Jim Thome @ baseball-reference.com
Jim Thome steps to the plate with the bases loaded 17 times across 69 timelines.
He strikes out 8 of those times.
His strikeout rate with the bases loaded is 47%. His overall strikeout rate across all 328 plate appearances is 23%. The bases get loaded, and Jim Thome becomes twice as likely to strike out. Something about the weight of the moment doubles the probability that he will swing through air.
His one hit - his single, solitary hit with the bases loaded in 69 alternate universes - is a grand slam.
Seventeen plate appearances. Eight strikeouts. Six other outs. One walk. One walk that doesn't even matter. And one grand slam that exits the bat at 173 miles per hour. There is no middle. There is no "productive groundout." There is no "RBI single to right." There is Jim Thome obliterating the baseball or Jim Thome obliterating himself. The multiverse offers him no other options.
Timeline 67 is a 23-22 game, the second-highest-scoring game in the entire simulation. In the first inning, Al Leiter is getting shelled. Florida has already scored 7 in the top half. Cleveland loads the bases with two down, and Thome steps in, down 7-2.
On a fastball from Leiter, Thome launches a grand slam - 173 mph exit velocity, a ball hit so hard it could have cleared the stadium in any weather. The score is 7-6. Cleveland is right back in it. It is, by any measure, one of the most dramatic swings in all 69 timelines.
Two innings later, in the 3rd, the bases are loaded again. Thome strikes out.
In the 5th inning, bases loaded again. Thome strikes out.
In the 8th inning, Thome strikes out with runners on second and third.
In the 9th inning, bases loaded one final time, Thome strikes out to end the rally.
In one game, across 5 plate appearances with runners in scoring position, Jim Thome hit the most majestic home run of the entire simulation and struck out 4 times. Cleveland scored 22 runs and won by 1. Thome was simultaneously the hero and the liability. The paradox, condensed into a single timeline.
Timeline 2 is where the pattern first announces itself. First inning. Cleveland loads the bases against Leiter. The lineup has put three men on with two outs, and Thome represents the chance to blow it open early.
Thome strikes out.
Cleveland wins 8-4 anyway. It doesn't matter. But it establishes the rule: when the moment is biggest, Thome disappears.
Third inning. Bases loaded. Cleveland trails by 1. This is exactly the situation where a cleanup hitter is supposed to deliver - a moment custom-built for Jim Thome. He strikes out looking. Cleveland goes on to win, but not because of anything Thome did with the bases juiced.
First inning. Bases loaded. Thome strikes out. Cleveland wins 13-4 in a rout. The team scores 13 runs and Thome's inability to come through with the bases loaded is rendered completely irrelevant. The universe is telling Jim Thome something: we will work around you.
In the highest-scoring game of the simulation - a 25-24 Florida victory - Thome strikes out with the bases loaded in the 1st inning, down by 1. Then in the 6th, bases loaded, he strikes out again. Then in the 7th, bases loaded one more time, he strikes out one more time. Cleveland scores 24 runs and still loses. Thome goes 1-for-5 with 2 RBI, all of them coming on outs that happened to score runners. The grand slam from Timeline 67 is a universe away.
In the 1st inning of Timeline 8, with the bases loaded and Cleveland already up 1-0, Thome grounds out to second base. One run scores on the play. It is the closest Jim Thome ever comes, across 69 timelines, to a "productive at-bat" with the bases loaded that is not a grand slam. A groundout. One RBI. That's the ceiling between "complete failure" and "destroying the universe."
Jim Thome is not alone in his suffering. Gary Sheffield steps to the plate with the bases loaded 4 times across 69 timelines. He strikes out 3 of those times. His one non-strikeout is a single in Timeline 22.
In Timeline 1, Sheffield strikes out with the bases loaded in the 9th inning of a tie game. In Timeline 58, he strikes out with the bases loaded down 3. In Timeline 67, he strikes out with the bases loaded up 3.
It doesn't matter if the game is tied or a blowout. It doesn't matter if it's the 1st inning or the 9th. When Gary Sheffield sees bases loaded, he sees three strikes.
The multiverse has favorites. And it has victims.