What the Sum Leaves Out

Each of the first two outs Dylan Lee recorded in the eighth inning on Sunday afternoon took him one pitch. The third took eight more batters and two more pitchers, and by the time Bailey Falter struck out Bryce Harper to end it, a 2-2 game at Truist Park was Philadelphia 9, Atlanta 2.

The final was 9-4, in front of 39,830; the series was already Atlanta's, and the season series closed at 9-4.

Grant Holmes threw four innings without a strikeout, his first outing of the year without one; J.T. Realmuto's two-run homer in the second was the damage. When Realmuto doubled and Justin Crawford singled to open the fifth — corners, nobody out, Kyle Schwarber up — Walt Weiss went to Ray Kerr, who got a double play and a strikeout and then two more innings: one hit and four strikeouts in three. Matt Olson's single tied it in the seventh.

The eighth, entry by entry. Lee has 68 appearances, the most on the staff, and 30 holds; Weiss said afterward he wanted him for the left-handed hitters at the top of the order: "Dylan Lee is very capable of taking down that inning. We want to see him against those big left-handed hitters at the top of their lineup." Schwarber singled on the fourth pitch. Trea Turner forced him at second on the first. Harper doubled on the first. Luis Arraez popped to Austin Riley in foul ground on the first. Two out, second and third, seven pitches thrown.

Alec Bohm doubled for two. Bryson Stott singled for one. Victor Mederos, a middle reliever up since July 8, replaced Lee with Stott at first: Bryan De La Cruz singled, Realmuto singled and Stott scored, Crawford walked, Schwarber singled for two, Turner singled for one. Five batters, none retired, his first outing of the year without an out; Falter struck out Harper.

Twelve batters, eight hits, one walk, seven runs, all earned and all with two out. Four are charged to Lee, including Stott, who scored on Mederos's pitch; three are Mederos's. Lee took the loss.

His season line still reads 6-1 with a 3.09 and a 0.95 WHIP, which is the trouble with season lines. Through his first 60 appearances he allowed 13 earned runs in 58 innings, a 2.02. Over his last eight he has allowed nine in six innings, four of them Sunday, a season high. Weiss's diagnosis, per MLB.com: "He's left some sliders up lately but we're gonna need Dylan and he'll be there for us." The first clause is the log. The second is the manager's to make.

Olson's two-run homer in the ninth off Tanner Banks was his second of the weekend after 14 games without one going into the series — 7-for-52, a .332 OPS. It did not change what the eighth was.

Now the test. On Tuesday I wrote: "Six home games, three against Tampa Bay and three against Philadelphia. At the post-break home rate they produce roughly 31 runs. At the road rate, roughly 18." The question, as I put it, was "whether the last eight weeks described a lineup or a location." I set no passing mark, only two numbers and a question.

The six games read 1, 2, 3, 6, 12 and 4. That is 28 runs, 3-3: three short of the home rate, ten clear of the road rate, 4.67 a game.

The sum survived. The sequence is less kind. Twelve of the 28 came on Saturday; the other five average 3.20, fifteen hundredths above the 3.05 road rate. Six runs in three games against Tampa Bay, 22 in three against Philadelphia. Footnotes owed: three of Friday's six came after the ninth, two by placed runners; six of Saturday's twelve were unearned.

So the grade. What survived is the sample-size sentence, "Nine home games is a far smaller sample than the twenty-two I was skeptical of," because six games cannot separate a lineup that hits Philadelphia's pitching from a ballpark that produces runs. What I would not print again: "The only variable separating them is the address." The address was constant across all six and cannot account for the spread between them; the opponent can, 2.00 a game against one and 7.33 against the other. Lineup or location was the wrong pair. I left one out.

Atlanta are 88-62, Philadelphia 83-67, five apart with twelve to play for both. MLB's magic number reads seven, unchanged: a loss to the club chasing you moves neither number it is built from. Monday is 7:40 at Wrigley Field, Reynaldo López against David Peterson, the first of nine road games in the last twelve.

A 3.09 and a 28 are both true, and both are aggregates, which do not say what order the runs came in. Lee's order is nine of 22 in six innings; the test's is one, two, three, six, twelve, four. I set it to learn whether the offense travels; it answered a different question. The twelve games left, nine of them away from Truist Park, will answer mine whether I set a test or not.