Game 35 WPA: dingdingDINGERS! Nats 9, AZ 6

Via Fangraphs (click to embiggen)

(What do these graphs mean?)

• Squeezed up: Gio Gonzalez (-34.2%) has trouble when the strike zone doesn't include the knees, giving up 5 runs in 5 IP with 3 Ks and 2 walks.
• Reliable: Denard Span (+13.4%) is 2-4 with a walk and the front end of a double steal.
• How can you tell if the moon is full in a day game? Jayson Werth (+40.2%) is 1-4 with a two-out, three-run bomb into the mezzanine in left center to put the Nats ahead in the third (+30.6%), and a bases-loading walk in the 9th (+17.5%).
• If "clutch" existed, here would be an example: Tyler Moore bounces a game-tying, pinch-hit, two-out, two-run home run off the LF foul pole halfway up in the 6th (+25.9%).
• Bridge: Tanner Roark (+7.5%) earns a shutdown wiht 5 scoreless outs in relief with 2 walks and 2 Ks.
• Oops: Aaron Barrett (-16.7%) melts down in the aeyth, giving up the go-behind run.
• Bryce who? Michael Taylor comes in to replace the ejected Harper and blasts a go-ahead grand slam off a fan in the cutout in the CF wall 25 feet up to the left of straightaway center (+50.7%).

So, Doghouse, do we owe Rob Drake one game of not calling him a bum?

Well, he wasn't liking the low strike today, which didn't help Gio's rocky outing. Also, he tossed Bryce pretty quick over the check-swing call.  However....

See that little red triangle at the bottom outside corner of the zone? That wasn't getting called a strike most of the game (although it was in the rulebook zone, and well within the typical "as called" zone). That turned a leadoff walk in the 9th into a leadoff K.  That was strike 3.  I don't normally put strike zone plots up after wins, but sometimes the breaks DO go your way.

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