Buck Showalter and the Zach Britton Test

Tonight’s AL Wild Card game is a pretty fascinating matchup. Both teams launch home runs at prodigious rates, as the Orioles led the majors in long balls, and the Blue Jays finished fourth overall, just four home runs back of a tie for second. Interestingly, however, neither team was as good offensively as those home run totals might make you think; Toronto ranked 11th in offensive runs above average while Baltimore came in 13th. If they’re not launching homers, they can be held in check, so tonight’s game might not be the slugfest that could otherwise be expected.

Especially because the rules of the Wild Card game incentivize frequent pitching changes, and both of these teams should be taking advantage of the flexibility. The Blue Jays are starting Marcus Stroman, but they also have starters Francisco Liriano and Marco Estrada on the roster, plus the normal compliment of seven relievers; the Jays could mix-and-match their pitchers from the first inning and still have enough arms to get through the game, even while holding one of the extra starters in reserve for a potential extra inning contest.

Likewise, the Orioles are also carrying 10 pitchers, with Ubaldo Jimenez and Dylan Bundy available in relief, along with seven traditional relievers. But if you’re Buck Showalter, you’re probably a lot less excited about the possibility of bringing in Jimenez (5.44 ERA/4.43 FIP/4.64 xFIP) or Bundy (4.02 ERA/4.70 FIP/4.61 xFIP) in an elimination game, and the plan is more likely going to be to ride Tillman as long as he’s effective, than to turn the ball over the team’s normal relief corps.

That relief corps, of course, is anchored by Zach Britton, the best pitcher the Orioles have. Britton’s dominance is almost hard to believe at this point; 202 of the 254 batters he faced this year (80%) either struck out or hit a groundball. He’s the most extreme groundball pitcher we’ve ever seen, only he also blows hitters away with a similar strikeout rate to what Noah Syndergaard posted this year. Opposing batters hit .161/.221/.191 against him this year. To put that in perspective, Mariano Rivera only held hitters to a lower OPS than Britton’s .430 mark once in his career; in 2008, when hitters put up a .423 OPS against him.

So if the Orioles get Britton the ball with a lead, the Blue Jays are in trouble. Nothing in baseball is automatic, but Britton shutting down opposing hitters is about as close as something gets; it’s just really hard to mount a comeback when the pitcher only lets you choose between whiffs and grounders. But the problem for the Orioles is getting the game to Britton, given that as the capital-c Closer, baseball orthodoxy says to save him for the ninth inning.

But in elimination games, orthodoxy should go out the window. Britton is the Orioles best pitcher, and saving him for the final three outs of the game would be a waste of a premium asset. And based on his conversation with David Laurila, Britton has no problem changing his usage if necessary.

On going more than one inning: “I did that last year. Maybe not a ton, but I went two innings once and one-plus a few times. It wouldn’t be an issue for me to do that. It’s more about being available. With one-inning outings you can be available more days than you would be with multiple-inning outings. That’s why managers like to limit you to one; they can use you three, four days in a row.

With a scheduled day off tomorrow, the ability to use Britton on back-to-back days doesn’t come into play in this game. And because of Britton’s dominance, the workload required to ask him to go multiple innings is actually smaller than with other pitchers.

Seven times this year, Buck Showalter has asked Britton to pitch multiple innings. Here is how those seven outings went.

In closing out those seven games, Britton used an average of just 23 pitches per outing, despite the fact that he faced two extra batters on average in those outings. For reference, a lot of the high strikeout closers — think Craig Kimbrel or David Robertson — average close to 17 pitchers per outing even in regular save situations when they’re only asked to get three outs. An extended outing from Britton, pitch wise, is not all that different from a normal outing for a regular closer.

Of course, pitchers will tell you that there is a big psychological difference that occurs when you have to go sit in the dugout and watch your team hit between getting batters out, and given the difficulty studying the issue, we should probably take their word for it. So we shouldn’t pretend that there’s no difference in pitching both the 8th and 9th innings as opposed to traditional closer usage. But on the other hand, Britton showed zero negative effects when going back out to the mound for a second inning when used that way this year.

Nine of the 41 batters he faced in those games reached base, a .220 OBP, despite the fact that he was used in those situations against Boston (three times), New York (twice), Seattle, and Toronto. Showalter only deployed Britton for multiple innings against quality lineups, and Britton still shut them down with ease. And yes, the Orioles won all seven games in which Britton recorded more than three outs.

So tonight, with the season on the line, there’s no real reason to save Britton for the ninth inning, unless the Orioles turn the game into an early blowout. If the game is even reasonably in doubt, Britton should get six outs. And if the Blue Jays are mounting a big rally in the seventh inning against Darren O’Day or Brad Brach, Showalter should consider using his Cy Young candidate in the seventh inning. This is the one pitcher on the Orioles staff that can shut the door on the Blue Jays; leaving him to watch other pitchers blow a lead would be a mistake.

For the Orioles to win tonight, they’re going to need to score some runs, they’re going to need Chris Tillman to keep the Blue Jays in the ballpark, and they’re going to need Zach Britton to get more than three outs. Showalter has shown a deft hand for bullpen management in his career, and his willingness to use Britton to get more than three outs in the regular season suggests he should be willing to do the same tonight. So if the Blue Jays want to advance past the Wild Card game, they should probably try very hard to get a lead early. If they’re down heading into the 8th inning, they should be forced to make Britton blow his first save of the year.