In the first game of the ALCS, Yordan Alvarez struck out three times; Jordan Montgomery got him on each of those. He had a plan to contain Alvarez, you see, a glorious plan. Jeff Passan profiled it over at ESPN. Pitching Twitter, a group I mostly count myself as a part of, was in rapture. Throw to the perfect locations! Yordan can’t stand this one simple trick! Could even the fiercest batters be tamed if pitchers could only come up with a good plan?

This plan, by the way, was a great one. Alvarez isn’t bad at any part of hitting, but his eye at the plate is his least-outstanding tool. And while he’s a fearsome power hitter, he’s not equally fearsome regardless of where the ball is pitched. Here’s a chart of his career ISO (on balls in play) based on where he makes contact:

On high-and-tight pitches, he doesn’t fare well, at least compared to the rest of his work. The deep blue section low and away is less important — he usually comes up empty when he swings at those — but either high and tight or low and away look like safe harbor for opposing pitchers. Montgomery pitched to maximize these two weaknesses. He worked his batting eye with curveballs below the zone and used his sinker almost exclusively on the inner edge of the plate:

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Get ready to hear a whole lot about the 2019 World Series. After a 9–2 Rangers victory in Game 6 of the ALCS on Sunday night, the Rangers have evened the series at three and raised the specter that the Astros were hoping would stay buried. Game 7 will take place on Monday night in Houston, unfortunately for Houston. The Astros — the only team ever to lose all four home games in a seven-game series — now have the chance either to exorcise those demons or to relive them all over again. And pitching for Texas in Game 7 will be none other than Max Scherzer, who started Game 7 of the World Series for the Nationals back in 2019.

The Rangers, on the other hand, are looking to make their own history. While the Astros are chasing their third straight World Series appearance, Bruce Bochy’s club is looking to get there for just the third time ever. They’re also hoping to win their first championship. Read the rest of this entry »

On the back of a seven-inning near-shutout from ace Zack Wheeler, three round-trippers, and a Bryce Harper steal of home, the Philadelphia Phillies convincingly beat the Arizona Diamondbacks, 6-1, to push the latter to the brink of oblivion. The Phillies got to Diamondbacks starter Zac Gallen often, scoring two runs in the first, a lead that Arizona never really threatened. The NLCS now heads back to Philadelphia, where the Diamondbacks have to win two games or all that will be left to do is to grab a couple cheesesteaks and a roast pork and fly back home for the winter.

The Phillies got things going quickly with a fun-filled first. The action started with a Kyle Schwarber infield hit and ended with a double steal. Totally Traditional Leadoff Hitter Schwarber’s little dribbler to third against the current iteration of the infield shift was way too far for third baseman Evan Longoria to reach in time, and he legged his way to first. While fans often overestimated the ease with which hitters could magically just go the opposite way during the shift’s heyday — as if that’s so simple against big league pitching — Schwarber actually was fairly good at it. Despite not being quick, even deceptively so, Schwarber ranks 20th since 2015 in groundball hits the opposite way against shifts and shades, with 38 of them in 69 attempts. That .551 BABIP is nearly 100 points above the league average of .460 over the same timeframe! Read the rest of this entry »

This is going to sound harsh right at the start, but here’s the deal. Craig Kimbrel is an objectively good major league pitcher. Alek Thomas is an objectively mediocre major league hitter. I’m not trying to say anything bad about Thomas, to be clear. I think he’s an awesome player, the kind of guy I’d like to have on my team for his impressive defensive ability. But Thomas started the day on the bench, and Kimbrel started the day as the Phillies closer. Neither of them look likely to head back to that role any time soon.

Why? Because after three hours and 14 pitchers, Game 4 of the NLCS came down to a simple matchup. Kimbrel stood on the mound. Lourdes Gurriel Jr. lounged on second base after a double to start the eighth. With a two-run lead, Kimbrel had a simple mission: keep the ball in the ballpark. His opponent? Thomas, who came in to pinch hit for Emmanuel Rivera. Thomas isn’t anyone’s idea of an ace pinch hitter. He compiled a 71 wRC+ this season, which brought his career mark to 72. He came into the game with a 56 wRC+ in the playoffs. The Phillies started a lefty, and it looked like Thomas might spend Friday’s game like he did Thursday’s, hanging out on the bench and then pinch running.

There was just one problem for Philadelphia: Kimbrel didn’t have his curveball. He’s built a Hall of Fame career on two pitches, but the standout is a knuckle curve that seems to tear the fabric of spacetime on its way home. It’s one of those pitches that, when it’s working, can’t be countered. It starts right in the middle of the plate, and then poof, it’s in the dirt while you flail helplessly. But on Friday, none of that was true. The first three curves Kimbrel threw missed badly. The fourth spun invitingly in the zone, and Evan Longoria barely missed it, socking a 96 mph line drive to deep left that landed in Brandon Marsh’s glove. Then Kimbrel missed with two curves to spot Thomas a 2-0 count. Read the rest of this entry »

If you came into Game 5 hoping for a pitchers’ duel between Justin Verlander and Jordan Montgomery, then this was your lucky night, for a while. The two starters traded blows for the first five innings, allowing a solo homer apiece, but otherwise made short work of the opposing lineups. Then the sixth inning rolled around and the narratives entered a tumble dryer. The game featured a little bit of everything: lead changes, defensive plays both great and terrible, bloops, blasts, backspinning bunts, and benches-clearing beanballs. Read the rest of this entry »

The 2023 regular season looked a bit different from previous years. MLB made some significant rule changes back in the spring — adding a pitch clock, limiting defensive shifts and pickoff attempts, and larger bases among them — and those changes, for the most part, had their intended effects. The pitch clock helped shorten the average nine-inning game by nearly half an hour; scoring increased by more than a half a run per game; and with pitchers now under the gun to deliver to the plate and limited in their ability to check on the running game, and with a slightly larger target 90 feet away, baserunners became historically aggressive. Stolen bases jumped from 0.51 per team per game in 2022 to 0.72 in ’23, a more than 40% increase and the highest average per team game since 1997, when there were also about twice as many baserunners caught stealing as there were in 2023. Never in the more than 100 years of available data have teams averaged as many as 0.72 steals per game and as few as 2023’s 0.18 caught per game.

But so far in October, stolen bases have been a relative non-factor, with teams averaging just 0.50 per game in the postseason, lower than last year’s regular-season rate. It’s still higher than last postseason’s rate of 0.43, but well within the pre-rule change range of norms. Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t hate intentional walks the way some people do. Sure, it’s disappointing when a star player doesn’t get a chance to swing in a potentially game-altering situation. It’s especially unfortunate when that star player is targeted for an intentional walk because he lacks protection in the lineup; it sucks that José Ramírez and Shohei Ohtani combined for as many intentional walks as the next four hitters on the leaderboard put together.

That being said, anticlimactic moments are a necessary evil. You can’t have the highs without the lows. No one (besides Kevin Cash) wants to see Corey Seager sent to first with a runner in scoring position, only for Zach Eflin to strike out Robbie Grossman and end the threat. Yet, when the Orioles intentionally walked Seager a few days later, only for Mitch Garver and Adolis García to follow up with a double and a home run, breaking the game open and essentially putting the ALDS out of reach, it was absolutely thrilling. That’s precisely why I’ve always had a soft spot for intentional walks. When a great hitter like Freddie Freeman or Aaron Judge gets a free pass, I get to root for one of his teammates to be the hero and punish the opposing manager for his cowardice.

My passion for intentional walks burns all the brighter in October. The postseason can bring out excessive management from even the most level-headed skippers, and that includes issuing more intentional walks. Perhaps you recall last year when Scott Servais called for Yordan Alvarez to take first with the base already occupied, moving a runner up to second and into scoring position? Or how about when A.J. Hinch (then with the Astros) issued an intentional walk in the World Series after avoiding the strategy entirely all season? If you don’t remember, then you can thank Ben Clemens for writing about each instance in detail. Read the rest of this entry »

For the second night in a row, Houston’s bats came alive, powering the Astros to a 10-3 win in Game 4. The outcome of the game was only briefly in doubt, and by the middle innings, the Rangers had the mop-up crew on the mound to finish things off. With the series now tied at two games, the Astros have at least guaranteed that if they have to make a last stand in the ALCS, it will come back home.

Just over a day ago, the Rangers and their fans had to feel pretty good about where they stood: up two games to none, with Max Scherzer returning to start at home. ZiPS had the series at that point as nearly 80-20 in favor of Texas. The computer wasn’t working against consensus here; the simple truth of the matter is that having to win four of five games against any team is quite tricky. But the latest chapter of the Mad Max saga turned out to be a forgettable direct-to-DVD release, and Thursday night’s game was enough to put the Rangers back at square one in the ALCS.

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With his team down two games to none in the NLCS and practically having been blown off the field by the Phillies on Tuesday night, Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo had his work cut out for him, particularly given that he had little alternative but to send rookie Brandon Pfaadt, he of the 5.72 ERA and 5.18 FIP, to the Chase Field mound for a must-win game. But from the reconfigured lineup to the decision to pull Pfaadt after he’d put up a string of zeroes, just about everything Lovullo set in motion paid off. In a nailbiter, the Diamondbacks won, 2–1, on Ketel Marte’s walk-off single off Craig Kimbrel.

One couldn’t have blamed the Diamondbacks for entering this game in shell shock. Philadelphia put up five runs on ace Zac Gallen in Game 1 before Arizona closed the gap for a respectable 5–3 loss, then wore down Merrill Kelly and teed off on the soft underbelly of the Diamondbacks’ bullpen for a 10–0 rout in Game 2. Beyond the combined 15–3 score, the Phillies out-homered the Diamondbacks, 6–1 — all solo shots but mostly emphatic ones, with four of the six projected at 420 feet or more. They out-hit them convincingly, combining for a .313/.400/.688 line against Arizona’s .129/.167/.194 mark. Phillies pitchers collected 23 strikeouts against only three walks; the Diamondbacks struck out just 10 and walked nine.

With Phillies manager Rob Thomson tabbing lefty Ranger Suárez for the start, Lovullo switched things up, flip-flopping Marte and Corbin Carroll atop the lineup — a sensible move, given that the former posted for a 146 wRC+ against lefties, the latter just a 96. Marte responded by going 3-for-5 with the game-winning hit. Lovullo also moved slugging catcher Gabriel Moreno, another lefty-masher (139 wRC+ against) from fifth to third and started Emmanuel Rivera (92 wRC+ against lefties) at third base, put Evan Longoria at DH, and gave right field to Tommy Pham, who hadn’t played with a glove on since September 22 due to a bout of turf toe. With Pham in right, Carroll moved to center, with Alek Thomas (who hit for just a 12 wRC+ against lefties) on the bench; when Pham singled to start the seventh inning, Thomas pinch-ran and scored the game-tying run. Read the rest of this entry »

When he is right, Cristian Javier is among one of the most difficult pitchers to face in baseball. And his four-seam fastball is a true unicorn: low release point, good ride, flat horizontal approach angle, and good command. While he may have not been dominant in ALCS Game 3, his five called strikes, seven whiffs, and 11 foul balls are enough to say that he had good feel for the pitch. That showed against Evan Carter.

Carter has been a force for the Rangers in these playoffs, and his play earned him a move up to the third spot in the lineup against Javier. But the Astros righty had no issues in their first two matchups of the night, striking him out both times. In the first at-bat, Javier gave Carter a steady dose of heaters, and while the rookie was able to work his way to a 3–2 count, Javier switched up locations on him and dotted a four-seamer on the low and away corner:

You can tell from Carter’s posture and swing that he was fully prepared to stay upright so he could get on top of a high heater. The previous five pitches were at or above the top of the zone, and the best he had done was to foul one off. Javier had no reason to go away from the plan, so he didn’t; Martín Maldonado set up inside to go back to the high heater. But while Javier missed his spot, Carter was fully locked in at the top of the zone, making the pitch a surprise; his body adjustment to get to the low ball happened too late, and he whiffed through it. Sometimes misses go in your favor. Read the rest of this entry »