Dan Uggla and the Worst Games by a Braves Hitter Since 2005

Last night, Dan Uggla went 0/5 with 3 strikeouts. All the strikeouts were very poorly timed, too. His WPA for the game was -.393, which ranks among the worst Braves performances of the last 6+ years.

Uggla’s 5 at-bats last night

1. 1st inning, Braves down 3-1, 1 out. Struck out with runners on 2nd and 3rd, -8% WPA
2. 4th inning, Braves down 3-1, 1 out. Flied out with bases empty, -2% WPA (-10% total)
3. 6th inning, tied 3-3, 0 out. Flied out with bases empty, -3% WPA (-13% total)
4. 7th inning, tied 4-4, 1 out. Struck out with bases loaded, -12% WPA (-25% total)
5. 9th inning, Braves down 5-4, 2 out. Struck out with a runner on 2nd, -14% WPA (-39% total)

Twice Uggla failed to put the ball in play when doing so almost certainly would mean a run. Of course, he had no trouble hitting a fly ball when the bases were empty. Then, to add insult to injury, he struck out for the last out of the game with the tying run on 2nd. Just a horrible game. But where does it rank?

Here is the list of the worst games by a Braves hitter (by WPA) since 2005:

Uggla’s crappy night is “only” the 8th-worst since 2005. Three different Jeff Francoeur games rank ahead of him, not that that is terribly surprising.

The #1 entry on the list is interesting. Almost all of Andruw’s terrible WPA came on one play. Here’s the set-up: Billy Wagner starter the 9th with a 1-run lead, then proceeded to load the bases with 0 outs. Francoeur hit a tapper to 3B that turned into a forceout at home. Then Andruw hit into a double-play to end the game, dropping the Braves’ win chances from 46% to 0% with one swing. That one play had a worse WPA than any other game on this list.

Anyone can have a bad game; in fact, all of the players on this list except for Francoeur are or were excellent players, and even Frenchy might be putting it all together this year (might). I wouldn’t be down on Uggla based on last night. Of course, if he wants to endear himself to Braves fans, he’s going to have to start putting up some good games to balance out the bad ones.