8:01	Dan Szymborski: Good evening!

8:01	Dan Szymborski: For a day of events of a baseball nature.

8:01	Dan Szymborski: Well an evening

8:03	Dan Szymborski: Dunno, price?

8:03	Dan Szymborski: How many are unsold?

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Don’t blame the Dodgers. Or don’t just blame the Dodgers. While the defending champions used Corey Knebel as an opener in back-to-back postseason games to finish the Division Series and begin the League Championship Series (albeit under very different circumstances), starting pitchers throughout this postseason are throwing fewer innings than ever. Thus far this October, starts of three innings or fewer outnumber those of six innings or more by 60%! More than one-third of all starting pitchers are getting the hook before they reach double digits in outs, and even the aces aren’t pitching deep into games as frequently.

Sunday night’s NLCS Game 2 between the Braves and Dodgers provided yet another example. Before Ian Anderson even recorded an out, he was down 2-0 thanks to a Mookie Betts single and a Corey Seager homer. He faced seven batters in the first inning, and while he had a 1-2-3 second, he put two men on in the third, after which manager Brian Snitker elected to pull him for a pinch-hitter.

Opposite number Max Scherzer, after being pushed back a day due to his Division Series Game 5-saving effort, held the Braves scoreless through three innings but walked Austin Riley and then gave up a titanic game-tying homer to Joc Pederson in the fourth; when the lineup turned over after he recorded his first out of the fifth, manager Dave Roberts pulled him in favor lefty Alex Vesia — the second time in three postseason starts that Scherzer has exited before completing five innings. For as much of an affront as this might have been to purists, the 37-year-old future Hall of Famer conceded afterwards, “My arm was dead. I could tell when I was warming up that it was still tired… I wasn’t going to be able to get truly deep into a game, and I wasn’t going to be able to get to that 95, 100-pitch count.” Read the rest of this entry »

Did you know that the Dodgers are carrying nine relievers for their NLCS matchup against the Braves? It’s true — Phil Bickford, Justin Bruihl, Brusdar Graterol, Kenley Jansen, Joe Kelly, Corey Knebel, Evan Phillips, Blake Treinen, and Alex Vesia all made the roster. That’s enough relievers that it’s hard to imagine how to move them all — the team made a concerted effort to add pitching options after their draining series with the San Francisco Giants.

With Vesia, Kelly, and Treinen already used tonight, Dave Roberts looked at that roster and chose none of the above. He called in Julio Urías, who threw 59 pitches on Thursday night, to come in on two days rest for his throw day and take the eighth inning. In a 4-2 ballgame, the Dodgers needed six outs of status quo to go home with the series tied, and Roberts preferred Urías, throw day and all, with a cluster of lefties coming up for Atlanta.

From one point of view, Urías was just fine. He threw 14 pitches — 10 curves and four fastballs. He had his usual velocity — both pitches were within 0.2 mph of their season-long velocity averages. He coaxed four whiffs in only 14 pitches. Great move, Roberts.

In all the senses that mattered tonight, though, Urías was the exact wrong pitcher to bring in. He gave up a single to Eddie Rosario, a flared single to Ozzie Albies, and then an absolutely crushed double to Austin Riley in the first six pitches he threw. Atlanta came in swinging, Urías scuffled slightly with location, and thanks to some very aggressive baserunning, the game was tied. Urías recovered to strike out the next two batters on four pitches each, but the damage was done. Read the rest of this entry »

For eight innings, the Dodgers’ impromptu bullpen game was going nearly to plan, with their cavalcade of relievers holding the Braves to two runs on just four hits. With the game tied heading into the bottom of the ninth inning, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts brought in his eighth pitcher of the evening, Blake Treinen, hoping to force extra innings. It proved to be a bridge too far for his relief corps. A one-out bloop single by Ozzie Albies followed by a stolen base put him in position to score the winning run. Austin Riley delivered the big hit, his second of the night after a game-tying home run in the fourth inning:

It was a bit of déjà vu for both Riley and Treinen. These same two teams met in the NLCS last year and it was Riley who wound up hitting the game-winning home run off Treinen in the ninth inning of Game 1. In this case, it was a line drive single to left field that easily scored Albies from second base. It was the first walk-off hit of Riley’s career and just another high point in a breakout season for the 24-year-old.

After a promising debut in 2019, Riley made some adjustments to his approach in an attempt to address his 36.4% strikeout rate. Those changes worked — his strikeout rate dropped to 23.8% in 2020 — but he struggled to maintain contact quality as good as it had been during his debut. This year, he put everything together, sustaining his plate discipline gains while also producing fantastic contact quality. It led to a 135 wRC and 4.2 WAR, a season that should produce some down-ballot MVP votes.

For the Dodgers, starting off the series on the back foot was always a possibility after Max Scherzer was deemed unavailable to start following his ninth inning appearance in Game 5 of the Division Series. The ZiPS Game-by-Game odds shifted more than five points in the Braves favor after Corey Knebel was named the starter, though Los Angeles was still favored to win, 51.3% to 48.7%. The game didn’t start off exactly to plan either. Eddie Rosario led off with a hard-hit single down the right field line, stole second, advanced to third on a ground out and finally came around to score on a wild pitch. Read the rest of this entry »

The Red Sox evened the ALCS at 1-1 on Saturday evening with a convincing 9-5 road victory in a game that rarely felt even as close as the four-run deficit suggested.

Lance McCullers Jr.’s injury was one of Houston’s big storylines coming into this series, and the consequences could be seen Saturday as the Astros withered behind Luis Garcia, who likely would not have started this early in the series otherwise. Garcia is fortunate that the Rookie of the Year ballots were already tabulated before the postseason started, as his Game 2 loss was his second poor outing this October, and as in his first appearance, it was one bedeviled by poor location.

Trouble started quickly for Garcia as he fell behind 2-0 against totally stereotypical leadoff hitter Kyle Schwarber. The right-hander went right back to the fastball a third time, a pitch Schwarber crushed to deep right for a long double. Garcia received possibly his last bit of good fortune this game against Kiké Hernández, who hit a liner off a high fastball that was grabbed in an excellent dive-and-catch by Astros center fielder Chas McCormick. Rafael Devers worked his way back from an 0-2 count to a walk as Garcia fell into a pattern of nibbling. It worked against Xander Bogaerts, who went up there determined to hit a slider, but not so much with Alex Verdugo, who left his bat on his shoulder in a five-pitch walk. With the bases loaded, J.D. Martinez hit a liner to the opposite field for a grand slam, giving Boston a 4-0 lead. Read the rest of this entry »

The bill for using Max Scherzer to close out Game 5 of the Division Series against the Giants has come due. On Saturday afternoon, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts announced that he would again use Corey Knebel as the opener in Game 1 of the Championship Series against the Braves, presumably to give Scherzer — who threw 13 pitches in closing out the Giants, earned his first career save, and indicated his intent to “party hard” in celebration afterwards — an extra day of rest before his NLCS start, a move that bumps Walker Buehler and Julio Urías back one game as well.

Prior to Game 5, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of the possibility of using Scherzer, “He’s ready for whatever we need. Obviously the most important thing is to win tonight. But we still have to think about when and if we fire that bullet there is a cost, and we have to weigh other options as far as guys we already have in particular roles who have thrived.”

With Knebel and Brusdar Graterol each pitching scoreless (but hardly adventure-free) innings ahead of Urías on Thursday, the Giants emptied their bench early in order to gain the platoon advantage, but were left with righty Wilmer Flores — who was 0-for-17 with eight strikeouts in his career against Scherzer to that point — batting with two outs in the ninth. He struck out, aided by first base umpire Gabe Morales‘ dubious strike three call on a checked swing. Knebel will again open, and Roberts has indicated that Tony Gonsolin, who has not pitched since September 30, will figure prominently in a bulk role.

From the standpoint of our ZiPS Postseason Game-By-Game Odds, the overall cost is negligible thanks to the quality of the Dodgers’ pitching. The swing in the odds of the individual games appears somewhat steep in spots as the Dodgers reshuffle their rotation, with the Braves’ decision to pitch Ian Anderson in Games 2 and 6 (if necessary) and Charlie Morton in Games 3 and 7 (if necessary) nudging the needle as well:

Max Fried’s Game 1 assignment and the Braves’ use of some kind of bullpen configuration for Game 4 were thus the only constants for either side. Still, it all comes out in the wash, moving the overall series odds by less than 1%:

The Dutch historian and children’s author Hendrik Willem van Loon had an enjoyable definition of eternity. Every thousand years, he said, a bird comes to sharpen its beak on a hundred-mile-high, hundred-mile-wide rock. When the rock has been worn away by the bird’s beak, one day of eternity will have passed.

Personally, I think he could have just used the pitches in tonight’s Astros-Red Sox game to count eternity. Two of the best, grindiest offenses in baseball faced off against two starters who scuffled with control, and the result was a ponderous affair that lasted more than four hours and tested the nerves and patience of fans on both sides.

The Red Sox set the tone with a disciplined, persistent attack. After a leadoff single was erased by a double play, they wore Framber Valdez down, beak-sharpening peck by peck. A walk put a runner back on first. A flare over the shift added another runner before a walk loaded the bases. Hunter Renfroe flew out to end the threat, but the Red Sox had Valdez’s number. They hardly swung at bad pitches and rarely missed when they did swing. Read the rest of this entry »

When the postseason began, a rematch of the 2020 National League Championship Series only had about a 21% chance of happening, according to our Playoff Odds. But after some particularly unlikely occurrences — not just the lower seeds advancing in the Division Series — here we are. Freddie Freeman became the first lefty to hit a homer off Josh Hader in nearly 13 months, and the first to do so on a slider in more than two years, while lifting the Braves past the Brewers in Game 4. The Dodgers won the Wild Card game via a walkoff home run by a slumping Chris Taylor and then eked out a narrow victory over the 107-win Giants in similarly heart-stopping fashion, with the winning hit in Thursday night’s Game 5 delivered by Cody Bellinger on the heels of a nightmare season. That’s baseball, Suzyn.

Unlike last year, this time around the Braves will have home-field advantage despite winning 18 fewer regular season games than the Dodgers, because the current playoff format deals a stiff penalty to teams sneaking into the postseason via the Wild Card door. Atlanta’s advantage could be significant at some point in the series, particularly if it goes past five games, but it’s worth noting the Braves went just 42-38 at home, tying the Marlins for the NL’s 10th-highest win total in that split; meanwhile, their 46-35 road record ranked fourth in the NL. The Dodgers had the best home record (58-23) and third-best road record (48-33), and just won an elimination game (and two of their three Division Series games) in enemy territory. The talent gap between the two teams probably matters more than the venue in which they meet, though in a short series… you know the rest. Read the rest of this entry »

A pizza stain on the new Armani. A chocolate chip cookie, fresh out of the oven, adorned with nine chips and one cat droplet. The middle five wishes of Elliot Richards. Game 5 of the 2021 NLDS.

The Dodgers won 2-1 in as tense and dramatic a contest as we’ve seen all year, one that ended with an inexplicable call from first base umpire Gabe Morales on Wilmer Flores’ check swing. For Los Angeles, it’s a fifth trip to the NLCS in six seasons, a triumph only made sweeter by the circumstances. In vanquishing their rivals, the Dodgers get the last laugh in a brilliantly played season series. Tonight’s game is vindication for Dave Roberts and his lineup choices, redemption for Cody Bellinger, and another line on Hall of Famer Max Scherzer’s remarkable resume. Fans of all stripes were treated to an exquisite contest in nearly every respect.

But like most neutrals, that last pitch is stuck in my craw. With two outs, Kris Bryant on first, and Flores at the plate, Scherzer fired a 1-2 slider. Flores started his swing but appeared to check it well in advance of the imaginary and arbitrary breaking point at which a take (usually!) becomes a swinging strike:

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