September 6, 2009

Special Day for Fielder

Prince Fielder helped turn a triple play, then finished the game with a home run as the Brewers defeated the Giants 2-1 in 12 innings. Milwaukee turned a 5-4-3 triple play, their first in ten years, in the sixth inning.

San Francisco led 1-0 when it put Randy Winn on second and Ryan Garko on first in the sixth inning. Aaron Rowand followed with a grounder that third baseman Casey McGehee fielded right on the bag.

McGehee touched third and threw to second baseman Felipe Lopez for the force. Lopez’s relay to Fielder beat Rowand by a step, and pitcher Braden Looper celebrated by pumping his fist.

“I didn’t really notice it until Flip (Lopez) got the ball,” said Fielder, who said he had never been part of a triple play at any level of baseball. “I thought, ‘Uh oh, it’s a triple play.'”

Fielder doesn’t hit many homers late, as only 10 of his 37 have come from the 7th inning on.

2 thoughts on “Special Day for Fielder

  1. Cyril Morong

    I am not sure I agree with what you are saying about Fielder not hitting many late HRs. 10 is 27% of 37 and the last 3 innings are 33% of the game. So it seems like he is pretty close to the proportion we might expect.

    I went over to Baseball Reference and found that this year his HR%’s by the groups of 3 innings were

    7.1 (1-3)
    8.3 (4-6)
    6.3 (7-9)

    So it looks like he does not do so well from innings 7-9. But he also has 1 extra inning HR. So his % from the 7th inning on is 6.8%, very close to what he does early.

    In his career, here are the %’s for the groups of 3 innings

    5.94
    6.9
    6.86

    So he looks like he does okay late. One year may not be enough data for a conclusion. If we do 7th inning on, including extra innings, then his career % is 6.96.

    Also recall that he may be facing good closers in these situations. It might be normal for all players to see their HR% fall when it is late. In fact, this year, the overall MLB HR% is 3.09. From the 7th inning on it is 2.78% (data from ESPN). So give Mr. Fielder a break. Just because he’s a vegetarian…

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  2. Cyril Morong

    I should have said above that 9 of his 36 non-extra inning HRs were hit in innings 7-9, for 25%. But in his career, he has 148 non-extra inning HRs and 48 of those were hit in innings 7-9. That is 32.4%. Pretty darn close to the expected rate of 33% (and of course he may not always bat in the last of the 9th at home)

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