobody hit a game-winning grand slam when down by 3 runs. Obviously, a walk-off hit cannot happen down 4 runs or more since a team cannot go ahead on a single hit when down by 4 or more runs.
Fun!
February 25th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Chad Bradford kind of took it in the shorts a little on this one. Of the two times he gave up the game-winning at bat (I also hate the term walk-off), what happened? First, with runners on first and third, Jeter hits a grounder to second and the throw to the plate to get Melky Cabrera was late. The other was a sacrifice fly. So what do you call those, "Derek Jeter has just come through with a walk-off fielders choice!!! Yankees win!!! The-eee-eee-eee Yankees win on a walk-off fielders choice!!!"
February 25th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
On a walk-off hit, everyone on the losing team immediately walks straight into the dugout. Virtually every time, anyway.
They really don't do that when a closer strikes out the side in the 9th. The players in the dugout come out on the field, the outfielders typically jog to the infield, everyone slaps hands for a minute, some guys hang around on the field and talk to the press, etc.
February 28th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Expounding upon KC's comment here: http://www.baseball-reference.com/sotd/andy-kamholz#comment-4073
As you mentioned there were 210 walk-off plate appearances in 2007.
According to this: http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/inning_summary.cgi?year_game=2007&team_id=ANY
there were 215 walk-off wins. That means that 5 were of the balk, wild pitch, passed ball, stolen base variety. Hopefully one day those will be included in the Team Event finders.