The Sim Projects High-Scoring World Series Game 4, Rays Pulling Even

Neither Matt Garza nor the Tampa Bay bullpen pitched as well as projected by The Sim, though The Sim did project Garza not to do as well as he did in his previous start.  However, the Phillies got a slightly better performance from Jamie Moyer than projected.  But the key difference was the Tampa bullpen - its performance being much worse than projected was the key variable.  And that added up to a Philly win in game 3, putting them ahead two games to one.  The Sim did predict some struggles by the Philly bullpen (Madson gave up a key run) and correctly predicted Utley and Howard to have big hits (each homered) and Jimmy Rollins to break out of his slump (he went 2 for 4).  It also called B.J. Upton to spark the Rays again (he went 2 for 4), but neither Carlos Pena nor Jason Bartlett had the projected key hit.  Such is predicting baseball.

For game four, our Diamond Mind Sim likes the Rays again, as they won 1351 of the 2,000 simulations of game 4, or 67%, making them rather heavy favorites tonight.  On average, Tampa Bay outscored Philadelphia 5.9 to 4.0, a really large margin when it's an average of 2,000 sim runs, indicating rather good odds of a blow-out win for the Rays.  In any case, it looks to be a high-scoring game, and at least one team is likely to score its highest run total of the series. 

When we then simulated the rest of the Series after a split in Tropicana Field, The Sim still favors the Rays, despite being behind, but only by a very slim margin - Tampa Bay wins 50.5% of the sim runs when down 2-1.

Keys to the Game:  Tonight is all about a huge edge at starting pitcher - Andy Sonnanstine projects to give a strong performance, while the Rays hammer Joe Blanton, with good odds that he doesn't make it through 5 innings.  Blanton's performance is THE key variable of tonight's game - nothing swings the results of the sim runs more than his performance. 

At the plate, Upton again projects to provide the spark for the Rays, and The Sim also sees Evan Longoria breaking out of his slump with a big hit and/or walk.  Longoria is hitless in the World Series so far, but tonight projects to be his night.  Looking for a key contribution from a surprise performance?  Sim likes Gabe Gross for that tonight.  For the Phils, nobody shows high odds of a big night again, though Pat Burrell looks like he might start to heat up.  Burrell, Utley and Howard are the only Phils projecting to make a serious impact tonight.

Intangibles:  The Sim again sees a high risk of costly defensive lapses by the Rays, so watch out for that fielding.

- Dayne

Read the Diamond Mind World Series sim projection on ESPN.com

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