Following their Game Five win at Wrigley Field, Cubs catcher Willson Contreras was asked about his club’s mood as they prepared to head to Cleveland, down three games to two.

“We are fired up,” responded Contreras. “We are going to go out there Tuesday and play our best baseball.”

They did exactly that. There was no Indian summer in Cleveland last night — it was 71 degrees at first pitch — as the Cubs won 9-3, setting up a decisive Game Seven.

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“It’s fun,” Anthony Rizzo said afterward. “Any Game Seven. I was at a Game Seven when the Blackhawks won. It was a Game Seven. It’s must watch if you’re a fan. Not just baseball. Game Seven of any sport is must watch.”

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Tonight’s Game Seven will be the 38th in World Series history. Of the previous 37, the home team has been victorious 18 times and the road team has been victorious 19 times.

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David Ross will put on a big-league uniform — at least as a player — for the last time tonight. The 39-year-old catcher didn’t sound too focused on his imminent retirement leading into Game Seven.

“All I’m going to be worried about is winning the World Series,” said Ross. “Screw my career. Let’s win the World Series.”

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The Indians have received a lot of kudos for their game-planning throughout the postseason. The Cubs deserve kudos of their own. Advance scouting has played a big role for the data-driven squad.

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Aroldis Chapman had never recorded more than seven outs in a game. Last night, he recorded eight. Thanks to the Cuban flamethrower’s efforts — and Joe Maddon taking a page out of the Terry Francona playbook — the Cubs stayed alive with a nail-biting 3-2 win over the the Indians. The World Series now moves to Cleveland for Game Six, on Tuesday.

August Fagerstrom wrote about the difference between Cleveland and Chicago’s bullpen yesterday. Who knows, maybe Maddon read the piece and took it to heart? Regardless of the reason, his imitative stratagem cemented a win he described earlier in the day as being “as important as oxygen.”

“We got a little taste of our own medicine,” said Cleveland’s Jason Kipnis, after the game. “Late in the year, you don’t really hold anything back. They took a page out of our own book tonight.”

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Corey Kluber was asked on Friday if facing a team back-to-back will require him to make more adjustments than usual. His answer, presumably predicated on the fact that he dominated in Game One, was a classic yes-and-no.

“I don’t think so,” said Kluber. “They’re obviously going to make adjustments based on last game. I’m going to make adjustments based on last game, and it’s going to be that cat-and-mouse game. But I think anytime you face a team back-to-back or in a short span… I mean, that’s always the case.”

Kluber ended up throwing more curveballs and fewer cutters in Game 4, but the bigger adjustment came from the Cubs. The righty reacted as per usual. Read the rest of this entry »

Corey Kluber pitching on three days rest — and starting three games if the Series goes seven — won’t be all that uncommon. Teams have employed their best starter that way in the postseason numerous times. Sometimes the strategy works. Sometimes it doesn’t.

Terry Francona doing so with Kluber makes perfect sense. Not to take anything away from Ryan Merritt, but the rookie repeating his shock-the-baseball-world outing against the Blue Jays would be… well, even more shocking. Lightning rarely strikes twice, and this is the World Series. Plus, Chicago’s lineup isn’t Toronto’s lineup (although both have issues against curveballs). Francona may be managing in Cleveland, but he lives in match-up city.

His explanation of the pitching plans show that logic, not desperation, is the determiner. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the biggest strikeouts in last night’s World Series Game Two came in the seventh inning when Carlos Santana swung through a curveball from Mike Montgomery. The Indians had two on and two out, and trailed 5-1. One swing of the bat would have brought them to within a run.

The curveball has been Montgomery’s secret to success. The 27-year-old lefty began featuring it prominently after coming to the Cubs from the Mariners in late July. His sinker has also became a primary weapon. His pitching coach, Chris Bosio, deserves much of the credit.

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Pitching has become a power game. High-octane is the new norm, so if you don’t pump gas, you better be able to change speeds and dot corners with the best of them. And if that’s what gets you to the big leagues, you better perform upon your arrival. There are guys with 95-plus arms standing in line behind you, waiting their own opportunities.
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The Cleveland front office likes velocity as much as anyone — Indians starters averaged 92.8 mph with their fastballs this year, fourth highest among the 30 teams — but they’re not married to it. Recent outings are proof in the pudding. Ryan Merritt etched himself in Indians lore with mid-80s domination of the Blue Jays. Josh Tomlin baffled Boston and Toronto while barely topping 90.

Following the ALCS clincher, I asked GM Mike Chernoff to weigh in on the two hurlers, plus the club’s willingness to groom — and trust — what are tantamount to velocity-challenged control artists.

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The Cleveland Indians have two sluggers on their roster. Mike Napoli and Carlos Santana each hit 34 home runs in the regular season. They did so while splitting time between the first base and designated hitter positions, which will pose a problem come the middle three games of the World Series. Unless Cleveland gets creative — and bold — one of them will be out of the lineup.

Given the importance of their bats, Terry Francona may want to find a way to make it happen. As Paul Swydan pointed out on Thursday, this was The Lowest-Scoring ALCS in History. Furthermore, the Cubs turn batted balls into outs better than anyone. It’s not easy to string together hits against best defensive team in baseball.

The Indians have scored 27 runs so far this postseason, and 15 of them have come via the long ball. Napoli and Santana have combined to hit just three of the club’s 11 home runs, but they remain the biggest power threats. There is also on-base to consider. The duo finished one-two on the team in walk rate during the regular season, and Santana’s .366 OBP was bettered only by Tyler Naquin’s .372. Napoli has eight seasons of postseason experience and is the de facto team captain.

How to get both in the lineup when the Series shifts to Wrigley Field? Read the rest of this entry »

Much has been made of Cleveland’s bullpen usage during the postseason. The attention has been focused primarily on two things: Terry Francona’s willingness to deviate from traditional relief roles, and the lights-out performances of Cody Allen and Andrew Miller.

Not much has been said about the limited looks hitters have been getting against Indians pitchers.

Through seven games, an Indians starter has yet to face an opposing hitter four times in the same game. They’ve faced a hitter three times on just 25 occasions, and 19 of those belong to Corey Kluber. Third-time-through-the-order penalties haven’t been injurious. Red Sox and Blue Jays batters are a combined 3-for-22 with a pair of walks and a hit-by-pitch in their third look. Francona has been masterful at pulling his starters at the right time.

He’s applied a similar approach with his management of Cleveland’s relievers. In Monday’s bullpen game, Francona flip-flopped what has been his postseason convention by using Cody Allen in the seventh, followed by Andrew Miller in a closing role. He had a reason. Read the rest of this entry »

If you didn’t already know that Andrew Miller has a great slider, you do now. The lanky left-hander has been dominating the postseason. He’s also been garnering plenty of media attention, including here at FanGraphs. Tony Blengino wrote about him last week. Dave Cameron wrote about him yesterday. So did Eno Sarris.

On the premise that you can’t get enough of a good thing, here’s one more on Miller, this time in his own words. The subject — surprise, surprise — is his signature pitch. Where did he learn it? How did it evolve? Why didn’t he throw more sliders when he was struggling earlier in his career? I asked Miller those questions, and more, late in the regular season.

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Miller on learning to throw a slider: “I wish I knew when I first threw one. I know that’s a big thing with kids: when do you start throwing a breaking ball? I guess I was probably around 13 or so.

“It’s never really been a curveball. It’s always been a slider, because that’s kind of where my arm slot is. The best way I’ve described my breaking ball — and it still holds true — is that I basically throw a curveball from a lower arm slot.

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The borderline balk move that Julio Urias used to pick off Bryce Harper on Thursday night had me thinking about a lefty reliever who has spent the past four seasons in independent ball. In 2009, Derrick Loop — pitching in high-A in the Red Sox system — picked off 17 runners in just 71-and-a-third innings. (I interviewed him about his move later that year.)

Loop no longer logs a plethora of pickoffs. Part of the reason is his reputation — runners rarely take liberties against him — and another is his approach. Once upon a time, the southpaw used his move as a primary weapon. When I caught up to him this week, Loop told me he used to “give up the count to the hitter in order to set up my pickoff.” Against a higher level of competition, that strategy was a recipe for disaster.

Loop has bounced around since his pickoff-heavy season, with stops in the Phillies and Dodgers organizations, as well as the Atlantic League. His last year in affiliated ball was 2012, when he appeared in 34 games — 13 as a starter — for Triple-A Albuquerque. Despite an 11-4 record and 101 hits allowed in 103 innings, he found himself on the outside looking in.

“With the year I had, it was devastating to have not received a spring training invite,” admitted Loop. “Not just from the Dodgers, but from any team at any level. I was playing winter ball in Venezuela that off-season, hoping and waiting for a call. From anyone. It never came.” Read the rest of this entry »