It was ten years ago today, on May 31, 2015, that I went to a Rangers game and saw the home team beat the Boston Red Sox on Josh Hamilton's two-run double in the bottom of the ninth, turning a 2-3 deficit into a 4-3 victory. This play that ends a game in a victory for the home team is known colloquially as a "walk-off" as it allows the home team to walk off the field in triumph (and the opposing team to walk off the field in agonizing defeat). While a walk-off happens dozens of times a season, the exhilaration it provides makes it one of the most exciting plays in all of baseball, even if it was something as mundane or a bases loaded error on a throw to the catcher or a bases loaded hit by pitch.
Anyways, after the Hamilton walk-off I began wondering about the games I attended that ended in walk-offs. Looking back through the Excel spreadsheet tracking every game I went to, I identified five that ended in walk-off fashion, and wrote a lengthy post detailing each game, while also taking note of how much win probability each walk-off added. The concept of win probability derives from research from baseball analyst Tom Tango who broke down the win expectancy of every team based on inning, runners on base, and number of outs. The win expectancy for each team rises and falls with every play until it ends with the winning team at 100% and the loser at 0%. The win probability added (WPA) statistic basically tracks the win expectancy right before the play that ultimately ends with the team at 100%. The WPA of the five that I saw ranged from a measly 7% (on a bases loaded error with no outs in a tie game on April 14, 2012) to a whopping 80% (on Hamilton's two-out double with runners on the corner and his team down by one).
In the ensuing six years I wrote additional posts on the seven other walk-offs I had seen in person, from Tommy Joseph's single on May 27, 2017 to send the Philadelphia Phillies over the Cincinnati Reds to Adolis Garcia's single on May 23, 2021 to help the Rangers defeat their rival Houston Astros. After that last walk-off I rewrote and expanded upon each of the walk-off games, posting it onto this blog. I then thought about what to do with any additional walk-offs I see. I decided I could edit the post and add any additional walk-off games. However, that post included 12 walk-offs and the next game to end in a walk-off would be my 13th. I have a bit of triskaidekaphobia in me and wanted to wait until there were two more walk-off games before editing the post. Then it turned out of the 17 games I saw in 2022, only one was a walk-off. So I decided to wait for the 14th. Then the first walk-off of 2023 - the 14th walk-off game - was a major bummer and I didn't feel like writing about it. And that followed up with one of the most unbelievable experiences that I ever had at a Major League Baseball game and didn't know where to start writing about it, so I put it off. 2024 came and went and two more walk-off games were added to the list. I finally decided that I should just stop procrastinating and write about the five additional walk-offs in a separate post. And what better way to do so on the 10th anniversary of the game that started my fascination with walk-offs?
