Cristian Javier had built an impressive postseason resume ahead of Game 7 of the ALCS. Across 12 relief appearances and four starts, he had compiled a 2.08 ERA and 7.5% championship win probability added. His first three starts in the playoffs were particularly impressive; he held the Yankees scoreless on a single hit in last year’s ALCS, was the starting pitcher of the Astros’ combined no-hitter in the World Series, and held the Twins to a single hit in the ALDS this year. His 18 total hits allowed and .123 opponent’s batting average were by far the lowest among any pitcher with more than 40 postseason innings pitched.

With such a strong track record, the Astros had to feel confident handing him the ball on Monday night. But things did not go according to plan, as Javier lasted six batters and recorded just a single out, allowing three runs on four hits and a walk, before getting pulled. It was his worst postseason outing of his career and a big reason why Houston isn’t back in the World Series to defend its championship. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the nice things about the playoffs is that there’s often just one game happening at a time. Don’t get me wrong. I love a summer day with a full slate of 15 games, but you are where your attention is, and there’s too much baseball happening in any one day for us to be present for all of it. When the whole of the baseball world gets compressed down to one high-stakes game, you catch little things that might otherwise have gone unnoticed.

During the NLCS, I noticed a little thing about Kevin Ginkel. It was about how he holds runners on second base, and man, does he hold runners on second base. Here’s the pitch that caught my attention:

Read the rest of this entry »

The World Series. It’s a playoff-capping battle that’s so iconic that other sports and activities borrow its name. The World Series of Poker, of Darts, of Snooker, the FINA Marathon Swim World Series, even briefly the World Series of Country Music Proudly Presents Stock Car Racing’s Entertainers of the Year – these events didn’t pick their name by accident, they’re basking in the glory of a long-running staple. Even as baseball matters less and less, the World Series is a big name on the marquee.

One of the best parts of playoff baseball, at least in my eyes, is that the brightest stage isn’t exclusively the domain of the top couple of teams in the game. Sure, the Dodgers and Astros have been there a lot in the last decade. Sure, the Cardinals and Yankees have a bunch of rings. But baseball is a variance-rich sport, and the playoffs are short. Make the dance and you might end up one of the last few teams standing, even if your squad doesn’t have its own wing in Cooperstown. One obvious example? This year’s clash between the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks.

The Rangers are the closest thing we’re going to get to a postseason standby here. Sure, their last playoff appearance before this run came in 2016, but their roster is packed with playoff heroes. Corey Seager carried the Dodgers to a 2020 title. Max Scherzer seems to always be pitching in win-or-die games. Nathan Eovaldi saved Boston’s bacon in 2018 and has made a career out of coming up big in important spots. Will Smith pitched for the last two World Series winners (seriously!). Aroldis Chapman isn’t what he once was, but at his peak, he was a key figure in breaking the century-long Cubs curse. Their manager is Bruce Freaking Bochy, an October legend who has never lost a Game 7. The Rangers as a franchise might not be a World Series name brand – their trips to the Fall Classic in 2010 and 2011 ended in losses — but the ingredients are no different than what you’d expect to get in the luxury aisle. Read the rest of this entry »

Writing about playoff trends is risky business. The entire postseason, to this point, comprises 36 individual games. In the regular season, the league hit the 36-game mark on April 2. If you looked at the stolen base success rate that early into the season — 88% through those first 36 games — you’d have thought we were in for an absolute free-for-all under the new rules. Writing about individual players is even more dangerous. The most that anyone has played in this postseason is 13 games; 13 games into his season, Matt Chapman led the majors in WAR. Jorge López hadn’t given up an earned run. No one on the Rays knew what it felt like to lose a game. Mookie Betts had a 13-game stretch in mid-April where he slashed .184/.298/.306. Shohei Ohtani had a .538 OPS over 13 games in mid-May.

Nevertheless, we can’t not write about the postseason. It’s the postseason! The sample size will always be small, but we must try to make sense of it anyway, to find meaning in the small sample weirdness. And on that note, it’s time to talk about Marcus Semien. Read the rest of this entry »

As I’ve done for the past few years, I’m going to be grading each eliminated postseason manager on their decision-making. We spend the year mostly ignoring managers’ on-field contributions, because to be honest, they’re pretty small. Using the wrong reliever in the eighth inning just doesn’t feel that bad on June 22; there are so many more games still coming, and the regular season is more about managing the grind than getting every possible edge every day. The playoffs aren’t like that; with so few games to separate wheat from chaff, every last ounce of win probability matters, and managers make personnel decisions accordingly. What better time to grade them?

My goal is to evaluate each manager in terms of process, not results. If you bring in your best pitcher to face their best hitter in a huge spot, that’s a good decision regardless of outcome. Try a triple steal with the bases loaded only to have the other team make four throwing errors to score three runs? I’m probably going to call that a blunder even though it worked out. Managers do plenty of other things — getting team buy-in for new strategies and unconventional bullpen usage behind closed doors is a skill I find particularly valuable — but as I have no insight into how that’s accomplished or how each manager differs, I can’t exactly assign grades for it.

I’m also purposefully avoiding vague qualitative concerns like “trusting your veterans because they’ve been there before.” Playoff coverage lovingly focuses on clutch plays by proven performers, but Adolis García and Alek Thomas have been great, too. Forget trusting your veterans; the playoffs are about trusting your best players. Corey Seager is important because he’s great, not because of the number of playoff series he’s appeared in. There’s nothing inherently good about having been around a long time; when I’m evaluating decisions, “but he’s a veteran” just doesn’t enter my thought process.

One note: In the pitching section, I’m taking a more specific look at reliever matchups. This 2022 Cameron Grove study, which I’ve mentioned in a few prior report cards, measures a repeat-matchup reliever penalty. A forthcoming article, which I’ve reviewed, examines the issue without focusing on specific matchups, but rather looking at relievers pitching on back-to-back days or on short rest after heavy workloads. Both of these things are, unsurprisingly, bad for reliever performance. Managing the balance between starter and reliever over-work is really hard. I probably haven’t given enough credit to the necessity of balancing bullpen workloads against particular opposing batters in the past, but I’ll make a note of it going forward.

I’ve already covered the losing managers of the Wild Card round and the various division series eliminations. Today, it’s Dusty Baker’s turn. Read the rest of this entry »

When they acquired him from the Mets on July 30, the Rangers may have envisioned Max Scherzer starting Game 7 of a postseason series, but probably not under the circumstances that led to the decisive game of the ALCS against the Astros, or the early exit that followed. While Texas won in decisive fashion, the 39-year-old righty was quite shaky for the second outing in a row, and far from peak form. In context, that’s hardly a surprise given that his two ALCS starts were his first ones since being sidelined by an arm injury five weeks earlier. As the Rangers await their World Series matchup with the Diamondbacks, his performances are worth a closer look.

Scherzer left his September 12 start against the Blue Jays after 5.1 shutout innings but just 72 pitches due to what was initially termed a triceps spasm but soon revealed to be a low-grade strain of the teres major, a muscle that sits above the latissimus dorsi and attaches the scapula (shoulder blade) to the humerus (upper arm bone). At the time, Rangers general manager Chris Young was publicly pessimistic about the possibility of Scherzer pitching in the postseason if the Rangers made it, given an expected four-to-six week recovery period. “I don’t want to rule it out at this point,” he told reporters. “We’ll see where the next two weeks go and how he’s feeling. That said, it’s probably unlikely.”

Schezer didn’t pitch again in September, but he was able to play catch within a week of his injury, opening up the possibility of a return on the near side of that timeframe. While he progressed far enough to throw nearly 40 pitches in a simulated game on October 6, the Rangers left him off the Division Series roster they submitted the next day; they hardly missed him while upending the 101-win Orioles. By advancing to the ALCS, they bought Scherzer time for another simulated game before he took the ball in Game 3 on October 18 at Globe Life Field, with the team having already jumped out to a 2–0 series lead.

Understandably, Scherzer was raring to go, and he came out firing, throwing a 95-mph fastball on his first pitch to Jose Altuve, albeit slightly off the plate and outside for ball one. Working mostly around the edges of the strike zone, he sped through the inning on just eight pitches but needed nearly all of the warning track for center fielder Leody Taveras to haul in Altuve’s 100.7-mph fly ball 393 feet away from home. He struck out Michael Brantley on three pitches, the last a low-and-away curve that Brantley chased, then got Alex Bregman to fly to Taveras on a 95.7-mph fly to deep right center.

The second inning didn’t go nearly as well, and whatever Willis Reed effect Scherzer’s return might have produced quickly wore off. Over the course of 22 pitches, he hit Yordan Alvarez in the leg; struck out José Abreu looking at a 95.2-mph fastball; walked Kyle Tucker; gave up a 104.8 mph single to Mauricio Dubón on a slider at the bottom of the zone; induced Jeremy Peña to pop up; threw a wild pitch that scored Alvarez; and finally yielded a two-run single to Martín Maldonado, 101.1 mph off the bat. Fortunately for Scherzer, the slow-footed catcher was thrown out trying to advance to second base following a throw home, but for the first time in the series, the Rangers trailed.

The Astros continued to add to their lead, with Altuve leading off the third with a solo homer off a high fastball and Abreu leading off the fourth with a 112.5-mph double off a hanging slider, then coming around to score on a single by Dubón. Even while closing out his evening by striking out Peña (chasing a low curve) and Maldonado (looking at a slider on the inside corner), Scherzer had allowed five runs in four frames. He struck out four and walked only one, and while he did generate a 35% called strike and walk rate (CSW%) via eight whiffs and 14 called strikes, nine of the 12 batted balls he surrendered were hard-hit balls of 95 mph or higher, and all five hits were 101 mph or higher. Houston rockets, indeed.

Down 5–0 when Scherzer departed, the Rangers made a game of it, but lost 8–5. The Astros clawed their way back into the series, and Scherzer got the call again on Monday night. The potent Rangers offense staked him to a 3–0 lead before he even took the mound, but things didn’t go much better than in his first start; in fact, Altuve blasted his first pitch, a 93.7-mph high fastball, off the out-of-town scoreboard in left field for a ringing double. Bregman grounded out, and after Alvarez was intentionally walked, Abreu scorched a low slider down the left field line for an RBI single; all three balls were 99.9 mph off the bat or higher, if not necessarily elevated. Scherzer escaped by getting Brantley to hit into a routine 4-6-3 double play, a grounder that came off the bat at a comparatively pokey 88.3 mph. Though he was obviously on thin ice, by his own admission he kept his composure better than in Game 3, and that DP produced the game’s highest WPA (.116).

After a comparatively smooth second inning capped by another pair of back-to-back strikeouts of Peña (high 95.3-mph fastball) and Maldonado (chasing a slider in the dirt), then an Altuve groundout to start the third, Scherzer served up a middle-middle fastball to Bregman, who mashed it for a homer to left center, cutting the score to 4–2. Seven pitches later, including five straight foul balls, Alvarez reached out and drove a curveball that was well off the plate off the scoreboard for a triple. While third baseman Josh Jung’s play on an Abreu chopper prevented Alvarez from coming home, manager Bruce Bochy tabbed Jordan Montgomery — working on two days of rest — to finish the inning, which he did by getting Brantley to line out. The Rangers then broke things open with a four-run fourth inning; Montgomery added an additional two innings before Bochy turned things over to his late-inning guys, who shut the door for an 11–4 win.

For the outing, Scherzer walked two and struck out two, getting just six whiffs and four called strikes for a 23% CSW%. Six of the 10 batted balls he allowed were hit 95 mph or harder, including all four hits. All told, in his two outings he allowed seven runs via nine hits and two homers in 6.2 innings, that on the heels of an inconsistent season in which he posted his highest ERA since 2011 and the highest FIP of his 16-year career:

Batters have hit Scherzer exceptionally hard, with his xERA (which I estimated by interpolating his .395 xwOBA via the Statcast leaderboard) more than double his regular-season mark:

Via Baseball Savant, Scherzer’s .333 batting average allowed is 60 points ahead of his xBA, and his .704 slugging percentage allowed is 120 points ahead of his xSLG, but even those expected numbers yield an xERA that could be mistaken for a Boeing model.

Pitchwise, Scherzer is mustering slightly greater velocity than during the regular season, knowing he won’t have to pace himself for 90 or 100 pitches. But for the most part, his offerings are getting less spin — and here it’s worth noting that he drew a sticky stuff suspension in April — and less movement:

Those spec changes are a mixed bag. By Stuff+, for which we actually have postseason numbers to compare to his regular-season ones (which isn’t the case for PitchingBot), Scherzer’s fastball grades out out as slightly improved thanks to the velo uptick. Likewise for his cutter and change, though both have been used much less often:

The problem is that Scherzer’s breaking pitches and overall location have been worse, and while Stuff+ doesn’t account for contact, you’ve seen the damage. Broken out by pitch type, batters are connecting at averages of 94.6 mph or higher on all of them. Against the fastball, they’ve averaged 94.9 mph on the 14 they’ve connected with, for a .385 AVG and .923 SLG, and against the 12 breaking pitches they’ve made contact with, it’s .333 AVG/.583 SLG. Those two classifications account for 86% of his pitches and 87% of his contact, compared to 76% of the former and 70% of the latter. Basically, I think, he’s shortened his arsenal, becoming more predictable and less precise, and while he’s fooled some hitters some of the time, he’s paid a steep price when he hasn’t.

All of this is reading into a limited sample of data, and it’s worth noting that he faced the Astros four times between the regular season and the postseason, which may have helped them crack his codes. As a Met, he threw eight innings of one-run ball in an 11–1 rout on June 19, but he was thumped for seven runs — three via homers by Alvarez, Brantley, and Abreu, the last a grand slam — in three innings in a 12–3 loss on September 6 with the Rangers. Scherzer did face the Diamondbacks once, on July 4, surrendering four runs in six innings, three by solo homers to Corbin Carroll, Christian Walker, and Lourdes Gurriel Jr., the last two of which were back-to-back. Those two outings accounted for two of the four times he served up three or more homers in a start this year.

With Montgomery and Nathan Eovaldi likely to start the first two games of the World Series, Scherzer should have six or seven days between starts, giving him more time to rebuild strength and make adjustments. “You’re always tinkering with stuff. You’re always making little adjustments and trying to find different stuff,” he said before his first start of the ALCS. Perhaps he can summon better results and give his season a storybook ending after all.

PHILADELPHIA – “A lot of people don’t believe in us,” Diamondbacks infielder Geraldo Perdomo said before Game 7 of the NLCS. “I think that’s why we play with the patience we’re playing with right now, to prove to everyone we can do it.”

“Nobody believed in us” is such a hackneyed trope in sports motivation, one that’s been co-opted over and over by teams that everyone believed in. But Perdomo was absolutely right to invoke it; the Diamondbacks were the lowest seed in this year’s playoffs, and before that a dark horse to make the postseason at all. They were under .500 in August, for goodness’ sake. Manager Torey Lovullo was asked after Game 7 if, in mid-August, he thought he’d be in this situation now. “To be totally honest, no,” he said.

But here they are. They took two must-win games against the defending National League champions in one of the most hostile environments in baseball, the latest by a score of 4-2. And now the Diamondbacks, pennant in hand, are off for Texas and a shot at the second World Series title in club history. Read the rest of this entry »

Baseball games don’t have a single protagonist. Baseball series don’t have a single protagonist either. The vagaries of a nine-man lineup, four-man rotation, and eight-man bullpen mean that the most important moments of a series feature semi-random matchups. Bryce Harper doesn’t get to bring the ball up, call for an isolation, and try to hit a game-tying home run. You can’t game plan a high-leverage at-bat for your star. It’s just probability; the big moments can’t possibly find the same guy every time, which is what makes baseball such a team sport.

Okay, now that I’ve said that: This game was Adolis García’s game, and this series was his series. He’s been at the center of everything ever since the start of the ALCS, but particularly for the past three games. First, Bryan Abreu hit him with a pitch that emptied the benches in Game 5 and eventually led to a memorable Astros comeback from García’s own three-run homer. He came back on Sunday determined to extract vengeance, and eventually succeeded. He took 16 swings at 22 pitches, first racking up four strikeouts but then hitting a majestic, game-breaking grand slam. On Monday, he was right in the middle of things again.

In the first inning, García stepped into Cristian Javier’s nightmare: Corey Seager demolished a high fastball for a 1-0 lead, Evan Carter walked and stole second, and García was at the plate threatening to break the game open before the Astros even batted. Javier threw him a fastball roughly six inches above the top of the strike zone. But García was up there to swing, not take, and he smashed a single off the face of the left field wall to score Carter. It was more of a double and a running error if I’m being honest; García, intent on celebrating his success against the Astros to the fullest, took a leisurely look at the rapidly receding baseball before he realized it wouldn’t leave the park. He scurried to first at half speed, chagrined, before stealing second immediately. Read the rest of this entry »

PHILADELPHIA — In the franchise’s biggest game in 22 years, the Diamondbacks played their best game of the NLCS. They finally did serious damage against the Phillies’ rotation, tagging Aaron Nola for four runs in five innings. Merrill Kelly navigated a rough opening stretch and grew stronger as the game grew on, holding Philadelphia to a single run in five innings of his own.

The Diamondbacks’ 5–1 win pushes this series to a Game 7, the first in franchise history for the Phillies, a club that’s been around longer than 12 U.S. states. It also raises a new set of questions: Can Brandon Pfaadt recreate his series-changing Game 3 magic? Can the Phillies right the ship offensively after a dud of a performance in an essential game? And the aliens who abducted Nola before the second inning: Who are they? Where did they come from? And what do they want? Read the rest of this entry »

The home run that Kyle Schwarber hit off Zac Gallen in the sixth inning of Game 5 of the National League Championship Series wasn’t his biggest of this year’s postseason, unless we’re talking strictly about distance. Like most of Schwarber’s homers, the 461-foot shot was a sight to behold as well as one of the biggest plays of a game that pushed the Phillies to within a win of a return trip to the World Series. With it, the legend of the 30-year-old slugger’s already impressive body of postseason work — which has been aided by his taking trips to the playoffs in eight of his nine seasons — grew even larger.

Schwarber had already helped the Phillies jump ahead of Gallen and the Diamondbacks on Saturday with perhaps his least impressive hit of the postseason. Leading off the first inning, he hit a 30-mph dribbler to third base, then came around to score via singles by Bryce Harper and Bryson Stott; Harper added another run by stealing home on the front end of a delayed double-steal. The score was still 2-0 when Schwarber came up in the top of the sixth. Gallen hung a 2-0 curveball right in the middle of the zone and Schwarber annihilated it:

If you’re wondering about distance — and with a blast like that, who wouldn’t? — that was the fifth-longest postseason homer of the Statcast era. Schwarber owns the second-longest as well, via a 488-footer from last year’s NLCS opener, which trails only a 491-footer by Willson Contreras in Game 4 of the 2017 NLCS. Read the rest of this entry »