After Jazz Chisholm Jr. told reporters, “They just got lucky,” in reference to the Royals’ 4-2 win over the Yankees in Game 2 of the ALDS on Monday night, some teams might have pinned that quote to their figurative bulletin boards and set out to earn a decisive win in front of their home crowd in Game 3. In its full context, Chisholm Jr.’s quote focused more on the Yankees’ missing opportunities to positively impact the game than actually discrediting the play of the Royals, but along with their elite athlete genes, pro ballplayers carry a special gene that allows them to get 27 varieties of riled up over even the smallest perceived slight.
Aaron Boone, former player and current manager of the Yankees, knows this as well as anyone and tried to throw water on his third baseman’s incendiary comments during his own session with the media, saying: “I don’t think they got lucky. I think they did a lot of really good things, and came in here and beat us.” Boone went on to reframe the issue as the Yankees’ getting unlucky on some hard-hit batted balls, which sounds better in theory but still attributes some randomness to the Royals’ win.
Wednesday night opened in Kansas City with a sea of fans adorned in royal blue booing their lungs out as Chisholm Jr. was introduced to the crowd at Kauffman Stadium. He soaked in the moment with a wide smile and seemed to mouth, “I love it” multiple times as the vengeful cries rained down around him. However, by evening’s end the masses fell silent. The Yankees emerged victorious with a 3-2 win over the Royals to carry a 2-1 series lead into Game 4 on Thursday. But did the Yankees’ win result from the tides turning in their favor? Did baseball prowess or favorable fortunes lead to their conquest? We probably shouldn’t hold our breath while we wait for quotes from the Yankees’ clubhouse admitting they eked one out with the help of Lady Luck, so we’ll have to puzzle through this one on our own.
Seth Lugo took the mound for the Royals in the top of the first and needed just seven pitches to do away with Gleyber Torres, Juan Soto, and Aaron Judge. Soto launched the third pitch he saw 410 feet at an exit velocity of 107.7 mph, a batted ball that goes for a hit 91% of the time and is a home run in 17 of the 30 ballparks; however, because the cavernous Kauffman Stadium is not one of those 17 parks, Soto’s shot landed in Kyle Isbel’s glove. Bobby Witt Jr. defied the odds by snagging a 114.4-mph line drive off the bat of Judge, denying a hit on a ball with an expected batting average of .860.
“Hit 100.5 mph off the bat at a 32-degree launch angle, Torres’ ball had an xBA of .500 and would’ve been a home run in 13 of the 30 parks.”
As the Royals stood in against Clarke Schmidt in the bottom of the first, they too, felt the sting of bad batted ball luck, but not to the same degree. Witt Jr. flied out after sending a 3-2 cutter 368 feet to right field at 101.3 mph. Before the ball landed in Soto’s glove, it had an xBA of .640 and would have been a home run in 10 of 30 big-league stadiums. On the next pitch, Vinnie Pasquantino grounded out to second on a ball that goes for a hit 59% of the time. In the bottom of the second Yuli Gurriel logged the first hit of the game, pulling a double to left field at 95.9 mph off the bat with a launch angle of 29 degrees. Given that such a batted ball has only a .270 xBA, it might feel like Gurriel got lucky relative to the other balls put in play thus far.
But expected batting average considers only exit velocity, launch angle, and in the case of grounders, batter sprint speed. What xBA doesn’t consider is spray angle, ballpark, defensive positioning, or hit distance, and that’s what Gurriel had going in his favor. His batted ball collided with the left-field wall, impeding its natural trajectory; if the ball were hit to a deeper part of the park, the outfielder would’ve had the time and space to get to the ball and make a clean catch without interacting with the wall.
