In a Game 5 that was an instant classic, Nick Castellanos‘ number came up. With the Phillies losing 3–2 and down to their final out, Ryan Pressly hit Bryce Harper on the right foot with a slider, putting the tying run aboard and bringing up Castellanos, 0-for-3 with a walk for the night and just about the weakest link in the Phillies’ lineup during their amazing October run. Castellanos fell behind 0–2, chasing a low slider and then fouling off a juicy center-cut one, but he laid off three low-and-away pitches to draw the count full. Pressly then threw a hanging slider, but Castellanos could only hit a grounder to shortstop Jeremy Peña, a routine play that produced an anticlimactic ending to an absolute nailbiter that swung the series to three games to two in favor of the Astros.

It was the latest rough night in a postseason run that’s had its share of them for the 30-year-old slugger. Castellanos is 3-for-20 with a walk and eight strikeouts in the World Series, and while he has company there (both Rhys Hoskins and J.T. Realmuto are 3-for-21, albeit with homers), his .197/.246/.262 line through 65 postseason plate appearances gives him the lowest wRC+ (43) of any Phillies regular, though Bryson Stott (45 wRC+, via a .140/.260/.233 line) has the slightly lower OPS, .493 to .508. Castellanos has had a few big moments at the plate and has made some surprisingly stellar defensive plays, but he’s one or two games away from the end of a frustrating season in which he batted just .263/.305/.389 (94 wRC+) with 13 homers in the first year of a five-year, $100 million deal he signed in March. Read the rest of this entry »

Baseball is a funny game, a remarkable and even ridiculous one for the way it can produce such radically different games on consecutive nights as in Games 3 and 4 of this year’s World Series. On Tuesday, Bryce Harper and friends hit five home runs at the expense of Lance McCullers Jr., accounting for all of the runs in the Phillies’ 7-0 romp. On Wednesday, Cristian Javier and three Astros relievers produced the first combined no-hitter in postseason history while winning 5-0, with all five runs coming within a seven-batter span in the fifth inning. From talk about how devastated the Astros might be and the possibility of the Phillies closing things out at home, the conversation turns to whether the Phillies can bounce back before the series, now knotted at two games apiece, shifts back to Houston.

Combined or not, the no-hitter is The Big Story, and rightly so, as it’s just the second of any kind in World Series history after Don Larsen‘s 1956 perfect game, and the third in postseason history, with Roy Halladay’s 2010 Division Series no-hitter the other. Halladay did so for the Phillies, at Citizens Bank Park, against the Dusty Baker-managed Reds, by the way. Of course there’s the fact that Javier, the majors’ toughest pitcher to hit in terms of both batting average (.169) and BABIP (.228) among those with at least 140 innings pitched, had already done the heavy lifting in a combined no-hitter on June 25 of this year against the Yankees.

What you might not have noticed about Wednesday’s game was that the Astros won without the benefit of a home run, a feat that hadn’t happened since October 15, when the Guardians and Padres both won Division Series contests (Game 3 for the AL, Game 4 for the NL) while keeping the ball in the park. Read the rest of this entry »

Say this for the Cardinals: They do a very good job of keeping the band together. On Wednesday, the news broke that Adam Wainwright will return to the team for his 19th and final major league season. On Saturday, St. Louis revealed that Nolan Arenado has declined to exercise the opt-out clause in his contract, meaning that he will remain in the fold through 2027, making $144 million (much of it deferred) for the five-year period.

In his second season with the Cardinals, the 31-year-old Arenado set career highs in WAR (7.3) and wRC+ (151) — numbers that ranked second and fourth in the NL, respectively — and hit .292/.358/.533 with 30 homers. He made his seventh All-Star team and is a finalist to win a 10th Gold Glove; if he does win the award, he’ll tie Mike Schmidt for the second-highest total behind only Brooks Robinson (16). As he also led the NL in bWAR (7.9), and therefore edged teammate Paul Goldschmidt in both versions (Goldy had 7.1 fWAR and 7.8 bWAR), he stands a reasonable chance of winning the NL MVP award. But whether or not he does, the Cardinals couldn’t have asked for anything more from their third baseman.

When Arenado signed his eight-year, $260 million extension with the Rockies in February 2019, his contract included no-trade protection as well as the ability to opt out after the 2021 season. His relationship with the organization began to sour quite quickly after that deal came together, however, and he was traded to St. Louis in February 2021 along with $51 million in guaranteed and conditional payments. As part of the trade, he agreed to defer about $50 million, payable over the 2022–41 timespan; accepted a guaranteed salary of $15 million for 2027; and received an additional opt-out after the 2022 season. By opting out either after last year or this one, he could have saved Colorado about $20.57 million from that $51 million figure, but because he’s staying, his old team is on the hook for that money, which includes $5 million annual payments from 2024 to ’26. He’s the gift that keeps on giving to the Rockies’ beleaguered front office. Via Cot’s Contracts, he’ll receive $35 million for 2023 and ’24, and subsequent salaries of $32 million, $27 million, and $15 million. Read the rest of this entry »

On Friday night, Justin Verlander will take the next step in his remarkable season by starting Game 1 of the World Series against the Phillies. For all that he’s accomplished in a career that will likely gain him first-ballot entry into the Hall of Fame, success in the Fall Classic has eluded him, but not for lack of opportunity. He does have a World Series ring from the Astros’ 2017 championship (tainted though it is by subsequent revelations of the team’s illegal electronic sign-stealing), but on a personal level, his Series history has combined some bad luck with a few real clunkers.

A nine-time All-Star with three no-hitters and two Cy Young awards under his belt (with a third probably on the way), Verlander is the active leader in wins (244), strikeouts (3,198, 12th all-time), and S-JAWS (64.0, 20th all-time). That’s the resumé of a surefire Hall of Famer, and we’re talking about one who’s still near the peak of his powers. At 39 years old, he’s coming off an historic season (the best for any Tommy John surgery recipient in the back half of his 30s), and that after missing nearly two full seasons. Despite losing 18 days late in the season to a right calf injury, he led the AL in ERA (1.75), xERA (2.66), and WAR (6.4), ranking third in FIP (2.49) and fifth in K-BB% (23.4%). After getting tagged for six runs and 10 hits by the Mariners in the Division Series opener, he dominated the Yankees by strking out 11 and allowing just one run in six innings in the ALCS opener. He’s still lighting up the radar gun at 98 mph when he needs it.

But while he’s pitched some postseason gems in his career — including a complete-game, four-hit shutout against the A’s in the deciding game of the 2012 Division Series; a 13-strikeout, one-run complete game against the Yankees in Game 2 of the 2017 ALCS (the last postseason complete game); and five other starts with at least 10 strikeouts and at most one run allowed — he’s never come close to a dominant World Series start. In fact, he’s 0–6 with a 5.68 ERA in seven starts totaling 38 innings, with a whopping nine homers (2.1 per nine) allowed. Those numbers stand out for all of the wrong reasons.

For one thing, those six losses are more than any other World Series pitcher besides Whitey Ford, who lost eight times, albeit in a record 22 starts, and the Chairman of the Board offset that with 10 wins, also a record. You know how we feel about pitcher wins and losses around here; they’re imperfect barometers of performance that greatly depend upon the support one receives from their offense, defense, and bullpen. But they are a subject of discussion in this context.

As you can probably surmise, Verlander has the most World Series starts of any pitcher without a win:

That list has some pretty good pitchers, but no Hall of Famers; Brown is probably the closest besides Verlander, but for all of the work he did in helping the Marlins and Padres get to the World Series (four postseason wins in six starts including a two-hit shutout in NLCS Game 2 in 1998), three of his four stats there were ugly. Newcombe had a great debut in 1949 (eight innings, 11 strikeouts, one run) but wound up on the wrong end of a 1–0 score and thereafter made it past the fourth inning just one time in four tries. Root gave up Babe Ruth’s “Called Shot.” Williams was one of the eight players permanently banned from baseball for helping to fix the 1919 World Series.

Meanwhile, Verlander has the eighth-highest ERA of any pitcher with at least 20 innings in World Series starts:

My, but that’s a lot of Dodgers; six of the 15 highest starter ERAs are linked to the franchise, including four from their 1947–56 run of six pennants. They lost five of those World Series (1947, ’49, ’52, ’53, and ’56) but won in 1955, with Newcombe, Erskine, Craig, and Loes all making one start; only Craig’s netted a win or was any good. It was left up to Johnny Podres, whose two starts included a Game 7 shutout, to play the hero.

Note that several of these pitchers also made relief appearances that aren’t included within the data above, including Kershaw, whose four shutout innings under desperate circumstances in Game 7 of 2017 (after Yu Darvish was chased) lowers his overall World Series ERA to 4.46. It took two very good starts in the 2020 World Series, where he was instrumental in securing that elusive World Series ring, to get him down from 5.40 — a reminder that so much of this is just a matter of repeated opportunities, not an inability to perform at his peak at this level.

For as bad as the overall numbers are, not all of Verlander’s World Series starts have been dreadful. Here’s the game log, followed by a quick summary of each start.

2006 Game 1, Tigers vs. Cardinals

After debuting the previous September, the 23-year-old Verlander won AL Rookie of the Year honors (17–9. 3.63 ERA), but he was erratic in the postseason — able to hit triple digits but lacking in command. He scuffled in his Division Series start against the Yankees and ALCS start against the A’s, lasting 5.1 innings in both and allowing a total of seven runs. Facing the Cardinals, who had gone just 83–78 but who had a star-studded lineup, he needed 18 pitches to get through the first inning, striking out Albert Pujols to end it. He surrendered a solo homer to Scott Rolen in the second, and Pujols exacted revenge with two-run homer in the third, that after Chris Duncan had doubled home a run. Verlander didn’t retire any of the three batters he faced in the fifth, allowing one run before departing (via a Jim Edmonds single) and getting charged with two, one unearned, after leaving. Not pretty.

2006 Game 5, Tigers vs. Cardinals

Verlander got the ball again with the Tigers trailing three games to one, and he certainly pitched better than in the opener, but he couldn’t hold out against the team of destiny and was outpitched by former Tiger Jeff Weaver. The Cardinals singled the rookie into submission, with David Eckstein driving in a run in the second and another in the fourth, the latter of which gave St. Louis a 3–2 lead. Before that run, a Verlander throwing error on a fielder’s choice off the bat of Weaver — his second error of the series and the fifth by a Tigers hurler — kindled a Tim McCarver lecture about the importance of pitcher fielding practice that some say is still going.

2012 Game 1, Tigers vs. Giants

After allowing just two runs in 24.1 innings across three starts in the first two playoff rounds against the A’s and Yankees (with pitch counts of 121, 122, and 132), Verlander had a full seven days of rest before his World Series start after the Tigers swept the Yankees. Maybe the rust was to blame for this one. He served up a solo homer to Pablo Sandoval in the first, then a two-run shot to Sandoval in the third after Marco Scutaro drove in a run. In the fourth, opposite number Barry Zito even drove in a run. Sandoval would homer again to complete the trifecta, but it came against Al Alburquerque in the fifth, with Verlander having already hit the showers. He never got a second chance in this series, as the Tigers were swept.

2017 Game 2, Astros vs. Dodgers

Traded to the Astros on August 31 after a 12-year run with the Tigers, Verlander was stellar down the stretch, pitching to a 1.06 ERA in five starts and striking out 43 in 34 innings. He carried that momentum in to the playoffs, even winning ALCS MVP honors against the Yankees by allowing just one run in 16 innings, striking out 21.

For the first time, Verlander pitched pretty well in a World Series game, retiring the first nine Dodgers and not surrendering a hit until Joc Pederson’s solo homer in the fifth. He found trouble with two outs in the sixth, walking Chris Taylor and then yielding a two-run homer to Corey Seager before departing on the short end of a 3–1 score. The Astros got him off the hook, scoring runs off Kenley Jansen in the eighth and ninth, and wound up winning a wild one — featuring a total of five homers in the 10th and 11th — in 11 innings.

2017 Game 6, Astros vs. Dodgers

After the Astros won Game 5, 13–12, Verlander took the mound with a chance to clinch a championship. He hung zeroes through the first five frames, with a second-inning single by Yasiel Puig the only blemish. Meanwhile, George Springer’s homer off Rich Hill put the Astros up 1–0. But after Austin Barnes led off the sixth with a single, the Dodgers’ lineup went to town in its third look at Verlander. After Chase Utley was hit with a pitch, Taylor hit a game-tying RBI double, and Seager followed with a sacrifice fly to give the Dodgers the lead. Verlander departed after stranding Taylor at third, but the Dodgers held on to win, 3–1, and extend the series to Game 7.

2019 Game 2, Astros vs. Nationals

This time around, Verlander reached the World Series after two very good and two not-so-good starts in the Division Series against the Rays and ALCS against the Yankees. He got off on the wrong foot here, as the first three Nationals reached safely, with Anthony Rendon smacking a two-run double on an 0–2 pitch to put Verlander in the hole immediately. Alex Bregman‘s two-run homer off Stephen Strasburg tied the game in the bottom of the first, and while Verlander didn’t throw a 1-2-3 inning until the sixth, he did his part to keep the game tied until serving up a solo homer to Kurt Suzuki to lead off the seventh. He departed after walking Victor Robles, which kindled a five-run rally on Ryan Pressly’s watch. The game ended as a 12–3 rout, but for those first six innings, it was a tight one.

2019 Game 6, Astros vs. Nationals

After the Nationals won Games 1 and 2 on the road, the Astros went to Washington and took the next three, so Verlander once again took the mound with a chance to clinch. As in Game 2, Rendon plated a first-inning run, this time with an RBI single. The Astros answered with two runs off Strasburg in the bottom of the first, but Verlander gave up the lead with solo homers by Adam Eaton and Juan Soto in the fifth and left trailing 3–2. Again, the Nationals broke the game open in the late innings, winning 7–2 and forcing a Game 7. Astros manager A.J. Hinch ruled out using Verlander, who had thrown 93 pitches, in relief but did not rule out using Game 5 starter Gerrit Cole. He didn’t get the call either as the Astros fell.

In all, that’s not a great track record. Verlander sometimes struggled early, and sometimes was dealing until he wasn’t. He’s made three quality starts out of seven and lost a fourth one by lingering past the sixth. He hasn’t gotten an out in the seventh or later in any of those starts and has only topped 100 pitches twice. To be fair, he also hasn’t had much margin for error, as his teams have scored just 20 runs in his seven starts; the one time they scored more than three (Game 2 in 2017), four of the runs came in extra innings. That he’s never left a World Series game with a lead isn’t entirely his fault.

The good news for Verlander is that he gets another shot; having another chance to pitch in a World Series is no doubt one of the reasons he re-signed with the Astros in the first place. If Reggie Jackson’s line, “When you have the bat in your hand, you can always change the story,” is true for a hitter in a big spot, then same thing is true for a pitcher taking the mound in a World Series opener. Just by doing so, Verlander, at 39 years and 250 days old, will become the fourth-oldest pitcher to start Game 1 of the Fall Classic:

Another rough start won’t break Verlander’s legacy any more than a great one will make it. He’s one of the all-time greats, regardless of what happens against the Phillies, but his career will feel that much more complete if he pitches up to his potential.

Though the short and ugly starts of Bailey Falter and Mike Clevinger in Game 4 of the NLCS put a small dent in the numbers, thus far in the postseason we’ve seen a welcome rebound when it comes to starters preventing runs and pitching deeper into games relative to recent years. After two postseasons in which relievers threw more than half of all innings, starters have reclaimed their rightful spot atop the marquee. Even so, when it comes to October, the relievers we’ve seen have been stingier and more dominant than at any time in recent years. Thankfully, we’re seeing fewer of them — meaning fewer pitching changes and less dead time — but that’s of cold comfort to both the Mariners and Yankees.

As you can probably guess, that’s because Houston’s relief corps has been so overwhelming thus far. The Astros are 7-0 in this postseason, and while their starting pitching has been a major part of the story, their relievers have held opponents to just three runs in 33 innings (a 0.82 ERA) and a .127/.207/.227 line, with a 34.7% strikeout rate. As old friend Mike Petriello wrote recently, the staff — not just the bullpen — doesn’t have a weak link, even without having a late-inning lefty. Read the rest of this entry »

With a routine 73-mph comebacker off the bat of Aaron Judge, the Yankees’ season ended not with a bang but a whimper as the Astros completed their ALCS sweep to advance to the World Series for the second straight season, their third out of the last four, and their fourth out of six. Though two of this year’s ALCS games were decided by one run and another by two, the final result — the Yankees’ first time being swept out of a series since the 2012 ALCS — was a lopsided one, and it had an all-too-familiar feel.

Indeed, the Yankees have set a record by losing in five straight ALCS appearances (2010 by the Rangers, ’12 by the Tigers, ’17, ’19 and this year by the Astros). Including their 2015 AL Wild Card Game loss to the Astros, they’ve been bounced by Houston in four straight postseason meetings, an imbalance not unlike their own recent dominance of the A’s and Twins:

most consecutive times eliminating single opp in head-to-head playoff series:

2003-19 NYY over MIN: 6**
1923-62 NYY over NYG/SF: 5*
1941-53 NYY over BRO: 5
2015-22 HOU over NYY: 4**
1981-2018 NYY over OAK: 4**
1986-2008 BOS over LAA: 4

*=active
**= active + every PS H2H series

— Sarah Langs (@SlangsOnSports) October 24, 2022

Back in July, Yankees manager Aaron Boone spoke of the need for his team to surmount the Astros, saying, “Ultimately, we may have to slay the dragon, right?… The narrative’s not to going to change until you beat them in the playoffs, if that day comes.” But with another series loss, their season has ended in disappointment. Even if it’s by way of a short series — one of just four (out of 10) in which the team with the better regular season record triumphed — it’s a blow that has sent the Yankees reeling. Read the rest of this entry »

NEW YORK — Cristian Javier finally got his turn. After making 12 postseason appearances out of the bullpen from 2020 through this year’s American League Division Series, the 25-year-old righty followed in the footsteps of teammates Justin Verlander and Framber Valdez, stifling the Yankees in Game 3 of the ALCS — and in Yankee Stadium, no less. Javier held the Yankees hitless until the fourth inning and allowed just one hit through 5.1 frames before yielding to a bullpen that the banged up Bronx Bombers remained unable to solve. New York didn’t collect another hit until down to its final out and finished with just three.

Meanwhile, the Astros capitalized on a costly two-out error by Harrison Bader in the second inning and chased Gerrit Cole in the sixth. Houston’s 5–0 victory gave the team a commanding 3–0 lead in the ALCS and put it within a win of its second straight trip to the World Series under manager Dusty Baker and the franchise’s fourth pennant in the last six years. Read the rest of this entry »

2:09	Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks!

2:09	Jay Jaffe: Apologies for the delay, I had a typo in my chat code

2:10	Jay Jaffe: Welcome to the my first solo chat of the 2022 postseason

2:14	Jay Jaffe: Bear with me for a moment while I get back on track. Today I’ve got a piece about the rebound of starting pitcher usage in the regular season and postseason https://blogs.fangraphs.com/postseason-starting-pitching-is-back-baby/

2:14	Jay Jaffe: Earlier this week I previewed the ALCS https://blogs.fangraphs.com/al-championship-series-preview-houston-ast… which required a quicker turnaround from ALDS Game 5 than I would have liked.

2:15	Jay Jaffe: And wrote about the Dodgers’ early exit and the increasing disconnect between the regular season and the postseason https://blogs.fangraphs.com/ousted-dodgers-drive-home-disconnect-betwe…

Read the rest of this entry »

The Astros took a two-games-to-none lead over the Yankees in the American League Championship Series on Thursday night, as Alex Bregman’s three-run homer backed seven strong innings by Framber Valdez, whose two runs allowed counted as unearned due to his two-error play on a Giancarlo Stanton chopper. It was the second night in a row that an Astros starter stifled the Yankees, as Justin Verlander held them to one run over six innings while striking out 11.

The Yankees had Verlander on the ropes, forcing the 39-year-old righty to throw 66 pitches in the first three innings, during which he allowed six baserunners including a solo homer by Harrison Bader. Verlander got the strikeouts he needed to escape those big jams, however, and soon he went on a roll, striking out six straight hitters (tying a postseason record he already shared) and nine of his final 11 — reclaiming the all-time postseason strikeout lead along the way — before yielding to the bullpen, which continued to dominate Yankees hitters in a 4-2 victory in the ALCS opener.

Even given that he got knocked around for six runs and 10 hits in four innings by the Mariners in his Division Series start, Verlander probably had a longer leash than most due to his Hall of Fame resumé and manager Dusty Baker’s trust in him. He also had the wind at his back, so to speak. On the heels of a regular season in which per-game scoring fell 5.5% (from 4.53 runs per game to 4.28), in which the league-wide OPS decreased for the third straight season (from .758 in 2019 to .740 in ’20, .728 in ’21, and .706 this year), and in which starting pitcher usage increased for the second year in a row, starters are working deeper into games in the postseason than at any time since 2015. Read the rest of this entry »

For the sixth consecutive season, the Astros are in the American League Championship Series, and for the third time in that span, they’ll face the Yankees for a chance to play in the World Series. They beat the Yankees in seven games in 2017 before advancing to defeat the Dodgers, victories now tainted by the subsequent revelations regarding their use of illegal electronic sign stealing (which, yes, included the postseason). Amid further allegations of sign-stealing, they beat the Yankees in six games in 2019 before losing to the Nationals in the World Series. Suffice it to say, this is not a friendly rivalry, though the Yankees have publicly downplayed its relevance as it pertains to this matchup.

Both of the Astros’ ALCS victories over the Yankees came with A.J. Hinch at the helm, but Dusty Baker has taken over since. He’s trying to take them back to the World Series for the second season in a row — they lost to the Braves in six games last year — and secure the first championship of his 25-year career as a manager. The 73-year-old Baker would surpass 72-year-old Jack McKeon as the oldest manager to win a World Series, but first things first, the Astros have to get there. After winning an AL-high 106 games and securing home-field advantage for as long as they’re still playing, the Astros swept the Mariners in a Division Series much closer than its three-games-to-none outcome suggests, with the games decided by a total of four runs and the two bookend games won in Houston’s final half-inning; the finale extended to 18 innings and ended with a 1-0 score via Jeremy Peña‘s home run. Yordan Alvarez was the big star in the series, hitting a walk-off three-run homer in Game 1 to complete a comeback from a 7-3 deficit and then a two-run, go-ahead shot in Game 2; his seven RBIs accounted for more than half of Houston’s 13 runs. Alvarez (4-for-15), Alex Bregman (5-for-15 with a double and a homer) and Yuli Gurriel (6-for-15 with a homer) together accounted for 15 of the Astros’ 28 hits, masking Jose Altuve’s 0-for-16 performance. Meanwhile, a dominant Astros’ bullpen combined to allow just one run and nine hits in 20.1 innings, with a total of eight relievers combining to strike out 23 batters while walking only five.

Where the Astros swept their way into the ALCS, the 99-win Yankees not only had to go the distance against the Guardians but needed an extra day to do so because rain on Monday night forced the second postponement of the series. Stellar work from Gerrit Cole in his two starts, a strong start from Nestor Cortes on three days of rest, some very good work by a banged-up bullpen, and a 9-3 advantage in home runs — including three by newcomer Harrison Bader and two apiece by Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton — helped to elevate the Yankees past the upstart Guardians. They didn’t have much time to celebrate on Tuesday night; inside of an hour after the final out, the plastic sheets protecting the clubhouse from the spray of champagne were taken down so that the players could fly to Houston. Read the rest of this entry »