Mission October - Intro

With the 2007 baseball season is officially over, I’m looking for ways to pass the time in the offseason.  I wanted to use a “what if” scenario to pass some of said time.  As a disclaimer, I’m not using any of the following to claim this is what would have happened, it’s simply a simulation that will help ease the offseason boredom.

Since it’s pretty obvious by now that Matt Holliday never touched home plate in the 13th inning of the 163rd game, what would have happened if Tim McClelland made the correct call and the game had continued?  We can use Diamond Mind Baseball to speculate.  As was noted elsewhere, Todd Helton did not advance to 2B on the play at the plate.  The situation would be Helton on 1B, 2 outs and the score still tied 8-8.

The relevant lineups are:

San Diego
1. Brian Giles  RF
2. Scott Hairston  LF
3. Trevor Hoffman  P
4. Adrian Gonzalez  1B
5. Khalil Greene  SS
6. Morgan Ensberg  3B
7. Geoff Blum  2B
8. Jason Lane  CF
9. Michael Barrett  C

Colorado
1. Kaz Matsui  2B
2. Troy Tulowitzki  SS
3. Matt Holliday  LF
4. Todd Helton  1B
5. Jamey Carroll  3B
6. Brad Hawpe  RF
7. Ramon Ortiz  P
8. Yorvit Torrealba  C
9. Cory Sullivan  CF

Brad Hawpe would be up next, with Trevor Hoffman still on the mound.  If the game went to the 14th inning, Geoff Blum would lead off for San Diego.

The remaining bench players for each team are:

  • San Diego Batters: Marcus Giles, Craig Stansberry, Colt Morton, Drew Macias
  • San Diego Pitchers: Kevin Cameron, Justin Germano, Justin Hampson, Wil Ledezma, Greg Maddux, Jack Cassel, Cla Meredith, Chris Young, Brett Tomko
  • Colorado Batters: Omar Quintanilla, Ian Stewart, Chris Iannetta, Clint Barmes, Edwin Bellorin, Willy Taveras
  • Colorado Pitchers: Denny Bautista, Elmer Dessens, Josh Newman, J. Morillo, Jeff Francis, Ubaldo Jiminez, Mark Redman

I’m operating on the assumption that several of those players are unavailable due to fatigue or injury – Tomko and Ubaldo pitched on 9/30.  Chris Young and Mark Redman pitched on 9/29.  Cla Meredith was reportedly not an option due to pitching four consecutive days.  Willy Taveras was out with a quad injury. 

Greg Maddux and Jeff Francis were on two days rest, while Franklyn Morales and Jack Cassel had three days rest.  I would imagine any of those four pitchers would be available to pitch an inning if necessary.

In the coming day(s) we’ll be completing the 10/1 game, and depending on the outcome we’ll continue from there until the Padres are (in theory) eliminated.

 

What did you think of this article?




Trackbacks
  • No trackbacks exist for this post.
Comments

Leave a comment

 Name

 Email (will not be published)

 Website

Your comment is 0 characters limited to 3000 characters.