Plays of the week, #3

It's our third installment of Plays of the Week. Again, I've used Win Percentage Added (WPA) from the fangraphs website to pick out the Big Plays. WPA shows how much more (or less) of a probability a team has of winning after each play, based on the current state of the game compared with games drawn from a historical database which had the same situation. (For instance, if it's top of the 9th, no outs, no one on base and a tie score, the home team wins 56.1% of the time. Suppose the first batter gets out. In games where it's the top of the 9th with one out, no one on, and a tie score, the home team goes on to win it 60.7% of the time.  The WPA of that out is 0.607-0.561 = +0.046.)

There were a lot of dramatic plays this week--last week's top play would barely have made this week's list! See if you remember the plays that made the cut, and see if you notice any patterns.  What do you think this weeks Biggest Play was? Think the dueling complete games yielded any Big Plays? Top 10 after the jump.

10). Saul Rivera, vs Brewers (5/26/08): +0.188 for fanning Russel Branyan with a man on third and one out in the 11th of a tie game.

9). Shawn Hill, vs Padres (5/27/08): -0.195 for giving up a two-run, two-out single that tied the game. Nats go on to lose 4-2.

8). Joel Hanrahan, vs Brewers (5/26/08): +0.205 for getting Rickie Weeks to GIDP with men on 1st and 3rd and one out in the 7th of a tie game.

7). Dmitri Young, vs Brewers (5/26/08): -0.232 for missing an easy grounder, scoring one (tying the game) and putting runners on the corners.

6). Charlie Manning, vs Padres (5/27/08): -0.232 for giving up a solo shot that put the Padres ahead by one.

5). Jesus Flores, vs Padres (5/28/08): +0.250 for his grand salami, putting the Nats up 4-0 in their eventual 6-4 win.

4). Charlie Manning, vs Padres (5/29/08): -0.297 for giving up a tie-breaking three-run shot in the last of the eighth, leading to a 5-2 Nats loss.

3). Willie Harris, vs D-Backs (5/30/08): +0.322 for a tie-breaking, three-run blast that put the Nats ahead for good in their 7-4 win.

2). Dmitri Young, vs Brewers (5/26/08): +0.326 for TRIPLING off the wall in front of the Red Porch, which was declared a HR after the Umps consulted--tying the game in the bottom of the 8th.

And the number one Big Play of the week was:

Saul Rivera, vs Brewers (5/26/08): -0.331 for giving up the go-ahead RBI single in the 11th of a 4-3 Nats loss.