Every week or so I like to take a look at how Tangotiger’s Great Clutch Project is shaping up. For those of you unfamiliar with the project, the gist of it is to find out if fans know which players on their team are “clutch”. You can read all the details over at the Hardball Times and find the daily updated results right here on FanGraphs.

In any case, earlier in the season Tangotiger’s team had a sizable lead over the fans’ choices and it looked like the fans might be in for a rough season. By April 15th, Tangotiger was ahead in every category and was up by nearly 4 wins in WPA and over .200 points in OPS.

One month later on May 15th, the fans’ team had closed the gap considerably and had the lead in some categories including OPS, but still trailed Tangotiger’s team in WPA by .8 wins.

As of yesterday, June 4th, the fans lead in every single major statistic with the exception of home runs, runs batted in, and walks. The fans’ lead in WPA is currently over 2 wins. Here’s what the race has looked like so far:

There’s still a ton of baseball left to be played and the competition is far from over, but after a dubious start, the fans’ team is more than holding its own.

Chase Utley was hit by three pitches in today’s game to tie a Major League record. Oliver Perez hit him twice and then Scott Schoeneweis decided that twice wasn’t enough and hit him again! Utley was actually hit a fourth time if you count Carlos Delgado’s errant throw which nailed him right in the back.

The last player to get hit three times was Nomar Garciappara on July 3rd, 2006.

Johnny Cueto made his second big league start and struck out 8 with no walks in 6.1 innings of work. He gave up 5 hits and 1 home run in what turned out to be a no-decision instead of a loss thanks to….

Eric Gagne! The 2003 Cy Young award winner blew his second save of the season by giving up a solo shot to Corey Patterson. Gagne has now allowed 2 home runs in 3 innings of work. His fastball velocity appears to be at 88.5mph, which is down 4 from last year’s 92.3mph. It may be is just a sample size issue and considering the Brewers other options, I think it’d be wise to give Gagne a bit of breathing room.

Mark Reynolds hit his MLB leading 5th home run tonight and he’s making a strong case for his Reynolds being Reynolds approach at the plate. Apparently his hitting coach believes he’s been chasing pitches outside the strike zone considerably less. His hitting coach is indeed correct since the data shows that he’s cut down on swinging at pitches outside the strike zone by 6%.

In some site related news, FanGraphs has updated it’s leverage index (LI) tables to Tangotiger’s latest and greatest. You may see some very (very, very) slight changes in LI related stats.

The Great Clutch Project tracker page has been updated and now includes BABIP. Also, the wildcard players now have gray backgrounds so you differentiate between them.

With the Reds down by 2 runs in the bottom of the 9th, Edwin Encarnacion hit a walk-off, three-run home run. It was not only the most important hit so far this year according to WPA, but also the biggest hit of Encarnacion’s career by a long shot. His previous single most important hit was a bases clearing double all the way back in September of 2005 worth .45 wins. Tonight’s home run was worth .62 wins.

Found the video: Hat tip to Brock For Broglio

A friend of mine’s — co-worker’s — friend’s — son is Micah Owings. This was a shocking revelation to me. I’m only 4 degrees of separation from THE Micah Owings who made his big-league debut yesterday. More importantly, he picked up the win, throwing 5 innings of 1 hit ball while striking out 6 and walking 3. That’s a pretty good start for the rookie who pitched against the Nationals; possibly the worst team in recent history.

It’s only his first start, but his control was definitely off since he hit 2 batters, and threw 1 wild pitch. The 3 walks weren’t so wonderful either. He hasn’t exactly been a control master in the minors either, walking 34 batters in 88 innings (BB/9 of 3.60) in AAA. It’ll be interesting to see how he pitches next time against Cincinnati.

- The great Albert Pujols has just 1 hit in 13 at-bats this season. He’s still walking a healthy 19% of the time, so there’s still 43 Major League regulars who have a worse OBP than he does at this point in the season. Don’t fret Cardinals fans, Pujols went 1-13 between July 4th and July 7th just last season. After that, he went on an 11 game hitting streak where he went 20-46 with 4 home runs. If anyone in any of my fantasy leagues would like to jump ship on Pujols at this time, please let me know.

- Speaking of Pujols, Miguel Cabrera (or as I call him: Pujols-lite) has been on an absolute tear to start the season. He already has 6.98 Batting Runs Above Average (BRAA) which just happens to be tops in the majors by more than half-a-run. He’s on pace to have 282 BRAA, which I’m sure would easily be the best season ever. At this rate, I’ll have to start calling Pujols, Cabera-lite.

- The other day in Daisuke Matsuzaka major league debut, he struck out 10 in 7 innings of work. He also gave up 6 hits, 1 solo-shot and only walked 1. This is just the obligatory mention, since you can read about this nearly anywhere else.

- Oliver Perez struck out 6 in 7 innings against the Braves. More importantly, he walked zero. This is definitely a guy to keep an extremely close eye on. He was lights out in 2004 so there’s no question that he has the ability to be a dominant pitcher, the only question is can he do it consistently. He’s off to an excellent start following his solid spring. Between Perez and John Maine, there could potentially be much less doom and gloom surrounding the Mets rotation.

- After being banished to the minors last season in favor of Brandon Watson, Ryan Church is showing why he should have always been on the Nationals roster. He’s batting just under .300 with 2 home runs and an OPS of 1.224. He’s always been an intriguing player and should continue to be one of the bright spots in the Nationals offense.

- Finally, in the land of Win Probability, B.J. Ryan blew his first save of the season giving the Devil Rays a fairly improbable comeback for the second time this year. Who had the winning hit? None other than B.J. Upton. The Devil Rays now find themselves in first place.

After being down 10-1 after the first inning, the Indians pulled off the comeback of the year to win the game 15-13 in extra innings. This is one of the craziest win probability graphs I’ve seen this season.

It even bests the August 9th comeback last season, when the Indians overcame a 5 run deficit by scoring 11 runs in the top of the 9th.

Browsing the player captions in my Sportsline fantasy league, I noticed that they had this to say about Miguel Cabrera:

News: 3B Miguel Cabrera has been Mr. Clutch for the Marlins all season, but he has turned it up in the second half. Cabrera had batted .395 with runners in scoring position since the All-Star break going into Monday, fourth in the NL.

Cabrera is in fact #1 by a long shot for the Marlins with a 3.39 WPA this season. This ranks him 14th in baseball and 7th in the National League. Since the All-Star break he’s wracked up a 1.13 WPA, good for 32nd in baseball during that same time period.

Yet since the All-Star break, part time 1st-baseman and pinch hitter, Wes Helms has a WPA of 0.93, nearly as good as Cabrera, with Josh Willingham not far behind with 0.89. Cabrera and Helms have had consistent positive contributions compared to Willingham, whose main contribution was a 2-run walk off homer against the Mets on August 1st. That single shot was worth 0.70 WPA, nearly all of Willingham’s post All-Star value.

Cabrera’s actual Clutchiness for the season is -0.35, so while he’s certainly been the most valuable Marlin, he’s hardly been contributing above and beyond what a “non-clutch” player would with the same stats. Hanley Ramirez actually leads the Marlins this season with 0.75 Clutchiness, while since the All-Star break, Willingham leads the team with a 0.81 Clutchiness.

Tonight, Adam Dunn became the 23rd player in Major League history to hit a grand slam in the bottom of the 9th to win the game by one run. This feat has been dubbed an “Ultimate Grand Slam” and is only slightly more common than say, throwing a perfect game. The last player to hit one of these grand slams was Jason Giambi over 4 years ago on May 17th, 2002.

In terms of Win Probability, the Reds pretty much defied all odds to pull out a win for the ages. Dunn’s grand slam was worth about 90 points of Win Probability Added (WPA) giving his former season total of 30% a nice boost.

In his second consecutive complete game, C.C. Sabathia shutout the twins while striking out 8 and allowing only 6 hits. He’s been brilliant since returning from the D.L. and has allowed only 7 runs in 40 plus innings of work, giving him a 0.92 ERA in his past 5 starts.

The 26 year old is proving that his stellar end to the 2005 season was no fluke and has picked up exactly where he left off last season. His strikeout-to-walk ratio (K/BB) has been in “elite” territory for the past two-plus months he’s been healthy. Even the most devout C.C. skeptic will have trouble debunking his recent success.

My whipping boy in the off season went 3-3 with a home run, 2 stolen bases, and 2 walks last night to raise his batting average to just over .300 for the season. Corey Patterson must have made some significant changes to go from hitting a horrible .215 to a good .306 in just one season, right?

Well, the main thing Patterson has done is actually make contact with the ball. Last season he struck out in 26% of his at-bats and this season he’s only striking out 17% of the time. However, it’s not all good news since he still can’t (or won’t) decipher when pitches are in the strike zone. He chases “bad pitches” over 30% of the time making him one of the 10 most aggresive swingers in baseball. While he has made real improvement and can probably be elevated from “whipping boy” status, I just don’t buy him as a .300 hitter.

Last night Jake Peavy struck out 16 batters in the Padres 3-1 loss to the Braves. The last time anyone struck out 16 or more was way back in September of 2004 when Mark Prior mowed down 16 Reds. This also marked a career high for Peavy and was the 12th ten-plus strikeout performance of his career.

Yawn… another start, another good performance for the soon to be 25 year old. He’s struck out 35 batters in his last 19 innings while issuing just 4 walks. His strikeouts per 9 innings (K/9) have now returned to just about where they were last season. Yeah, he’s pretty good.