MLB Network Radio has a fan vote going on to select the top five games of 2014, with the winning games re-aired during the holiday season. Some of the choices are more about the individual performance involved -- Lonnie Chisenhall's nine-RBI game, for example, or Clayton Kershaw no-hitter/near-perfect game -- and four are games from the postseason.
Of those four, it's pretty clear to me which was the best game of the year: Kansas City's 9-8 win over Oakland in the wild-card game, as the Royals rallied from a 7-3 deficit and won 9-8 in 12 innings with two runs in the bottom of the 12th. It had everything you want from a great game: Comebacks, great plays, clutch hits, controversial managerial moves and postseason pressure.
After the game, I wrote that it was arguably the fifth-most exciting postseason game ever played, using a metric called Win Probability Added (via Baseball-Reference.com).
Using WPA skews towards higher-scoring games or big comebacks, especially late in games. Still, we can use the method to determine which team had the most exciting victory in the 2014 regular season. The top five:
5. Boston Red Sox, Sept. 5 versus Blue Jays: 1.116 WPA
The Red Sox scored three times in the bottom of the eighth to tie it up 6-6, but the Jays scored twice in the top of the 10th for an 8-6 lead. Boston then scored three runs off Toronto closer Casey Janssen, with Yoenis Cespedes singling in the winning run.
4. Cleveland Indians, May 21 versus Tigers: 1.127 WPA
A wild back-and-forth game, David Murphy tied it 9-9 with a two-run, one-out homer off Joe Nathan in the ninth. The Tigers scored on Alex Avila's homer in the top of the 13th but the Indians scored twice to win 11-10 -- the winning run scoring on Al Alburquerque's bases-loaded balk with two outs.
3. Arizona Diamondbacks, June 4 versus Rockies: 1.139 WPA
The final score was 16-8 but the Rockies led 8-5 entering the eighth. Arizona then scored six runs in the eighth and five more in the ninth. Paul Goldschmidt's bases-clearing double in the eighth was the go-ahead hit.
2. Minnesota Twins, April 3 versus White Sox: 1.174 WPA
This was Minnesota's first win of the season; it was pretty much downhill from here. Minnesota led 5-1, the White Sox took an 8-5 lead but Minnesota scored twice in the top of the seventh to make it 8-7. Both teams scored a run in the eighth and then the Twins scored twice in the ninth with two outs, Oswaldo Arcia's triple plating the go-ahead run.
1. Colorado Rockies, May 3 versus Mets: 1.366 WPA
Our second Coors Field game. The Mets led 6-0 early on before the Rockies scored eight runs in the fifth. The Mets tied it, the Rockies took a lead, the Mets tied it again and then took a 10-9 lead in the ninth. In the bottom of the ninth, Charlie Culberson hit a pinch-hit two-run homer for the dramatic walk-off.
It wasn't a great season for the Rockies or Culberson (who hit .195 with three home runs), but they'll always have May 3, 2014.