MLB

Coco Crisp's Sensational Catch Denied Ji-Man Choi a 3-Homer Game Last Night

Brandon Gdula  —  @gdula13 Aug 5th, 2016
With a leaping grab, Crisp kept Choi's home run tally to two. It helped the A's get a win, too.

Coco Crisp and the Oakland Athletics don't have much to get excited about right now, as they sit 48-60 and are the 26th-best team in the Majors according to our metrics.

However, stealing a game from the rival Angels sure helps.

After a Max Muncy homer in the first inning, the A's led the Angels 1-0 until Ji-Man Choi homered to lead off the second and tie the game. In the third, Ryon Healy hit the third solo shot of the game to give the A's the lead again.

Choi seemed to get sick of adding just one run at time, blasting a three-run dinger in the third inning to give the Angels a 5-2 lead and an 85% chance to win the game, according to FanGraphs.


After that, Danny Valencia got back to the one-run-homer ways and took Ricky Nolasco deep, cutting the Angels' lead to 5-3, and Oakland rallied to tie it up in the top of the fourth.

The Angels, though, still had 55.6% chance to win the game.

Choi did his best to put his team on top again in the bottom of the fifth, but Crisp made sure that didn't happen.


After the sensational play, the odds were 50/50 for either team to pull out the victory. Crisp again antagonized the Angels with a seventh-inning double to score Jake Smolinski and cut the Halos' chances from 43.6% to 19.4%.

But an eighth-inning error by Yonder Alonso allowed Jefry Marte to score and make the game 6-6 and to give the Angels loaded bases with just one out. Consecutive flyouts ended he rally.

In extra innings, Alonso redeemed himself by slugging an RBI double to break the tie and break the game open with an 86% chance to hold off with the win. A Marcus Semien RBI single all but sealed the deal from there.

Per our algorithms, neither team has better than a 0.1% chance to reach the playoffs, but we can always appreciate performances like Choi and Crisp offered and win probability graphs like this one.