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ALCS Game 3 Preview: Yankees

Starting pitching has not been kind to the Yankees in this series’ first two games. The Yankees offense let CC Sabathia off the hook by mounting an eighth-inning comeback, but they had no such luck with Phil Hughes on the mound. The offense went 1 for 11 with runners in scoring position, including 0 for 5 as they tried to mount a comeback in the later innings. Tonight they’ll turn to their longest tenured starter, Andy Pettitte, for a victory in Game 3.

Pettitte has a longer postseason resume than any other active pitcher, and has pitched more postseason innings than the entire Rangers roster combined. Throughout that 256-inning history Pettitte has had his ups and downs, but ever since he underwent reconstructive elbow surgery in 2004 he has been lights out. In 11 starts he has thrown 69.1 innings (6.1 IP/start) and has allowed 26 runs on 50 strikeouts and 20 walks. In only two instances has he allowed more than three runs. This stands in contrast to his earlier postseason record, which was littered with bombs and brilliance rather than steady, solid performances.

The current Rangers roster has hit Pettitte well, a .308/.373/.462 line in 162 PA. That lineup also hits finesse and average pitchers better than power pitchers, and hits average flyball/groundball guys better as well. None of those bodes well for Pettitte. None of it is particularly predictive — as we saw on Saturday, sometimes pitchers will fare well against hitters who would normally hit them. But if Yankees fans are keeping a Concerned Meter, the dial has to be turned up to a decent degree. That could go up a bit after we look at the Rangers’ starters career numbers against left-handed pitching.

Elvis Andrus: .318 wOBA
Michael Young: .363
Josh Hamilton: .410
Vladimir Guerrero: .413
Nelson Cruz: .339
Ian Kinsler: .389
Jeff Francoeur : .346
Bengie Molina: .353
Jorge Cantu: .330

Some of these numbers don’t necessarily reflect current talent levels — Cruz appears a bit low while Molina is way high — but they still don’t look encouraging. The Rangers have hit left-handed pitching well. The saving grace for the Yankees is that fly balls tend to die out in left-center.

The current Yankees hitters have faced Cliff Lee 308 times in the regular season and have hit him decently well, .280/.329/.482, which is quite a bit better than Lee’s career line of .260/.307/.405. There are, of course, two different Cliff Lees. After his 2007 demotion to the minors he turned things around and become one of the game’s most dominant pitchers. You can read about the full New York – Cliff Lee history on River Ave. Blues.

While anything can happen in any given game, the match-ups in this one appear to favor Texas. The one thing the Yankees have on their side is experience, and we don’t know what that counts for, if it counts for anything at all. But for eight of the 10 starters tonight, it’s the first postseason trip to Yankee Stadium. The Rangers have to be thankful that the one of the three that has been there is Cliff Lee.


ALCS Game 1 Preview: Yankees

If the Rangers can’t have Cliff Lee pitch the opening game of the ALCS, they could do a lot worse than C.J. Wilson as his stand-in. In his first full year as a starter Wilson shined, throwing 204 innings to a 3.35 ERA, 3.56 FIP, 4.20 xFIP, and 3.81 tERA. He now faces his toughest challenge of the year in the Yankees lineup.

As his rate stats indicate, Wilson can be tough on many hitters. The average quality of opponent he faced was .252/.320/.387, but he held them to a .217/.311/.311 line. He was especially tough on lefties, holing them to a .144/.224/.176 line — that’s just five extra base hits, all doubles, out of the 171 lefties he faced. The three lefties in the Yankees lineup could face some trouble this evening.

With a 49.2 percent ground ball rate, Baseball Reference would classify Wilson as a groundball pitcher, since he ranks in the top third of the league. This makes him even tougher against the Yankees. They hit groundball pitchers to the tune of .263/.343/.394, which is far worse than they hit fly ball pitchers. They’ll get a couple of those later in the series, but tonight they’ll be facing someone who matches up well against them in that regard.

The one thing that might undo Wilson this evening is his walk tendency. He led the league with 93 walks this season, while the Yankees’ offense drew the second most (and third wasn’t even close). Wilson faced the Yankees three times this season and walked nine batters in 14.1 innings. He actually pitched pretty poorly against them overall, allowing nine runs on 18 hits. The Yankees hit .300/.408/.350 off him, quite a bit better than Wilson’s season average. That’s because the Yankees lineup is quite a bit better than the average hitter Wilson faced this year. The nine starters tonight combined to hit .275/.357/.465 on the season.

The average hitter against CC Sabathia this season hit .254/.324/.395 and he held them to a .239/.301/.355 line. As is the case with Wilson, Sabathia will face a lineup considerably better than that this evening. The Rangers’ starting nine hit .290/.350/.454 on the season. They also tend to hit groundball pitchers a bit better than fly ball pitchers. That doesn’t exactly bode well for Sabathia, who kept about half of his balls in play on the ground.

The Rangers have seen Sabathia just once this season, and that came all the way bak in April when they lost to him in a rain-shortened game. Wilson was on the hill for that game as well, though it was in New York. The Rangers lineup has changed completely since that time, so if there’s even a shred of predictability in other previous match-ups, there certainly is none here.

Tonight’s match-up might not be ace against ace, but it comes close. Wilson presents a formidable challenge for the Yankees. If he can avoid the walk problems that hurt him against them this season we could see another brilliant playoff performance. As long as the long break between starts doesn’t affect Sabathia’s command, he too should be able to hold down the Rangers’ lineup. In a battle between two of the league’s best offenses, we could definitely see a pitchers’ duel tonight.


Will Hamilton’s Ribs Hold Him Back?

For more than a month now the Rangers have been without their star center fielder Josh Hamilton. True, he has been back in the lineup every day since October 1, but his presence has been greatly missed. Since his return he is just 4 for 29 with one extra base hit, including 2 for 18 and no XBH in the ALDS against Tampa Bay. It’s natural to wonder, then, whether his ribs are still causing him problems — and further, if those problems will continue to affect him in the ALCS.

Unfortunately, there is no objective way to definitively answer the question posed in the headline. We can look at his swing and we can look at his numbers, but it all leads to educated guesswork. But we might as well go ahead and examine the contributing factors, since Hamilton’s performance will mean a lot to the Rangers’ chances of defeating the Yankees.

The numbers

We have just 32 PA worth of data on Hamilton since he returned from the injury layoff, so there’s not much we can do with it. The sample suggests that his ribs have hindered his performance, but it 1) doesn’t prove that conclusively and 2) offers little predictive information. What, then, can the numbers tell us?

My first thought was to examine Hamilton’s injury history and look for prior rib injuries. On April 22 of last year Hamilton got a day off because of what was termed a ribs contusion. He did pinch hit in that game, and then came back to start in each of the next three games, going 4 for 12 with a homer. He didn’t start the following day, but instead struck out in a pinch hitting appearance. That was the last game he’d play until May 12. The Rangers placed him on the DL with strained ribs.

The two injuries are a bit different. The 2009 injury was a muscle strain, while this year Hamilton suffered two fractured rib bones. Intuitively it seems as though a muscle injury in that area would affect a swing to a greater degree, since much of a player’s power is generated from his core. The fractured ribs certainly cause discomfort, but does that affect the swing to a greater degree? I’m not sure.

In the 67 PA following Hamilton’s return from the DL, he went just 14 for 59 (.237) with six walks (.299 OBP) and nine extra base hits (.542 SLG). So when he made contact the ball went a long way. But he had trouble in general making contact. He struck out 16 times in 59 AB (27%), while his career rate is less than a third of that. he did display a similar tendency in the ALDS, striking out in 1/3 of his AB. Unfortunately, he did not display the same kind of power, as both of his hits were singles.

The scouting

I’ve yet to see a scout, anonymous or otherwise, opine on Hamilton’s swing, so I’m not sure if there is anything noticeably wrong with it. One thing that a few people did note is that the Rays rarely showed Hamilton a fastball in the series. That, compounded with his lack of live action, might have played a part in his ALDS slump. From the Star-Telegram:

Hamilton missed almost all of September because of fractured ribs. While he said he’s not using that as a reason for his struggles, manager Ron Washington believes that might be playing a role.

“Josh hasn’t seen live pitching in a month and he’s up there fighting, and he’s fighting hard,” Washington said. “It’s not an excuse, but he hasn’t seen pitching in a while, and he is facing some pretty good pitching right now.”

The Rays have rarely shown Hamilton a fastball in the series, and when they have, he hasn’t timed it well.

According to the PitchFX data, the Rays threw Hamilton just 17 four-seam fastballs and 13 two-seamers. He saw 24 curveballs, 15 changeups, five sliders, and a sinker as well. Unsurprisingly, he put the four-seamers in play more than any other pitch. But he whiffed badly when challenged with curves and changes.

The match-ups

The only remaining question is of whether this will carry over into the ALCS — which, as stated above, does not have a definitive answer. Hamilton now has 32 PA under his belt since returning, so perhaps he’ll be in a better rhythm when he steps to the plate on Friday. Or maybe the ribs will continue to bother him.

If one thing is for certain, it’s that Hamilton will get no help from Game 1 starter CC Sabathia. He uses his slider heavily against left-handed hitters, and Hamilton will likely see a steady diet of them. He also has a two-seamer with plenty of horizontal movement. It’s in Game 2 that we’ll get a decent gauge of Hamilton’s recovery. He’ll face Phil Hughes, who leans heavily on his four-seamer. By that point we should have a better idea of how Hamilton’s ribs are affecting him.

Josh Hamilton’s condition will play a large part in how the Rangers’ offense fares in the ALCS. The team hit just .253/.286/.437 in its five games against the Rays, and most of that came from Ian Kinsler and Nelson Cruz. They can’t carry the team by themselves. They’ll need their main man, their MVP, to produce against the Yankees. Without Hamilton hitting in the way that he’s capable, the offense could again fall flat.


The Braves Ill-Timed Offensive Collapse

You might not have known it from their NLDS performance, but the Braves had one of the NL’s best offenses in 2010. They certainly bookended it in the wrong way, scoring 3.7 runs per game in April and 3.4 runs per game in September/October. But from May through August they absolutely crushed the ball, scoring 5.03 runs per game during those 109. Unfortunately for them, it was the April and September versions that showed up in October. That resulted in just runs in four postseason games, forcing a first-round exit. It wasn’t hard to see coming.

Looking at the Braves’ runs per game throughout the season, it might appear that they were a decently consistent team. After overcoming their poor start they stayed between 4.5 and 5.0 runs per game, normally trending towards the 4.5 side. Had they scored those 4.5 runs per game against San Francisco we would have had a different series. But that, of course, is a fallacious mode of thought.

As Matt wrote before the postseason began, 2010 is not a constant. Many things change during the course of a six-month, 162-game season. That renders teams completely different at the start than at the finish. For some teams this is a good thing; the Phillies, for instance, went from a team that couldn’t buy a hit into one of the top offensive teams. The Braves went in the opposite direction. The reasons for this are pretty clear.

When the team went on its four-month tear it had its best hitters in prime lineup spots. Here’s how the top hitters fared in those torrid months.

There were ups and downs for sure, but there was always another guy to pick up the slack when another one slumped. When Troy Glaus went into his free fall, the team picked up Derrek Lee to fill the void. Yet that didn’t help much. Chipper Jones got injured. Martin Prado limped through September. The team just wasn’t clicking as it did earlier in the season. The September performances, while in the heat of a playoff race, were not at all impressive.

When the infield crumbled, so did the team. Omar Infante did a good job replacing Jones at first, but fell hard in September. Prado didn’t help matters by playing hurt. That left Brooks Conrad to fill in. He had a good season as a utility guy, but he gets exposed in regular duty. At first it was his arm strength, which necessitated a move to second. Then it was his Game 3 performance. Lee did his best, but he simply could not carry so many ineffective and injured players.

The final point against the Braves was the pitching they faced. They might have averaged those 4.56 runs per game during the season, and their peak might have suggested an even better performance was possible. But that all changes when facing Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Jonathan Sanchez, and Madison Bumgarner. Those four allow far fewer runs than the average pitcher the Braves faced during the regular season. So it wasn’t only injuries and ineffectiveness that halted the Braves’ season. It also had something to do with running into a string of excellent starting pitchers.

As we’ve seen so many times in the past, the Braves became exposed when injuries arose. Maybe September would have been different had Prado and Jones been around. Maybe the team would have fared better against the Giants with those two in the lineup rather than Conrad and a slumping Infante. But injuries happen. The Braves just didn’t have the depth to overcome all of them. It certainly was a sad ending to a very good season.


ALDS Game Three Review: Yankees

The only thing different about this one was that the Twins didn’t take an early lead. In their previous five postseason meetings the Twins scored early only to lose the game. The Yankees jumped out in this one and never looked back. The built up a 5-0 lead by the fourth, which was more then enough to secure the series victory. It was the Yankees’ ninth straight postseason win against the Twins.

In his first playoff start Phil Hughes starred. He had pitched 12 postseason innings previously, but all in relief. In 2007 he came on in relief of Roger Clemens, who left the game with an injury in the third inning. Hughes pitched 3.2 scoreless innings, striking out four and holding down the Indians while the Yankees took the lead. Last season he pitched in all three rounds, but ended up allowing six runs in 6.1 innings. Last night he’d eclipse his 2009 postseason innings total.

Hughes faced 25 batters through seven innings, using 99 pitches to dispatch 21 Twins. Only five opponents reached base on him, four on singles and one via a walk. The first one who reached, Denard Span in the fourth, was immediately erased on a double play. That came off the bat of Orlando Hudson, and was the biggest out of the game, -9 percent WPA. After that the Yankees broke open the game, and Hughes never again pitched with a WE of under 90 percent.

The only remotely interesting situation after the fifth came in the top of the eighth. Kerry Wood, working for the third time in the series, started by allowing a double to Danny Valencia. Two batters later Span moved him to third with a single, and then Hudson singled him home. But with five more runs to make up and just five outs with which to score them, that barely put a dent in the WE. It got as low as 93.3 percent when Wood walked Joe Mauer, but was quickly back up over 99 percent when Boone Logan and David Robertson induced fly outs to end the inning.

Only one play in this game produced a WPA of over 10 percent. That was Marcus Thames’s home run to right-center in the fifth inning. That gave the Yankees a 4-0 lead. Thames hit 12 home runs in the regular season, none of them to the opposite field. In fact, only three of them were even to left-center (though our splits classify one as center field).

With the win the Yankees are the first team in the League Championship Series. They’ll wait until Friday, when they’ll travel to either St. Petersburg or Arlington for the start of a best-of-seven series.


ALDS Game 3 Preview: New York Yankees

In the first two games of the series the Yankees threw lefties on the road. Now they’ll flip that by throwing a righty at home. The Twins will counter by trotting out a different lineup than they did in Games 1 and 2. While righties Delmon Young and Michael Cuddyer presented the largest dangers in those games, the lefties will bat higher in the lineup tonight. Phil Hughes will face the lefty gauntlet in Joe Mauer,Jim Thome , and Jason Kubel.

In his first full season as a starter, Phil Hughes had problems at times keeping the ball in the park. His 1.28 HR/9 ranked sixth among qualified AL starters. Most of those came at home and against left-handed pitching. Of the 25 home runs he allowed, 17 came against left-handed pitching (1.68 HR/9). Twenty of them came at home (1.69 HR/9). He also strikes out fewer hitters and walks more when pitching at Yankee Stadium.

If Hughes is going to be successful against those three big lefties, he’ll have to attack them with his secondary stuff. While his fastball rates well in pitch type values (16.7, 0.88 per nine), lefties have hit it out of the park 12 times.

He has also used the cutter to bust lefties inside, but he has paid when leaving it out over the plate.

Only one time has a lefty hit a curveball for a home run, and no lefty hit his changeup for a home run all season. That changeup might play an important role in this game. If Hughes can locate his cutter he can use that, but if he doesn’t he’ll need another pitch. His changeup has come along very slowly because he throws it so infrequently — just 2.7 percent of the time. Looking at the strike zone plot, it’s easy to see why.

Hughes started going to the changeup more often as the season progressed; he threw it 7.1 percent of the time during September and October. He is also throwing the curveball more often, a pitch on which opponents hit just two home runs this season — though it graded out poorly per pitch type values, -5.0 (-1.2 per nine). If Hughes can command these two off-speed pitches, his fastball, which already rates highly, he will be even more effective.

All graphs from Joe Lefkowitz’s PitchFX tool.


ALDS Game Two Review: Yankees

You might have learned in your years as a schoolboy or schoolgirl that the earth’s tilted rotation around the sun causes seasonal changes in weather. Scientifically that might be true, but any baseball fan will tell you that the seasons follow the sport. As the winter frost thaws we’re instilled with a sense of hope — a feeling that this year could be the year. The warmer the weather gets the more drawn we are to even-keeled analysis. Why isn’t this player performing well? How did this move work out for that team? But when the weather starts its progression back toward winter, we shed our analytical hats and immerse ourselves in the drama that is the MLB postseason. For one month, what happened in the previous six don’t matter.

In the first half of 2010, Yankees fans found an easy whipping boy in Curtis Granderson. The team traded a top prospect to get him, and when that top prospect got off to a torrid start the criticism heightened. Granderson was not only a bum because he wasn’t producing, but because the player they traded for him, Austin Jackson, was off to one of the finest Aprils in the game. It took a few days off in August and a change in approach before fans even remotely warmed to Granderson. But in Game 1 of the ALDS all was forgotten. Granderson hit a go-ahead triple. Even if the Yankees get bounced before the World Series, the fans will remember that more than they do the regular season.

Granderson’s August resurgence left a void in Yankee fandom. Who would they criticize mercilessly? Who would represent the differences between the 2009 and the 2010 teams — the foil to Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui? The answer was soon clear. Lance Berkman had a horrible start to his pinstriped tenure, and fans wasted no time in calling him a terrible acquisition. Even his explosive production upon returning from the DL, there was still a vocal sect of fans who proclaimed Berkman the worst acquisition ever. But in Game 2, all ill will was forgotten. It’s his big moments that we’ll remember.

The first came in the fifth inning, while the Yankees were still having problems hitting Carl Pavano. Alex Rodriguez tied the game with a sac fly in the previous inning, but that actually subtracted from the Yankees’ Win Expectancy. Making outs, even when it results in a run, just isn’t that productive. But an inning later Berkman got a hold of a Pavano sinker and sent it over the bullpen for the Yankees’ second run. Two innings later he again laid into a Pavano pitch, though this one didn’t quite have the distance. But it still went over Denard Span’s head and then caused more trouble when Span overpursued it. Jorge Posada scored all the way from first, which again gave the Yankees a lead- a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.

Berkman’s WPA on those two plays was .327, and even with his outs he ended with a .292 WPA, easily the best of the game. With a 3 for 4 day, tainted only by a sac bunt, Granderson added 11.8 percent to the WE. Brett Gardner and Mark Teixeira also ended in the positives.

On the pitching end, the Yankees had everything going for them. Despite a tighter strike zone (see below), Andy Pettitte held the Twins in check through seven innings. He made a mistake with a breaking ball to Orlando Hudson, but other than that he was settled into a zone by the third inning. The Twins had a few chances early, when Pettitte left pitches up in the zone, but later on it was too late. Everything was down, and it led to 11 straight outs before the Hudson homer. He then retired five of the next six batters before exiting the game. Kerry Wood then came on to strike out two in a flat-out dominant performance. Mariano Rivera did what he’s done for the past 15 years.

The Yankees leave Minnesota in the best of positions. They head home with a chance for a sweep; if that doesn’t work out on Saturday, they then have their ace ready for a potential Game 4 on Sunday.


Complaining about the umps is usually the territory of the losing team. Just look at the past few Yanks-Twins ALDS threads. Apparently the Yankees are running a scheme that makes the Black Sox Scandal look like amateur hour. They’re paying the umps to give them favorable calls, especially when it comes to the strike zone. It make perfect economic sense. They’ll make more money by winning the World Series than they’ll be paying out to the umps — they’d be stupid not to bribe them. It’s clear to anyone paying attention that’s what’s going on…

Back to reality, the strike zone was particularly horrible tonight. Yes, I noticed it because I root for the Yankees and noticed that Andy Pettitte wasn’t getting the same calls as Pavano. It was clear on the TBS Pitch Trax, and it was clear on PitchFX (though I’m not sure if the two are related). Here’s the strike zone Hunter Wendelstedt called for Pavano:

And here’s the one called for Pettitte:

It’s clear that some pitches called strikes for Pavano weren’t given the same benefit for Pettitte. This advantage didn’t end up helping the Twins, but on a different night it might have. This isn’t so much a complaint about the specific game as it is about the future. If Wendelstedt is allowed to call balls and strikes in future postseason games he’s apt to make the same mistakes. Apparently he has trouble discerning pitch location relative to pitcher handedness. This is what we’ve seen touted as the human element, but it’s nothing more than inaccuracy. I’m not sure what to do about it, but at the very least MLB shouldn’t allow Wendelstedt to continue umpiring postseason games. His zone was objectively inconsistent.


ALDS Game 2 Preview: Yankees vs. Twins

Curtis Granderson currently serves as the poster boy for why match-up numbers mean little during individual at-bats. Everything about his sixth-inning at-bat last night against Francisco Liriano screamed failure. He was just 4-for-25 lifetime against Liriano heading into the game, and a ground out and a strikeout made that 4-for-27. He also hits lefties poorly. Yet he found a pitch to hit and drove in the go-ahead run. It goes against all the numbers put forth in the ALDS Game 1 preview.

For today’s preview let’s look at different numbers. Rather than look at each lineup’s overall performance against pitchers of the same handedness as they will face, let’s look at similar pitchers based on batted-ball profiles. This season Andy Pettitte allowed 18.4 percent line drives, 43.9 percent ground balls, and 37.6 percent fly balls. Based on that, here are a few comparables:

Brett Cecil: 17.6%, 44.2%, 38.2%
Mark Buehrle: 15.9%, 45.7%, 38.4%
John Danks: 15.7%, 45.4%, 38.9%

There were a couple of others that were close, but we’ll go with these three since they’re all lefties who don’t throw particularly hard. Here is how the current Twins lineup fares against these guys.

It would appear, then, that Minnesota does have a decided advantage when facing left-handed pitchers similar in batted-ball profile to Pettitte. It isn’t the biggest sample, but it’s a bit more comprehensive than just going with their results against Pettitte.

This lineup would appear to hurt the Twins. Gardenhire wants to break up the lefties as to avoid a late-inning Boone Logan encounter, but his best hitters are broken up by ones who fare poorly against hitters like Pettitte. I wonder if he’d consider moving up Michael Cuddyer, considering his excellent numbers against lefties, and softer-tossing lefties in particular.

Carl Pavano has turned into a groundball machine this year, keeping 50 percent of balls in play out of the air. Sticking with right-handed pitchers with a similar batted-ball profile (17.8% LD, 51.2% GB, 30.9% FB), here are his best comparables:

Clay Buchholz: 17.7%, 50.8%, 31.5%
Gavin Floyd: 18%, 49.9%, 32.1%
Rick Porcello: 17.6%, 50.3%, 31.2%

And here is how the Yankees lineup fared against them:

We have a much smaller sample on the Yankees, but it’s clear that they don’t hit as well against hitters of Pavano’s ilk. Maybe that’s because they don’t see them often — Pavano, Floyd, and Porcello are in the AL Central, Porcello and Buchholz haven’t been around for long, and Pavano was on the team’s roster for four years and pitched in the NL before that. Mark Teixeira looks like he can do some damage, but the only other hitter with a SLG above .400 is Lance Berkman, who did it in a mere 15 PA.

Last night the match-up numbers seemed to favor the Twins. They had plenty of hitters in the lineup who fared well against lefties and at home, while the Yankees seemed to perform a bit worse against lefties and on the road. This time around, though, we’re using different numbers, the Twins have a decided advantage. It doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ll hit Pettitte, but it certainly bodes well. That’s about the best we can do with pre-game analysis.


ALDS Game One Review: Yankees

The WPA chart took a circuitous route last night.

After Nick Swisher struck out to lead off the sixth, it appeared as though the Twins were well on their way to a Game 1 victory. With a three-run lead and one out in the sixth, their win expectancy reached 87.7 percent. Francisco Liriano had just retired his ninth straight batter. The heart of the Yankees order was due up, but none of them had hit the ball particularly hard to that point. But as we so often see in baseball, the game changed without warning.

Starting with a Mark Teixeira double, the Yankees chipped away at the Twins. That one-out hit moved the green line 4 percent toward the Yankees side. A wild pitch and a walk moved it another 5 percent. Robinson Cano smacked an inside fastball through the right side to move the green line another 7.4 percent. The Yankees were on the board, but the Twins still had a 71.1 percent WE. A Marcus Thames strikeout moved that to 77.6 percent, but Jorge Posada continued the chipping process with a single to right, moving the line 11.4 percent.

Chipping away is all fine and good — old school baseball fans seem to love it. But sometimes you need that big hit to wrap it all up. Curtis Granderson provided that big hit. Liriano had worked Granderson away in his previous at-bat, but finally came inside on the fifth pitch. One inning later he employed a similar pattern, backdooring a slider for strike one and then missing with two fastballs. On the fourth pitch he stayed outside with a fastball, but Granderson was ready. He hit a long, high drive that bounced off the wall in center. The hangtime allowed even Posada to score from first and give the Yanks the lead. Win Expectancy: 63.5 percent, Yankees.

Something similar happened in the bottom of the inning. It might not have been as drastic, but just as Liriano faded after some strong work, so did CC Sabathia. He had retired nine straight heading into his half of the sixth, and he quickly made that 11 by getting Joe Mauer to strike out and Delmon Young to hit a heart attack of a fly ball to the warning track. After that point he had lost his command. Two walks and a double later, Sabathia had the bases loaded. That brought the Twins’ WE to 44.6 percent. All Danny Valencia had to do was stand there to put the green line back in favor of the Twins.

With the game still tied, there was no reason for the Yankees to chip away in the seventh. Instead, they got the proverbial bloop and blast, though it was more like a sharp grounder and a shuttle launching. Jesse Crain, who had been so dependable for the Twins during the season, had trouble with his command to Teixeira. The first two pitches he threw ended up high; the second one, a curveball, a bit more dangerous than the first. On the next two pitches, both low fastballs, Teixeira took big rips, but managed only to foul them off. Eventually Crain’s high-balling tendency got the best of him. He left a slider hanging and Teixeira lined it up like it was on a tee. The ball barely stayed fair, but when it landed it moved the green line 28.4 percent toward the Yankees’ side.

The Twins did mount one final comeback attempt, putting runners on first and second with one out in the eighth. They started the inning with an 18.3 percent WE, but had managed to raise it to 27 percent after Valencia dribbled one past the pitcher. A grounder moved the runners but cost the Twins 5.6 percent in WE. The next at-bat would prove to be the most costly for the Twins.

With the tying run on second and with seemingly none of his relievers able to throw strikes, Joe Girardi turned to the one man he knew he could trust. Mariano Rivera warmed up quickly and jogged out to the mound, tasked with retiring four batters. He apparently needed three more warmup pitches, but after that he was fine. He kept pounding Denard Span with cutters inside, and eventually Span did what most hitters do: break his bat and hit a soft grounder. That cost the Twins 13.1 percent in WE at a time when they couldn’t afford to go much lower.

One pitch, one place.

The only remaining moment of note came with two outs in the ninth. Young got a good piece of a high cutter and lined it to right. Greg Golson, in as a defensive replacement, came charging and appeared to make the catch on his shoestrings. It was inevitable, then, that the umpire would rule it a trap. That just seems to be the way the umpiring has gone lately. It wasn’t quite the gift that Phil Cuzzi gave the Yankees against the Twins in last year’s ALDS, but it still brought the tying run to the plate. Fortunately for the Yankees, he popped up the first pitch.

While the Yankees won, they walked a tightrope for the last few innings. From the sixth inning on their pitchers walked five batters. They also needed to burn their best bullpen arms, and perhaps rendered Rivera unavailable for tomorrow’s game. That’s all secondary to the win, but it could easily work against them in Game 2.


ALDS Game 1 Preview: New York Yankees

When analyzing regular season baseball, we tend to look at the big picture. Anything can happen in a single game, so examination with a larger lens will help us better understand what’s going on. But in the playoffs that all changes. Bench players stay right there, as teams roll out their A lineups every day. Injured players, who influenced the team’s overall season stats, play no part in a postseason run. There’s also no chance of missing an opposing team’s ace; there’s a good chance of seeing him twice in a series. Both the Yankees and the Twins will open the series with a lefty ace on the mound.

Francisco Liriano

Three years since his breakout 2006 season, Francisco Liriano returned to form in 2010. His 2.66 FIP finished second in the AL to Cliff Lee, and his 3.06 xFIP led the way. What hurt him was poor results on balls in play. His .340 BABIP was the second highest among AL starters this season. Much of this is due to terrible outfield defense. Liriano’s BABIP on fly balls is .254, quite a deal higher than the AL average of .138. Unsurprisingly, the Twins rank 20th in outfield UZR. But even Liriano’s results on ground balls doesn’t compare favorably to the league. Of the 284 ground balls he has induced this year, 71 have gone for hits, a .250 BABIP. The league average is .231.

Liriano punishes hitters with his slider. It’s tough to get a good gauge using pitch type values, since it doesn’t account for sequencing and we have no splits. Liriano’s slider does rate as the best in the league, though that’s in large part because he throws it a third of the time. On a rate basis he falls below a number of other pitchers. A few Yankees do hit the slider particularly well, including Robinson Cano, Marcus Thames, and Mark Teixeira. Still, without splits we can’t really gauge this with any degree of accuracy.

Tonight’s Yankee lineup will feature three lefties — Cano, Curtis Granderson, and Brett Gardner. Unfortunately for them, Liriano does his best work against same-handed hitters. This season he has struck out 52 of 172 lefties faced (30.2 percent) while walking just four. Not a single left-handed batter has hit a home run off of him. The rest of the lineup will hit from the right side. While Liriano is a bit weaker against righties he still has excellent numbers, including a strikeout per inning. Righties do tend to hit the ball in the air more often, though, which as we saw can become a problem.

If there is any concern about Liriano right now, it’s that he’s tiring down the stretch. After allowing just three home runs through the first five months Liriano allowed six in September. His strikeout rate dipped, though it still remained high at 8.1 per nine. That could be just the opening that the Yankees are looking for.



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CC Sabathia

What CC Sabathia has lost in strikeout numbers — and it’s not much — he has gained in ground ball tendency. For the first time in his career half the balls put in play off him were on the ground. The closest he came previously was in 2005. Yet he suffers from the same high BABIP on grounders as his counterpart Liriano. The league has hit .254 on ground balls in play off CC, while hitting .231 on ground balls overall. This can be in part attributed to the weak right side of the Yankees infield. Derek Jeter has a -4.8 UZR, while Alex Rodriguez is at -1.7. This might present problems for the Yankees, since the Twins rank near the top of the league in ground ball rate. Denard Span, Michael Cuddyer, Orlando Hudson, and Joe Mauer are among the top 50 in ground ball rate.

Sabathia for the most part features three pitches, though he’ll normally use only two on each hitter. Hitters of both handedness will see two types of fastball, a four-seamer that sits around 93, 94, and a two-seamer that sits around 93 and has sinking action. That’s what aids his ground ball rate. He’ll throw a fading changeup to righties, while he attacks lefties with a slider that, according to pitch type values, ranks near the top of the league. He’ll also use the slider against righties at times, mostly going for the low, inside corner. He has thrown just four changeups to lefties all season.

In the Twins lineup he’ll likely face four lefties: Span, Mauer, Jason Kubel, and Jim Thome. None of them has particularly good numbers when facing same-handed pitchers. For his part, Sabathia handles lefties well, holding them to a .261/.318/.360 line. Of the 220 lefties he has faced this season he has struck out 62 (28 percent) while walking just 14. It’s not quite Liriano-style dominance, but he does combine it with excellent numbers against righties: .232/.295/.354 with an 18 percent strikeout rate.



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