Lance Sets Records, Roy Bears Down, and Kaz Steals Us a Win

Roy Oswalt looked pretty awful to start the game. 8K’s and 9 batters later, Roy Oswalt was looking as dominant as he ever had. As good as he was, he -- like just about every other Astro as of late -- played second fiddle to the BIG PUMA. Although this has nothing to do with his miraculous hitting, this interview with Lance talking about his new found speed is Lance at his best. While Lance deserves his accolades for his hitting in 8 straight ABs, we’re going to focus on the base paths, again.

Tonight Kaz Matsui made the 9th inning possible by his heads-up base running, which made our win possible. While I railed against our foolish base running earlier, Kaz Matsui utilized the SB about as effective as it can be tonight. Previously, I used run-expectancy in order to judge our base running tendency, which worked in the frame-work of what does the SB/CS mean to our run potential. However, tonight it’s all about the win, and so I’ll use Win-Expectancy (WE).

So there were were in the bottom of the ninth, 3-outs available to bring in a run and go home. Kaz drew the walk, and the winning run was on the base paths. Kaz stole second with Miggy at the plate in order to eliminate the double play, but also allowed for the IBB to Lance. Thought it allowed for Lance's IBB, that SB, at the time was worth 10% points of WE. Consider that for a bit. Kaz took us from a 71.6% chance of winning to a 81.5% chance of winning on a SB; that’s huge. Using the Run-Expectancy frame-work last time, I determined that a SB is worth about 1/6 of our total offensive production per inning or 1/54 of our offensive production per game. Yet, because Kaz took the base and put himself in scoring-position, he added 10% to our chances of winning. After Tejada K’ed and Lance was IBB, Kaz changed the course of the game because he was keyed into the game. On a Wild Pitch that Nieves knocked down, Kaz was able to act quickly to take third. Again, taking our WE from 71.2% to 82.6%, 11.4% of WE on his second SB of the inning. From there, the whole complexion of Carlos Lee’s AB changed...for the better. After lancing a fliner over Milledge’s head, the Astros took their 5th straight game, to improve to 18-16 on the season, forcing managers to think a little more carefully when the IBB Lance from now on.

Here's a pictorial summary, courtesy of Fan Graphs:



Last time I made the SB sound like a bad bit of ball-playing, it wasn’t exactly my intention. My aim was to say that there are times for running and people who should be doing the running. Tonight, Kaz Matsui gave everyone one a lesson in high-leverage situations making the SB much more valuable than it typically is. Furthermore, Kaz highlighted another feature of this team. In our 10 Game Recap we noted that in spite of a dismally low OBP, the Astros have driven in runs simply by CRUSHING the ball with an astronomical (no pun intended) .184 adjusted ISO (isolated slugging percentage). Part of the reason why this high ISO, low OBP formula has worked, is because we’ve been able to move runners over via the SB -- Kaz’s performance tonight and Lance’s base-running clinic last night being the primary examples.

Here's to hoping we can keep this act up as we wrap up our home stand and take this show in the road. Right now we're a scant game out of second place in the Central.

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