Yahoo: Dodgers fall to the Orioles after the O’s score four runs in the 9th inning after being no-hit for 8 2/3 innings
As I’ve said a few times this season, mostly after the Dodgers were getting pwned all season by the lowly Angels, they’re probably going to be fine, and they’re probably going to be in the World Series later this season. But man, when the Dodgers do fuck up, they fuck up in the most hilariously embarrassing ways possible.
I mean there’s honestly a much smaller list of ways to lose in a more embarrassing way than no-hitting a team through 26 out of 27 outs in a game, only for the opponent to go completely gangbusters with no more outs to play with and walk off in the blink of an eye, and I like to imagine Dodgers fans all around the world who were watching, anticipating witnessing a no-hitter, only for it to not only fall short, but for the wheels on the team to entirely fall off, and to immediately lose the game moments afterward.
In baseball, among the multitude of geeky stats and charts out there, is the win-expectancy metric, which measures the chance of victory for a team based on the outcome of every single pitch and out of the game. The Dodgers went from 99.9% of winning the game going into the 9th inning, to a 100% loss in the span of minutes, and for fans like me, fewer things is more gratifying, satisfying and enjoyable to see than of all teams, it happening to the Dodgers.
I love all the people involved in this whole debacle too; the fact that it was Yoshinobu Yamamoto whom was on the precipice of greatness but then losing the no-hitter, the shutout and the complete game in one fell swoop, when he surrendered a home run to Jackson Holliday, a kid that I’m hoping still flourishes into the superstar that he was touted to be. And then Blake Treinen, a kind of creepy right-wing bible thumper, who was brought in to close out the game, immediately walks two guys and gives up a hit to further deflate the Dodgers’ cushion from “salvage the win” to “oh shit we might actually lose.” And when he failed to close out the game, they bring in Tanner Scott, the poor schmuck who is put in the unwinnable position to close out the game with baserunners on, naturally fails to do it, and the Dodgers go from 99.9% W to 100% L just like that.
It’s nonsense like this that I absolutely live for as a baseball fan, and despite the fact that the Dodgers are still the front-runners for another World Series, if they fail, everyone will be pointing at games like this one, or their inability to handle the Angels or Pirates, as reasons why they suck in spite of their go-zillion dollar payroll.
