Heroes and Zeroes: Phillies 8, Marlins 7

Heroes and Zeroes is a series of articles where I use the Wins Probability Added metric from www.fangraphs.com to sort out which players meant the most to the result of the game. Players are ranked from highest positive impact to highest negative impact. Fielding statistics are not taken into account when calculating these figures.

Heroes

Jeff Francoeur (PHI) .754

Francoeur was a defensive replacement in the top of the seventh as part of a double-switch for the Phillies. He singled to right leading off the bottom of the inning (+5.8%), scoring the run which put Philadelphia on top, 6-5. Of course, his inclusion at the top of this list has everything to do with his two-run walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth (+69.6%).

Cole Gillespie (MIA) .353

Gillespie batted sixth for the Marlins, and singled to left with a man on and nobody out in the second (+10.4%), later scoring Miami's second run. In the third, he singled in Adeiny Hechavarria from second with one out to tie the score at five (+10.7%). He grounded out for the second out in the fifth (-2.0%), doubled to left to lead off the eighth (+15.6%), then scored on Jeff Mathis' sacrifice fly to tie the score at six. He flew out to center for the final out of the Marlins' ninth (-0.7%).

Cesar Hernandez (PHI) .275

Hernandez batted second for the Phillies, grounding out to first base for the second out of the opening frame (-1.4%). With runners on second and third with one out in the second, he knocked in Cole Hamels on a groundout (+1.4%) to put the Phils up, 5-2. He bunt-singled with one on and nobody out in the fifth (+7.2%) then doubled to left, scoring Jeff Francoeur for a 6-5 lead in the seventh (+20.3%),

Almost Heroes

Ichiro! Suzuki (MIA) .242

Derek Dietrich (MIA) .162

Ben Revere (PHI) .137

Carter Capps (MIA) .127

Carlos Ruiz (PHI) .120

Adeiny Hechavarria (MIA) .114

Justin De Fratus (PHI) .105

Miguel Rojas (MIA) .086

Luis Garcia (PHI) .080

Ryan Howard (PHI) .071

Elvis Araujo (PHI) .069

Martin Prado (MIA) .046

Mike Dunn (MIA) .031

Hector Neris (PHI) .029

Donovan Solano (MIA) .022

Minimal Impact

Odubel Herrera (PHI) .006

Christian Yelich (MIA) .000

Almost Zeroes

Chad Asche (PHI) -.040

Justin Bour (MIA) -.071

Jeff Mathis (MIA) -.139

Casey McGehee (MIA) -.160

Domonic Brown (PHI) -.164

Maikel Franco (PHI) -.179

Bryan Morris (MIA) -.223

Dan Haren (MIA) -.261

Zeroes

Cole Hamels (PHI) -.387

Hamels only made it through three innings, allowing five earned runs on eight hits. He struck out one batter. On the plus side, he did go one-for-one at the plate, later scoring a run.

Ken Giles (PHI) -.503

Giles pitched the eighth inning for the Phillies, and badly. The announcers were going on about how he had held opponents scoreless in 17 of his last 18 appearances, so I knew something like this would happen. He gave up four hits for two runs, one earned and one unearned. He struck out one Marlin.

AJ Ramos (MIA) -.828

There's no big surprise here. If you give up a walk-off home run, you're going to have the lowest WPA out of everyone. The only way Francoeur's home run could have had a bigger single event WPA (.696, incidentally) would be if it happened with two outs, or perhaps if the Phils were down by three and the bases were loaded. At any rate, one bad pitch is all it takes.

Check back tomorrow night at 9:40PM as the Marlins try to shake this series off and take on the Arizona Diamondbacks three times in the desert.