FanGraphs offers a chart for each game, displaying the win expectancy – the chances the team will win, given the score and situation – for each team. It shows key plays and how they affect the teams’ odds of winning. Sometimes, there are a couple small swings on big plays, but usually it’s a slow build in one direction, as one of the two teams gets closer and closer to winning.
That is not what last night’s game was.
Last night’s Cubs-Rockies game was this:
Source: FanGraphs
The Rockies built an early lead, and, when a team has a 4-0 lead in the 4th inning, they win almost 90% of the time. But then the Cubs moved that needle in a hurry, shifting the odds in their favor, and then steadily building to a peak of 97.8% by the end of the 8th inning.
And, then, as you can see, the two absurdly large swings in the 9th inning. Statistically, the Rockies should almost never have done what they did in the top of the 9th. And, statistically, the Cubs should only do what they did in the bottom of the 9th about 10% of the time. For both of those extreme events to happen in the same inning?
If you thought that game was particularly crazy, it wasn’t just you being hyperbolic. That was, objectively, an absolutely bonkers game.
I’m just glad the Cubs won, and Kris Bryant did this.