The Wild Card Game

October 1, 2019. Washington Nationals 4, Milwaukee Brewers 3

Juan Soto gets a hit

Considered by many to be one of the most exciting games in Nationals Park history, the 2019 National League Wild Card Game was a perfect metaphor for the Nationals' 2019 season. The Nationals' offense was frustratingly quiet for most of the game, but the team managed to string together key, timely hits late in the game, pressuring the Brewers into surrendering the late lead.

The chart below uses over 40,000 FitBit data points to plot the heart rates of selected Washington Nationals fans along a time axis mapped to key plays during the game. By the later innings, the heartbeat lines appear to loosely converge, further illustrating the shared fan experience. We can make certain observations from this data:

  • Trea Turner's (WSH) third-inning home run creates the highest heart rate for some fans, while Yasmani Grandal's (MKE) first-inning home run creates the highest heart rate for other fans. This could be a sign of anxiety or stress rather than excitement.
  • Heart rate for all fans increases steadily after Ryan Zimmerman's single, all the way to the end of the game.
  • Fan heart rates fall at different times, as some watch the post-game festivites while others end their evenings, but the pattern of decreasing heart rate is clear at some point for each fan.
  • The communal spike in heart rate demonstrated pre-game among only the fans at the ballpark (not those watching at home) is suspected to be in response to an appearance by fan favorite pitcher [Aaron Barrett](https://www.mlb.com/player/aaron-barrett-502578) although this has not been fully verified. Barrett was not on the post season roster, having only recently returned to baseball activities after a lengthy injury absense, but was part of the festivities and "hype".

    • Click on the labels in the Legend to dim or activate individual plot lines.