In Game 6 of the ALCS, en route to clinching the American League pennant for the third time in five years, the Astros received quite the start from Luis Garcia. As a team hampered by rotation issues, issues only accentuated by the injury to Lance McCullers Jr. in the ALDS, Houston needed someone other than Framber Valdez to step up and perform. Non-Valdez starters had recorded just 12 measly outs in Games 2 through 4; in retrospect, the Astros were probably lucky to have come away with even one of those games.

After a brilliant Valdez start to put Houston up three-games-to-two, it was once again Garcia’s turn to get the ball. The team’s No. 3 starter during the regular season, he had been productive all year but exited Game 2 of the ALCS with an injury; Garcia’s fastball velocity in his second inning of work was down almost 4 mph relative to his first inning mark. On Friday, though, the script was completely flipped: Garcia was airing it out. After only throwing one 97 mph pitch the entire regular season, he recorded eight against Boston. His 5 2/3 shutout innings, allowing just one hit and one walk, made him the most valuable Houston player of the evening, with a +.308 WPA. That type of performance is a necessity if the Astros want to triumph over the Braves and win the World Series.

In the midst of his excellent outing, there was a lot of oohing and aahing over Garcia’s velocity. As ESPN’s Jeff Passan tweeted during the game, Garcia’s stuff was “ticking way, way, way up.” For those counting at home, that’s three “way”s, and deservedly so. Garcia threw the five fastest pitches of his career in Game 6; he has thrown the eight fastest pitches of his career all in the postseason (seven in Game 6, one against the Rays last year). The righty averaged just 93.3 mph on his four-seamer during the regular season, but in Game 6, he averaged 96.0. That average fastball velocity was 1.4 mph faster than his highest average in any other outing this season (94.6 mph, April 12). He was amped up. Read the rest of this entry »

The Fall Classic is here, the 117th World Series, which will end with the Commissioner’s Trophy and a stage with room for just one victorious organization. Two supremely talented teams are at the end of an eight-month gauntlet — one that began with the singular, casual, quiet pop of catchers’ mitts in Florida and will end in a pressure cooker, with screaming masses and the attention of the sports world, as the AL champion Astros, in their third World Series of the last five years, will face the NL champion Braves in their first since 1999.

It’s been a mixed, inconsistent decade for Atlanta in the post-Bobby Cox era. The franchise’s 15-year reign over the NL East, which it won every year from 1991 to 2005 except for the strike-shortened ‘94 season, holds a unique place in the baseball culture. Anyone over 30 saw most of it unfold every day on cable if they wanted to — my ex-brother-in-law grew up in Pennsylvania with Andres Galarraga’s number painted in Wite-Out on his fitted cap — thanks to the club’s presence on TBS. The Braves’ 22-year World Series drought hasn’t been entirely hapless, and they have had stretches of contention, making the next six postseasons after their ’99 sweep at the hands of the Yankees, even as some of that core aged and/or moved on. Fittingly enough, the final two seasons of their division champions streak ended with postseason losses to the Astros, in both the 2004 (Carlos Beltran’s Godtober) and ’05 (Clemens, Oswalt, Pettitte) NLDS; so too did their tenure on TBS, which concluded with a 3–0 loss in Houston at the end of the 2007 regular season.

Then came, relatively speaking, a swoon. The Freddie Freeman/Brian McCann/Jason Heyward/Andrelton Simmons core drove the Braves to four consecutive 89-win or better seasons from 2010 to ’14, but that group won just two postseason games during that stretch. It was during this time period that Cox retired and a brief descent to the bottom of the division began. The arrival of the current core (Ozzie Albies, Dansby Swanson, Ronald Acuña Jr., etc.) has put them back on top of the NL East for the last four years, and they’ve slowly crept deeper and deeper into the postseason, culminating in this year’s pennant.

Those Astros postseason victories in 2004 and ’05 marked the tail end of Houston’s “Killer B’s” era, dominated by Craig Biggio, Jeff Bagwell, Lance Berkman, and others (Billy Wagner, Moises Alou, Octavio Dotel… these teams were absolutely stacked). Houston finished over .500 ten times in eleven years before losing the NLCS to Albert Pujols and the Cardinals in ’04 and the World Series to the White Sox in ’05 and slowly beginning a fall from grace, both on and off the field. Jeff Luhnow was hired away from the Cardinals front office to helm an intense rebuild that included three consecutive 100-loss seasons, and the draft picks from that stretch produced Carlos Correa, Lance McCullers Jr., Kyle Tucker, and Alex Bregman … as well as the Brady Aiken controversy that would pale in comparison to what lay ahead for the franchise.

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For much of this postseason, the main storyline for the Los Angeles Dodgers has been a pitching staff that’s been stretched to its limit, but that focus neglects the fact that the Dodgers have also struggled to hit like they did earlier in the year. Entering Game 5 of the NLCS, they’d scored just 3.5 runs per game in their 10 previous playoff tilts. They were shutout twice by the Giants, and held to fewer than four runs four other times. It was an uncharacteristic slump for what had been one of the National League’s most potent lineups during the regular season. As a team, they were hitting just .231/.303/.356 (.286 wOBA) in October, a far cry from their .251/.339/.446 (.337 wOBA) regular season effort.

With their season hanging in the balance, the Dodgers bats finally came alive on Thursday night. They collected 17 hits against the Atlanta Braves — every position player in the lineup collected at least one hit except for Will Smith — and pushed 11 runs across the plate to force a Game 6 in Atlanta this weekend. This was the Dodgers’ seventh straight postseason win while facing elimination, the third longest streak in baseball history.

The hero of the game was undoubtedly Chris Taylor. He started his night by blasting a two-run home run off a center-cut fastball from Max Fried to give the Dodgers a 3-2 lead in the second inning — a lead they wouldn’t relinquish for the remainder of the night. In the third with runners on the corners, Taylor blooped a single into center for his second hit and third RBI of the game. He hit his second home run in the fifth inning, another two-run shot off Chris Martin, who had just entered the game in relief of Fried. Taylor came up again in the seventh inning with the bases empty and deposited a pitch into the left-center field bleachers — his third homer of the game and sixth RBI. His final at-bat came in the eighth and he came close to a fourth home run when he lined a hanging curveball down the left field line; it curved foul and he ended up striking out to end the inning:

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As bullpen cogs go, Tyler Matzek has been an indispensable one for the Braves in each of the past two seasons, helping them win back-to-back NL East titles and get within one win of the World Series — and this time around, perhaps to outdo that. The 31-year-old lefty has become the Braves’ “Everyday Eddie” in October, pitching in all eight of the team’s postseason games thus far and generally dominating. His performance has been all the more impressive given his backstory, an odyssey that took him from being the Rockies’ first-round pick in 2009 to taking leave from the team six years later due to performance anxiety issues to pitching for an indy-league team called the Texas Airhogs before returning to the majors.

So far this October, Matzek has pitched a total of 8.1 innings, nearly all of them high-leverage, for a unit that has delivered a postseason-best 2.60 ERA in 34.2 innings — 10 fewer than any of the other three remaining teams, if you’re looking for a commentary on the stability of the Braves’ rotation relative to those of the Dodgers, Astros, and Red Sox. The starters’ comparatively strong performance (2.55 ERA, 3.25 FIP, and five or more innings five times) has allowed manager Brian Snitker to line up his bullpen to best effect, and that’s generally meant calling upon Matzek and righty Luke Jackson ahead of lefty closer Will Smith late in the game. After the Braves’ 9-2 victory over the Dodgers on Wednesday night, during which Matzek pitched a scoreless, 14-pitch eighth inning when the margin was still just three runs, Snitker gushed, “Our bullpen guys… all they do is answer the phone and get ready. And I ride them. I told them all they got saddle cinches on their sides because I have tightened that thing so hard riding them. They have done a great job.”

In his 8.1 innings, Matzek has allowed four hits, four walks, and two runs while striking out 13 (39.3%) on the strength of his fastball/slider combination. The runs and two of the walks came in Game 2 of the NLCS against the Dodgers, and they weren’t entirely his fault. Summoned in the sixth inning of a 2-2 game — the earliest he’s entered any of this year’s postseason games — he struck out Albert Pujols with two outs and a runner on third, then returned to pitch the seventh where he lost a 10-pitch battle to Mookie Betts, whom he walked before striking out both Corey Seager and Trea Turner on three pitches apiece. During Seager’s plate appearance, Betts stole second, so Snitker ordered Matzek to walk Will Smith (the Dodgers’ catcher, not the Braves’ closer) and then called upon Jackson. The intentional walk backfired, as Jackson hit Justin Turner with a pitch to load the bases, and then served up a two-run double to Chris Taylor, giving the Dodgers a 4-2 lead and charging the runs to Matzek’s room. The Braves would come back to tie the game after Dave Roberts‘ ill-fated and puzzling decision to use Julio Urías to pitch the eighth inning, and to win in the ninth via Eddie Rosario’s walk-off single off Kenley Jansen. Read the rest of this entry »

Ian Anderson had a rough go of first innings this year. In 24 games, he compiled a 6.38 ERA, and this isn’t some case of a pile of seeing-eye singles doing him in. He allowed 2.3 home runs per nine innings, walked 14.2% of the batters he faced, and generally let the offense do what they wanted. His numbers worked out to a 5.29 FIP, which hardly seems like a fair representation of his skill. In every other inning he pitched this year, he was comparatively excellent: 0.9 home runs per nine, an 8.8% walk rate, and sterling run prevention numbers (2.93 ERA, 3.71 FIP).

I hate to use the word “narrative” because it’s mostly a lazy baseball writer crutch, but it’s unavoidable here: the narrative that Anderson is vulnerable in the first inning and bulletproof afterwards has been omnipresent in his playoff starts. When he gave up a first-inning home run to Corey Seager in Game 2 of the NLCS, it was something obvious to point to. First inning? Must just be Anderson’s unique flaw, a magic spell that makes him terrible until he gets a chance to grab some sweet dugout pine.

If you can’t tell from the way I’ve described it, I’m skeptical. Splits like that feel too hand-wavy, too post hoc ergo propter hoc, if you’re into being pretentious like I am. Every pitcher has to be worst in some inning, by sheer chance alone, even if their true talent never wavers. If I had my druthers, I’d just ignore the whole thing and go back to watching dugout celebrations. But because the first inning is the first, rather than the third or the sixth or any other random number, I thought I’d do an investigation into how much we should believe it. Read the rest of this entry »

After watching Dodgers manager Dave Roberts make 21 pitching changes in the first three games of the National League Championship Series, Wednesday night was Braves manager Brian Snitker’s turn, with Game 4 a planned bullpen game for Atlanta.

Snitker’s first pitching change of the game actually came in the afternoon, when planned starter Huascar Ynoa reported a shoulder issue before on-field warmups began. Even with the game already announced as a ‘pen effort, realistically, Snitker was hoping for Ynoa to go once through the order. Instead, he had to turn to Jesse Chavez, who threw 16 less-than-great pitches the night before during the eighth-inning rally that gave the Dodgers their first win of the series.

Roberts, meanwhile, went with a traditional starter in Julio Urías, but after coming out of the ‘pen in Game 2, it was hard to expect the left-hander to go deep in this one. But with a bullpen game of his own scheduled for Game 5, Roberts’ hand was forced, making seven pitching changes — his series average entering the night — untenable. Urías was going to have to stay in this game for a while. In the end, “a while” meant five innings and they weren’t an especially sharp five, as the Braves whittled away at the Dodgers starter for five runs, cruising to a 9-2 victory to take a commanding three-games-to-one lead in the series. Read the rest of this entry »

A year ago, the Red Sox were coming off an embarrassing face-plant of a season. They finished 24-36, missed the playoffs for the second straight year, and could only watch as Mookie Betts, the transcendent, homegrown superstar they had traded in February 2020, led the Dodgers to their first championship today in 29 years. Today, the retooled Red Sox are two wins away from another trip to the World Series thanks in part to Alex Verdugo, the most major league-ready of the three players they acquired for Betts in a deal that required restructuring — a trade at least somewhat vindicated by the team’s success thus far, whether or not they close out the ALCS, but one that still raises nettlesome issues about the way a marquee franchise has chosen to operate. Meanwhile, Betts has helped to position the Dodgers for a shot at returning to the World Series, and on Tuesday capped a four-run eighth-inning rally with an RBI double that put the Dodgers ahead to stay and enabled them to avoid a nearly-insurmountable three-games-to-none hole in the NLCS against the Braves.

Twenty months removed from one of the biggest blockbusters in recent memory, the trade continues to cast a long shadow over the postseason with the play of both Betts and Verdugo, the latter of whom has hit .324/.390/.486 in 37 PA for the Red Sox. Verdugo’s 138 wRC+ this October is fifth on the team behind the impossibly hot Kiké Hernández (269), J.D. Martinez (216), Rafael Devers (174), and Xander Bogaerts (166). Most notably, the Red Sox left fielder drove in the final three of Boston’s six runs in the AL Wild Card game against the Yankees via an RBI double and a two-run single, and plated two of Boston’s first four runs in their 14-6 Division Series Game 2 win over the Rays with a first-inning RBI single and a third-inning solo homer. He later made an over-the-wall snag of a Nelson Cruz foul ball and singled and scored the team’s ninth run.

Thus far in the ALCS against the Astros, Verdugo has gone 4-for-14 with three walks and two runs scored. On Monday, his one-out second-inning walk against José Urquidy turned into the first of the Red Sox’s six runs in the inning. In Tuesday’s loss, he finally went hitless, breaking an eight-game streak. Read the rest of this entry »

In a postseason defined by pitcher usage, Game 3 of the NLCS between the Braves and the Dodgers was supposed to be the exception. We weren’t going to see each team use seven relievers (and maybe even some starters) out of the bullpen, and certainly not with Charlie Morton and Walker Buehler starting. Both had gone at least six innings in their first playoff starts, and while each delivered fewer than five in their followups, those came on three days rest; this game provided double that. On a sunny afternoon in Los Angeles, both teams likely expected a minimum of 15 outs from each, with a hope for 18 or maybe more. It all felt very old school.

By the end of the first inning, all of those expectations were dashed. And by the end of the ninth, the Dodgers had pulled off a dramatic 6–5 comeback victory that quite possibly saved their season.

The game diverged from the narrative within the first few minutes, with back-to-back singles against the shift by Eddie Rosario and Freddie Freeman. Things temporarily went back to normal when Ozzie Albies hit a line drive to center fielder Gavin Lux that carried more than Rosario thought it would, with Lux catching it and quickly firing to second base for a crushing double play. A strikeout of Austin Riley got Buehler out of the jam, and he escaped it with just 13 total pitches; the pitcher’s duel was still on.

Morton failed to keep his part of the bargain in the bottom half of the frame, walking Mookie Betts and giving up a mammoth home run to Corey Seager on a curveball. In a rare occurrence, the veteran righty got around on the pitch, losing downward bite and instead delivering a horizontal spinner that broke into Seager’s bat at the top of zone. One swing, 109 mph and 444 feet later, the Dodgers had an early 2–0 lead thanks to the first Morton breaking ball hit for a homer in his lengthy postseason career.

The home run pitch to Seager was a harbinger of things to come. Just when it looked like Morton had rebounded with two quick outs, his ability to harness his big-moving stuff abandoned him, as he began to yank both his fastball and off-speed pitches to both sides of the plate, leading to three straight walks to load the bases. A Chris Taylor flair to Dansby Swanson ended an inning that could have been much worse, but the damage was done, both on the scoreboard and to Morton’s pitch count, now at a massive 34. Even if he could find his command and pitch efficiency once again, getting a long start out of him on the day before a planned bullpen game quickly looked like a pipe dream.

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Through two games of the NLCS, Freddie Freeman has been a complete non-factor for the Braves, making it that much more surprising that they’re just two wins away from the World Series. In eight trips to the plate, he has no hits and seven strikeouts; his 0-for-4 with four strikeouts in Game 1 made him Atlanta’s least-valuable hitter by win probability added, at -.148. At least in Game 2, with another 0-for-4 (this time with three punchouts), he was only Atlanta’s second-least valuable hitter by WPA at -.151.

The postseason forces us to look at tiny samples, but Freeman striking out in seven consecutive plate appearances tied his career high. Adding to the improbability of it all, he has struck out three or more times in one game in just 19 of the 639 he’s played with three or more plate appearances since the start of 2017. For context, Joey Gallo (21), Javier Báez (21), Randy Arozarena (21), and Matt Chapman (20) had more three-plus-strikeout games this season.

For what it’s worth, Freeman isn’t at the top of the league in avoiding the three-strikeout game, even if it is indeed rare for him. Among the 285 players with at least 250 three-plate appearance games since the beginning of 2017, his three-strikeout game rate of 3.0% ranks 101st. Two players, Jonathan Lucroy and Eduardo Núñez, did not have any three-strikeout games in this stretch, and another six had just one. While he’s above the median in this stat, Freeman isn’t a player who will avoid the strikeout entirely; after all, he has struck out in 17.4% of his plate appearances in the last five years, a figure that’s better than the league average but not among the lowest rates in the game.

But seven strikeouts in two games? This isn’t Gallo here; it’s still absurd for Freeman to strike out this much in such a short span. Only twice in his career has he struck out at least three times in back-to-back games, and he’s struck out in seven consecutive plate appearances just two times before as well. Let’s break down how Dodgers pitching has done it so far. 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 »