Angels boxscore breakdown 5/30/2016 - Chacin gets his first win!

Some of you that have read my articles know that I like statistics.  I love baseball in general, but I also love looking at the numbers side.  Odds. Probabilities.  Records.  All that fun stuff.  One of my favorite Fangraphs tools is the win probability graphs that they do for all games.  Monday's game is below.

Source: FanGraphs

If you hover over the graph, you will see the data points.  In a tie game like we had last night, the graph almost looks like a heartbeat.  Up and down, up and down.  Every time the Angels made a third out on the Tigers, the momentum shifted their way, solely because they were the home team and had the last at bat every inning, and of course for the game if needed.  The chart was trending upward about 1 percent every inning until CJ. Cron singled to lead off the 5th inning - the best chance the Angels had to score that entire game to that point.

Things went back to normal and the first time the game swung the Tigers direction was when Ian Kinsler singled with 2 outs in the 6th inning - that hit that brokeup Chacin's perfect game bid.

When Chacin decided to breath in the top of the 7th inning and Miguel Cabrera was balked into scoring position at second base, the Tigers had their best shot at winning the entire game at 61.4%.  Not great odds, but it was the best they had achieved.

It wasn't until Johnny Giavotella's lead-off single in the 8th that the situation really changed.  The game was nearing the end and the home team had a runner on base with no outs.  66.3% odds of the Angels winning at this point - the highest either team had all game.

The final nail in the odds coffin came from Rafael Ortega when he singled and Johnny G moved over to 3rd base.  No outs and runner on third in the bottom of the 8th = 85.3% chance of winning the game.  Of course, we all know what can and what should happen in baseball is not always what does happen.  But Ortega's moment was the shift the offense needed and they kept rolling from there.  We had reached 98% by the time the 3rd run came in that inning.

Victor Martinez's sac fly to Mike Trout in the 9th meant very little.  In fact, it was two outs and even though the Tigers scored, the Angels win expectancy went UP from 99.4% to 99.9%.  The Tigers had just a .1% chance of making a comeback being down 4 runs when 2 outs in the ninth.  We all know what happened from there.

Jhoulys Chacin was hot last night, there is no doubt about that.  He had a 42% whiff rate on that filthy slider that was thrown for a strike almost  78% of the time.  6 of his 10 Ks came from that slider.  His 10 knockout pitches were:

1. Slider (Kinsley)
2. Slider (Cabrera)
3. Curveball (V Martinez)
4. Fastball (Upton)
5. Slider (McCann)
6. Slider (J Martinez)
7. Sinker (Castellanos)
8. Slider (J Martinez)
9. Slider (Romine)
10. Fastball (Castellanos)

Chacin was also super efficient in his pitch count.  He had a high of 22 in that 6th inning where the Tigers very briefly threatened, but 4 of those pitches were from an intentional walk as well.  This really makes his pitch count 18 for that inning (When MLB likely changes the rule next year, those extra pitches for intentional walks won't be there anymore).

Chacin only needed 8 pitches to lock down the game in the 9th, despite giving up a leadoff double.  He was definitely on fire last night.