On the surface, the Red Sox and Indians series is somewhat evenly matched. The Indians won 94 games, the Red Sox won 93, and that one-game difference gives Cleveland home-field advantage for the ALDS. But if you look at our Playoff Odds page, our forecasts give the Red Sox a 60% chance of winning this series, because the Red Sox are quietly a monster in waiting.

They had the best offense in the AL this year, and by a laughable margin.

With an offense that dominant, the pitching staff just needs to be okay, and that’s mostly what the Red Sox staff was this year. They weren’t great, but they were solidly above average, and that’s why the Red Sox outscored their opponents by 184 runs, the second-best total in baseball. The Sox pitching staff was strong up front but weak at the back end, as their collection of No. 4 and No. 5 starters all struggled, but that’s the kind of weakness that is downplayed in the postseason. And with more emphasis on bullpen usage in the playoffs, a couple of those struggling starters could turn out to be incredibly valuable for the Red Sox this October.

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Regardless of what happened in the AL Wild Card Game on Tuesday, I was going to write this article. It just so happens that a whole new level of context and subtext has developed since then. In either case, the votes are in, and Zach Britton, the guy who didn’t even get into an extra-inning win-or-go-home game, either has or hasn’t won the AL Cy Young Award.

As we did last week with the NL and Clayton Kershaw, let’s use granular batted-ball data to help decide whether an unconventional candidate is worthy of the hardware. There are four AL starting pitchers who finished in a near dead heat in WAR; I dropped one, Rick Porcello, who didn’t come close to matching the others — Corey Kluber, Chris Sale and Justin Verlander — in my first pass. We’ll evaluate those latter three against Britton.

Kluber was an unheralded draftee, originally selected by the Padres in the fourth round of the 2007 draft. Upon arrival in the big leagues, his strikeout and walk prowess carried him to success, and to a Cy Young Award in 2014, one that I would have given to Felix Hernandez. Contact management was not a strong suit of his in the early going, but as we shall see, he made solid progress in that area in 2016.

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There is no more sought-after commodity than the ace starting pitcher. It’s true in the offseason and it’s true at the deadline, and it’s why so many eyes are soon going to be on the White Sox front office. The White Sox, you see, are in possession of Chris Sale, and should they choose to relieve themselves of his talent, every other executive alive is going to daydream. Any sort of player can be valuable, in any sort of role, but aces feel singularly able to take over ballgames. We gather that baseball can’t be figured out, yet an ace promises to make things uncomplicated.

Teams want aces during the regular season because they stabilize rotations and they theoretically ward off bad slumps. Teams especially want aces during the playoffs, because having an ace should just make things so simple. An unhittable pitcher can win a team a series. Every team wants an ace like Noah Syndergaard. Every team wants an ace like Madison Bumgarner. As it happened, the two squared off Wednesday, the Giants and the Mets having everything on the line. In the end, the reality of what it is to have an ace became apparent. And at the same time, in the end, the ace mythology will live on. The Giants lived the dream that every team imagines.

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Ben and Sam banter about an aged usher, Buck Showalter’s decision not to use Zach Britton in the AL wild-card game, and Barry Bonds, then answer listener emails and talk to Saber Seminar raffle winners Armaan and Ishaan about the Red Sox and whether baseball bores kids.

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I’ll begin with a statement you’re going to grow sick of: No, there’s no predicting any of this. We wouldn’t even really like it if there were, but there’s not, and there never will be. Baseball games are played by people, and the best analysis in the world could be rendered useless by Noah Syndergaard or Madison Bumgarner waking up with the sniffles. Last year’s Blue Jays weren’t eliminated after Russell Martin accidentally bounced a return throw off Shin-Soo Choo because a few minutes later Elvis Andrus made seven consecutive errors. Just last night, the Orioles were eliminated because Zach Britton did all of his pitching off the bullpen mound. I mean, no, that wasn’t everything, but, you get the point. The smaller the sample of baseball, the more insane it seems to get. The thing about insanity is it’s unpredictable.

I feel bad having to include all that, but I’d feel worse if I didn’t. I’d feel like I was lying. The best we can do is to discuss little details, small factors that might slightly shift the win expectancies. On the plus side, that is fun, and it contributes to the conversation. So why don’t we contribute to the conversation about Syndergaard facing the Giants?

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The thing about the curveball is getting batters to swing. Once you get the batter to swing at your curveball, it has the same whiff rates, basically, as a changeup or a slider, especially once you correct for the fact that the curve is the slowest pitch type, meaning batters have an easier time making contact with it. But the swing rate against the curve? Easily the lowest in the game — below 40% when most other pitch types are near 50%.

If the swing is the thing generally, then it’s no surprise that getting batters to swing at his curveball has been a major part of Madison Bumgarner’s excellent season after a less-than-excellent first month. He admitted as much when I talked to him in May: “I just don’t feel quite right yet,” he said then. “They haven’t been swinging as much at my curve.”

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Noah Syndergaard has reached a point of excellence this season that finds him capable (to the extent that anyone is capable) of challenging Clayton Kershaw for the title of baseball’s most dominant starter. If compelled to pinpoint the most glaring difference between the two Cy Young candidates, however, it would be this: whereas Kershaw is historically masterful at stopping the running game, Syndergaard is historically poor. The Mets’ ace gave up a whopping 48 steals this year, one of the 10 worst seasons for steals allowed since 1974, when Retrosheet’s full records begin.

The reason for Syndergaard’s struggles is clear: the 6-foot-6 righty is really slow to the plate. This has been a problem all year, making it a popular talking point for the New York media. That included speculation from John Harper a couple of weeks ago, as the Daily News writer made the case that these struggles would make Syndergaard an unwise choice to start the wild card game.

That might even raise the question of who should start the wild-card game. As dominant as Noah Syndergaard can be, his problems in controlling the running game are a consideration in a win-or-go-home scenario, where a couple of stolen bases could prove crucial.

“That would be a factor for me,” an NL scout said Friday. “Everybody says stolen bases aren’t important anymore, but then you get to the playoffs, and they can be the difference in a ballgame.

This argument that the Mets should sit the exceptional Syndergaard is suspect. But the scout’s theory is worth testing. Maybe, given the magnitude of postseason games, runners attempt more steals when it counts, and contribute more towards team wins. Let’s check.

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You already know the story of last night’s AL Wild Card game. The Orioles lost, and Zach Britton didn’t pitch. Everyone is talking about it today. Jeff Sullivan wrote a good piece on Showalter’s call, as did basically every other baseball writer in existence. Now, 12 hours later, it’s still hard to believe that it actually happened.

In reading the accounts from those who talked to Showalter — this one by Tyler Kepner, in particular, was really well done — you can feel the respect people have for him, and rightfully so. Showalter is one of the winningest managers in baseball history, and despite what he did last night, he didn’t get that way on accident. Two years ago, I wrote a post extolling Showalter’s postseason usage of his relievers; he clearly understood then that the postseason is a different animal, and needs to be handled differently from the regular season.

And while I certainly was among the chorus calling for Britton in the eighth inning — and every inning after that — you don’t have to squint too hard to see some logic in how Showalter used Mychal Givens, Brad Brach, and Darren O’Day. The Jays lineup is very right-handed, and those pitchers all throw from difficult angles for RHBs. Britton is the Orioles’ best reliever, but especially against a right-handed lineup, Showalter was picking from a variety of good options, all of whom were likely to pitch well in that situation. Britton might have been a bit more likely, but when factoring in the platoon splits, you can least kind of see why Showalter might have felt comfortable with his three primary right-handed setup guys.

But while Showalter stated in the postgame press conference that his decision wasn’t based on some philosophical issue, the 11th inning suggests differently. Because the only way you rationalize letting Jimenez face Edwin Encarnacion is if you’re dead set against using your closer in a tie game on the road.

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