This set of five Moments includes the season-saving final hit in a player’s 11-year major league career, a pair of tie-breaking singles in key situations, a potential out at the plate kicked away which led to the only two runs the Royals would score in a playoff win, and a Mets player’s brain-lock TOOTBLAN that led to the final out in a World Series game. And we still have 35 Moments to go.
Moment #:
40
Date: September 30, 2014
Game: 2014 Wild Card Game, vs. Oakland
Athletics
Score: Oakland 7, Kansas City 6, Bottom of
the 9th
Situation: No outs, bases empty
Count: 1-2
Matchup: Josh Willingham vs. Sean Doolittle
Result: Single
WPA: 13%
Summary: With the Royals
three outs away from elimination, Josh Willingham pinch-hits against Sean
Doolittle and delivers the final base hit of his career.
If Ben Zobrist was the best trade deadline acquisition in Royals history, and Johnny Cueto was the second-best trade acquisition in Royals history, then who was the best trade deadline acquisition prior to 2015? It might have been Jason Frasor in 2014, who stabilized the middle relief corps down the stretch and then allowed one run in 5.1 innings in the playoffs. Or it might have been Josh Willingham, who only hit .233/.349/.384 in 86 plate appearances as a Royal, and had just one hit in the postseason. But oh, what a hit it was.
Willingham led off the bottom of the 9th in the Wild Card
Game, the Royals down a run with three outs left in their season, against Sean
Doolittle, who had a respectable 2.73 ERA during the regular season, but whose
ERA vastly understated his dominance – he had a 1.71 FIP, thanks to a
strikeout-to-walk ratio of 89 to 7. (Among closers with 15+ saves in a season,
Doolittle’s strikeout-to-walk ratio ranks fifth all time, behind two seasons
from Dennis Eckersley, one from Mariano Rivera, and Koji Uehara’s insane 2013
season.) Batters had hit .169/.197/.262 off Doolittle during the season.
Willingham, meanwhile, hadn’t had a base hit since September 10th.
It didn’t look like a good matchup for anyone to face
Doolittle, and it didn’t look any better when Willingham swung through
Doolittle’s first pitch, or when he fell behind 1-and-2. But then, just as Ron
Darling was claiming on the broadcast that the “Royals got Willingham to do one
thing – hit the ball out of the ballpark”, Willingham swung at Doolittle’s
fourth pitch, a 94 mph fastball that got a little too much of the outside part
of the plate, and blooped it (Team Contact!) down the right field line. The
A’s, who certainly respected Willingham’s ability to hit the ball out of the
ballpark, had their outfield slightly shaded to the pull side, and rightfielder
Josh Reddick had no chance to catch Willingham’s blooper. One inning after the
Royals stranded the tying and go-ahead runs in scoring position with one out,
they had another rally going. And they had one more pinch-running weapon in
their holster.
Willingham would bat three more times in the playoffs, all
three times as a pinch-hitter. He batted for Terrance Gore, who had pinch-run
for Billy Butler in the 9th inning, in Game 2 of the ALDS – right after Eric
Hosmer had just given the Royals a 3-1 lead in the 11th inning – and popped
out. He pinch-hit for Butler as a courtesy at-bat in the 9th inning of Game 1
of the World Series, with the Royals losing 7-1, and struck out. And in Game 2,
he pinch-hit for Gore, who had again pinch-run for Butler during the Royals’
five-run 6th inning, and struck out with the Royals leading 7-2 in the 8th.
(Willingham did not make an appearance in any of the three World Series games
in San Francisco, a fact which still astounds me.)
Willingham would then retire after the season, making this
single the final base hit of his career. I’m sure that, in the grand and
glorious history of major league baseball, there are other players who have
made the final hit of their careers count for more. It’s just that I don’t know
who they might be. Willingham was a Royal for barely two months. He had 18 hits
in a Royals uniform, and 17 of them are completely unmemorable. And he’ll never
be forgotten.
Oh, and why was Willingham in the game at all? He was
pinch-hitting for Mike Moustakas. Ned Yost abhors pinch-hitters as much as any
manager I’ve ever seen, but even he understood that when a left-handed hitter
who batted .212 on the season, and who hit .172/.241/.313, is scheduled to face
a left-handed closer in the 9th with your season on the line, you need to look
for another option. Willingham was on the roster for basically this situation,
and Yost used him. Had Moustakas had the year he had in 2015 in 2014 instead,
he’s not coming out of the game, and everything turns out differently.
Everything happens for a reason. What makes the 2014-2015
Royals so special is that the reasons are all laid out for us, clear as day.