Yankees fans received thousands of minutes of positive, unexpected moments during last year’s run to the playoffs and expectations are certainly high for 2018, but when looking back how does one quantify what the most exciting games were during the season. After all, it’s pretty subjective right?
Well in the data-driven world we are in today there are ways to measure excitement, and a San Francisco based company “Thuuz,” has come up with ways to actually take the pulse of a game from start to finish and actually show what the Bombers, or any teams, most exciting games were during a given period.
They us a tool called the SSMP; A “Subjective Sports Metadata Platform,” that evaluates live game action from six different perspectives: Pace, Parity, Novelty, Momentum, Social buzz, and Context and works with media companies to help see where and when the biggest moments are being generated by fans as they watch a game.
They are also constantly monitoring the changes in excitement to determine when to send out alerts for different types of fans who have subscribed to the service offered by companies like NBC Sports and DirecTV, for people to tune in, on any device, for the moments they have requested. The company is growing their partnerships nationally and regionally to make such a service more available, but in the meantime they continue to track a majority of the sports events in the U.S., including MLB games.
So which were the ten most exciting games for the Bombers in 2017? Take a look and join the debate.
1.Yankees 6 Astros 4, 10/17 – ALCS Game 4: After going into the bottom of 7th trailing 4-0 Yankees scored 6 unanswered runs to even the series at 2-2.
2.Yankees 2 Rangers 1, 6/23 – Pitching duel: Starters Tanaka (NYY) and Darvish (TEX) combined for 15 shutout innings, allowing only 5 total hits. Yankees proceeded to tie the game in the bottom of the 9th and take a walk-off win in the 10th.
3.Yankees 14 Orioles 11, 4/28 – Slugfest: 8 homers in the game including 2 from Aaron Judge and a walk-off 3-run slam from Matt Holliday.
4.Yankees 5 Cubs 4, 5/7 – 18 inning epic: Yankee’s closer Aroldis Chapman blew the save allowing 3 runs in the bottom of the 9th. But the rest of the bullpen picked him up coming through with 9 shutout innings to give the Yankees a win.
5.Yankees 3 Cubs 2, 5/5 – Late inning heroics: Yankees were down to their last strike down 2 runs in the top of the ninth when Brett Gardner launched a 3-run shot over the right field wall to turn the tide.
6.Yankees 5 Red Sox 4, 8/11 Rivalry battle: Yankees score all 5 of their runs in the 8th inning to erase a 3-run deficit and end the Red Sox 8-game winning streak.
7.Yankees 1 Indians 0, 10/8 Defensive gem: Aaron Judge robs a home run in the 6th inning to keep Tanaka’s gem intact and set up a game-winning homer by Greg Bird in the 7th.
8.Yankees 4 Red Sox 1, 7/15 – 6-hour struggle: After allowing an early run, Yankees shutout the Sox for 13 straight innings until their bats could come through.
9.Yankees 5 Brewers 3, 7/8 – Walk-off win: After trailing the entire game, Yankees’ Clint Frazier hits a 3-run homer in the bottom of the 9th.
10. Yankees 5 Rays 4, 7/29 – Back-and-forth battle: After erasing 3 separate leads by the Rays, Yankees go ahead for good with a walk-off single in the 9th.
Sure sports remains personal and pretty subjective. However the use of data to give us more insight and a look both back and in real time, into what we should be watching is still pretty interesting, and lists like this will add to the water cooler talk as Giancarlo Stanton takes the field with his new teammates come the end of March. A new top 10 will be born from day one!