Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
August 31, 2008
The Dreaded WoW
Aaron Heilman

Aaron Heilman
Photo: Icon SMI

With the score tied in the bottom of the ninth against Florida on Saturday, a lead-off walk by Aaron Heilman led to a runner on third with one out after a sacrifice and a wild pitch. At that point, Heilman issued two intentional walks to load the bases, then walked Josh Willingham to force in the winning run. It was a wild inning for Heilman, to say the least.

Heilman issued the 10th walk off walk in the majors this season. I define a walk off walk (WoW) as a walk or hit by pitch in the bottom of an inning (9th inning or later) in which the score is tied and the batter is credited with an RBI. This may turn out to be the biggest WoW season of the decade:

SeasonWoW
200010
20018
20029
20039
200411
20059
20065
20079
200810

Can pitchers issue two more in the final month of the season?

There's really no excuse for the WoW. Even if a pitcher throws the ball right down the middle of the plate, he still has a decent chance of getting an out. I'd rather give my defense a chance than take the risk of walking in the game winning run.


Posted by David Pinto at 11:00 AM | Statistics | TrackBack (0)
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