On Saturday, St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Matt Holliday hit his team-best sixth last at-bat game-winning hit since joining the club.
Heading into the bottom of the 11th inning Saturday for the St. Louis Cardinals against Colorado Rockies reliever Franklin Morales, pinch-hitter Pedro Feliz amazingly drew a walk, just his fourth in 125 plate appearances since joining the club. Colby Rasmus also took a free pass to put two on with no out.
Matt Holliday‘s single to right field coupled with an error by outfielder Ryan Spilborghs enabled Feliz to reverse field on the basepaths and barely score ahead of the tag. That enabled the Cardinals to edge the Rockies, 1-0, in the second-to-last contest of the season and extend their too-little, too-late winning streak to four games.
Holliday took a lot of heat early in the season for a low average with runners in scoring position, causing some to label him “non-clutch.” With a larger number of at-bats, that balanced out as the season progressed, now at .273.
In fact, Holliday leads the entire National League with 50 two-out RBI. Further, Holliday is just one behind NL leader Jayson Werth of Philadelphia with 45 doubles this season.
To put his Saturday feat into perspective, since becoming a Cardinal last July 24th, Holliday has 50 percent more last at-bat game-winning hits for the Cardinals than his nearest competitor, Albert Pujols, six to four. Holliday has 23 percent of the club’s most recent 26 such hits.
Last at-bat game-winning hits, St. Louis Cardinals, 07/24/09 to present
| 6 | Holliday | |||||
| 4 | Pujols | |||||
| 3 | Rasmus | |||||
| 2 | Ludwick | Ryan | Schumaker | Lopez | Molina | |
| 1 | Stavinoha | Ankiel | DeRosa |
Thanks to researcher Tom Orf for the above data.
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This is an interesting and nice data analysis.
Because Holliday landed a big payday, as so often happens, fans hoped for the moon. Matt tends to hit better in the 2nd half of seasons, so there was early frustration among some.
However, Holliday has ended up with offensive stats that are about as high as might be hoped for by DeWitt. Matt plays everday. He hit for a good average, drove in 100+ runs, had Ks beneath 100, and seems like a steady presence for the Clubhouse.
After the Giants splurged a massive contract on Barry Zito, the Cards beat Barry behind Scrapheap Wellemeyer. No such embarrassing fiasco with Holliday. Matt got out there and produced.
Gonzales is not in Colorado’s lineup. !! What is to be made of that? He trails Albert by 1 RBI.
He is hurt…………..they may pinch hit him in an rbi ripe situation………….I would think.
Holliday’s overall season BA is .313 and with RISP is a whopping 40 points less at .273. This undoubtedly dragged down is overall average. In other words, his avg. when no one is in scoring position is even more than 40 points above his avg. with RISP. So we are to conclude that the ‘non-clutch’ crowd were wrong?
Matt came on strong down the stretch, unlike others, and ended up with impressive numbers. But overall, he was not a clutch hitter for the season as a whole. The opposite.
TLR has telegraphed who has the inside track for backup catcher next spring. The insider is not named Anderson.
Pujols is a funny guy……………. he hobbles down to second, almost terribly embarrassed.. Now he has to renumber to to do it the rest of the game……………….. a real monster competitor there. A good friend to Su pan…………..
“Renumber to do it”? Its not Albert who needs his brain renumbered.
Jumbo………….I sit well back from my screen……….and must type with one hand…..because I’m practicing…………and have long fingernails…………Its a piano piece transcribed for guitar. Since you are being so special…………..I’m taking you off the bench and putting you back in the game……….your pitch………….. I know Brian has apparently been hoping for this. So it your group again. All the best to everyone.
I am not hoping for anything other than good baseball discussion and civility.
Pujols has played in 159 games. He leads not only in RBIs, HRs, and on base percentage, but in steals (14), because he is a hard working guy. Albert does not need to remember he is sore.
Nice move by TLR to get Joe Mather a chance to collect an RBI. Its not impossible this could be the last game for Mather, who had the misfortune of a hand injury a couple of years ago.
Good grief, 10 RBIs by Pagnozzi, in 39 at bats. Will wonders never cease?
Matt and Albert end up tied at .312.
Among wonders, Jeff Suppan 6 shut-out innings. From this series, it seems the Rockies are thinking about next year. They have been doormats for our starting pitchers. Suppan hit 87 sometimes, othertimes 85 on his fastball. It was more than enough.
After the injuries to Penny and Lohse, the Cards did not have good backfills available. Rich Hill did not make the most of his opportunity at Memphis. Walters and Ottavino were put in rotation, but could not get it done. The Cards were lucky the Brewers cut loose Suppan. Jeff will wind up with 3 wins and an ERA around 4, not a bad outcome. Some posters were sketical, one in particular, but Jeff helped us out.
The Cards could have won the division, if they had gotten off to a better start to the season. Early it looked like they might run away with the division, given Garcia and Penny boosting the rotation. But even then, they would lose close games and were not firing on all cylinders. This is too bad, because they later encountered the adversities of injuries to Penny, Lohse, and Freese and could not pull away. A hotter start during April and May likely would have changed the dynamics for the season.
Holliday … 186 for 596 … .31208
Pujols … 183 for 587 … .31175
Matt beat out Albert by .00033, a third of a point. Sadly, he hit around .200 with RISP for the first half, contributing greatly to the sluggish start that Jumbo mentions. The good news is he snapped out of it later, and I think he’ll get off to a good start in the spring.
Holliday was hot at the end of 2009. He was warmer diuring the back half of 2010. This is his pattern. He will probably have a slow first half during 2011.
One early season game that hurt was the 20 inning loss to the Mets. This landed Felipe on the DL and helped get him off to a weak start. I would have preferred to lose in 9 than to win in 20. Sometimes teams are not hurt by a long game, but that particular game set us back.
Cards strike zone discipine not always the greatest, but not as bad as Erick Aybar.
http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=12627181&topic_id=11493214
WC
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