Today's Visual Box Score recaps Monday's Game 2 win for the Rangers, highlighting the game's heroes (and goats). The sizes of the players' names represent each player's contribution to win expectancy, with white indicating positive contribution and red indicating negative contribution. Click on the images for a closer look!
Win expectancy can be a funny thing. Why doesn't Cruz get more credit for his 2 home runs? Well, most of the credit he gets is for his first home run, which tipped the scales in the Rangers' favor. His second one (the grand slam) was somewhat superfluous: with the bases loaded and no outs, the Rangers already had a 94% chance of winning the game. Mitch Moreland, on the other hand, jumps out as the biggest drag on the Rangers' success because he grounded into a double play in a critical situation in the 9th inning. You also see the team effort from the bullpen in Feliz, Feldman, Ogando, and Adams. All that white represents a huge lift from the bullpen.