It was Game 6 of the 2020 World Series, with the Tampa Bay Rays facing elimination. It was the bottom of the sixth inning, and the Rays led the Los Angeles Dodgers, 1-0. After Dodgers center fielder AJ Pollock popped out to lead off the inning, catcher Austin Barnes singled, prompting Rays manager Kevin Cash to pull starting pitcher Blake Snell from the game in favor of relief pitcher Nick Anderson.

After immediately falling behind to Dodgers star Mookie Betts, 2-0, Anderson gave up a double. The crack of the bat sounded like the baseball universe eeking at the decision to remove Snell. The Dodgers were set up, with runners on second and third. And then Anderson threw a wild pitch, scoring Barnes and advancing Betts to third. The game knotted back up at 1. But not for long. Outfielder Corey Seager grounded into a fielder’s choice, reaching base as Betts beat the throw home to give the Dodgers the 2-1 lead. Betts would hit a leadoff home run to give the Dodgers some insurance, and the rest is history. The Dodgers are World Series champions and the Rays aren’t.

Long story short, a bunch of computers decided the trajectory of the final innings of the 2020 MLB season. Let me explain:

In his career, Snell has allowed a .742 OPS the third time he faces hitters in the same game for his career, according to Baseball Reference. Moreover, ESPN reported, in a small-sample size — 24 batters — against righties in 2020, Snell allowed a 1.072 OPS the third time. Going a step further, per ESPN. Snell faced batters three times in the same game 34 times throughout 2020. Furthermore, Snell hadn’t gone deep in a game in over a year. The last time he completed six innings in a start was July 21, 2019. Pushing the narrative more toward a pitching change was Anderson’s numbers. In this shortened season, he had an 0.55 ERA and 0.49 WHIP.

So all of those numbers likely contributed to — or made — decisions. But what if Cash had just ridden with Snell? Would there have been a Game 7? I mean, he had nine strikeouts, had only given up two hits and was running on 73 pitches. And on top of that, Snell had struck out Betts, Seager and Justin Turner a combined six times in the game. After the game, Betts said seeing Snell get pulled was “kind of like a sigh of relief.

“Had he stayed in that game he may have pitched a complete game. I don’t know exactly what would’ve happened, but he was rolling. He was pitching really, really well. That was the Cy Young Snell that came tonight,” Betts said.”It was a breath of fresh air. We’d had some pretty decent at-bats off their bullpen guys, so we figured we could scratch one across since we saw the bullpen guys a little better.”

Here’s the simple version of what Betts said: Cash did the Dodgers a favor because they weren’t having any success against Snell. This dovetails what I tweeted as the decision and its impacts unfolded: that it “feels like fans are criticizing Kevin Cash for the same reasons fans have criticized Aaron Boone: analytics. They’re facts meant to inform decisions, not make decisions.” I’m not going to rant about how bad analytics are, because it’s not that they’re the worst thing for baseball. All they are is more information, and the more information, the better.

At the same time, though, information is an important factor, but it can’t be the singular factor. Information should just be a guide in sports because it has no emotions involved. There is no equation accounting for emotion. In other words, it doesn’t know whether a guy’s rolling, as Snell was, and it doesn’t know the difference between the random 46th game of the season and Game 6 of the World Series.