In Game 2 of the ALCS, Max Scherzer was utterly dominating, striking out 13 of the 25 Red Sox batters he faced. Despite all the strikeouts, he managed to get through seven innings on just 108 pitches, mixing in some efficiency with his ability to avoid contact. The Tigers held a 5-1 lead when Scherzer was replaced to start the top of the 8th inning; by the time the inning was over, the game was tied, and the Red Sox won in the bottom of the 9th to tie the series at 1-1.

On Saturday night, Scherzer was again very good, but not quite as dominating as his first outing. He struck out 8 of the 27 batters he faced, but struggled with his command at times, issuing five walks in the process. His last walk was the last batter he would face in 2013, as a free pass to Xander Bogaerts put runners at 1st and 2nd with only one out, and clinging to a 2-1 lead, Jim Leyland opted to replace Scherzer with Drew Smyly to go after the left-handed hitting Jacoby Ellsbury. Ellsbury would reach on an error, and then Shane Victorino hit the grand slam, and the ALCS was over.

Twice, Max Scherzer was removed from the game with the Tigers having the lead. Twice, Tigers relievers coughed up the lead by giving up a grand slam. Had the Tigers bullpen protected those leads, they very likely would be playing St. Louis for the World Series title, but instead, they have to sit at home and wonder what could have been. And it’s easy to wonder whether Scherzer could have done better than his bullpen had he been entrusted to pitch just a little bit longer.

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Like many relievers, Koji Uehara basically throws something fast, and something offspeed. Unlike many relievers, Uehara doesn’t really throw a breaking ball. He throws a pitch that breaks — every pitch breaks — but you don’t look for him to throw a slider or a curveball. After Saturday’s ALCS Game 6, when Uehara was all the rage, someone on FOX asked Boston manager John Farrell if Uehara had  thrown a curve before. Farrell said his closer thew one once and hit a guy; he hadn’t thrown a curveball since. Everything else was fastballs and splitters, and because of those pitches — and because of Uehara’s command of them — he didn’t need anything else on the way to one of the greatest relief seasons in recent history. You could say Uehara’s third pitch is location. That wouldn’t make sense, but people would know what you meant.

I decided to fact-check Farrell’s remark. At least, I think it was Farrell, but it doesn’t matter in this instance. Uehara did throw a curveball this season. According to Brooks Baseball, it was one of the least frequent pitches in the league, like Kris Medlen‘s slider, or Mark Melancon’s changeup. But it did exist. Just not exactly as Farrell remembered it. In fact, this past season, Koji Uehara threw three curveballs. These are their stories.

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Astute readers with the internet access necessary to read this article are probably aware that the Boston Red Sox will be meeting the St. Louis Cardinals in the 2013 World Series. They are also probably aware that it was Shane Victorino who played hero for Boston, delivering a game winning grand slam in the seventh inning. Before Victorino’s home run, it was a bit touch and go for the Sox.

The Tigers threatened a monster of a rally in the top of the sixth. With no outs, two runs already plated and runners on first and third, Jhonny Peralta grounded out into an…interesting…double play. Dustin Pedroia tagged Victor Martinez on his way to second before throwing home. Prince Fielder – caught in a rundown – desperately tried to make it back to third. He fell short.

Still, the Tigers did take a 2-1 lead in the inning. Between Max Scherzer and a strong bullpen, the Tigers must have felt good about their roughly 80 percent chance to win.

The Sox weaseled their way out of a second potential rally in the seventh. Austin Jackson singled with one out but was promptly picked off. Jose Iglesias followed with a hit and Torii Hunter reached base on an error. Unfortunately for the Tigers, the shell of Miguel Cabrera grounded out to end the inning. With the Tigers out of it, we’ll be left to wonder if things would have been different with a healthy Cabrera. And there’s no doubt that plenty of analysts will second guess Jim Leyland’s decision to continue to play Cabrera through injury for most of the season.

Having handled two potential rallies while keeping the game within reach, Boston’s offense got to work in the home half of the seventh. Scherzer was lifted after recording one out and allowing two base runners to reach. Drew Smyly was brought in to face Jacoby Ellsbury, but a costly error by Iglesias allowed the Sox to load the bases. With Victorino coming to the plate, Leyland brought in former Astros closer Jose Veras to limit the damage. Let’s just say that some moves work out better than others. After Victorino’s home run, the Tigers went quietly into the night.

But slightly different circumstances could have led to a very different outcome (that’s always the case in baseball, but bear with me). Prior to Game 5, Victorino made the decision to begin switch hitting again. Ostensibly, he wanted to counter Detroit’s difficult all-right-handed rotation.

Victorino has switch hit for his entire major league career, but gave up batting left-handed in early August due to injuries. Batting lefty against Anibal Sanchez, his first two at bats produced weak results – a strike out and a fielder’s choice. Victorino reverted to batting right-handed for his third at bat. Coincidentally, that resulted in a strikeout against Veras.

Since giving up batting left-handed, Victorino has had one of the most productive stretches of his career. August saw him post a .419 wOBA and seven home runs. Between August 4th and the end of the season, six of his 10 home runs came batting righty against right-handed pitching. He posted a .395 wOBA in 115 plate appearances against same-handed pitchers.

Victorino has always featured better power from the right side. His career numbers bear that out – a .204 ISO batting right-handed versus a .132 ISO batting left-handed. His power batting left-handed has been even worse over the past two seasons, although the sample size involved limits our ability to draw strong conclusions.

Given the numbers discussed thus far, it’s fair to wonder why Victorino bats left-handed at all. After all, he performed well in the regular season and provided postseason heroics without batting lefty. While it’s possible that Victorino may be better as a purely right-handed batter, it appears to be a trade off between power and plate discipline. He struck out over 21 percent of the time against same handed pitching compared with a rate around 12 percent against opposite handed pitching. His walk rate also halved against same handed pitching, falling from a little over five percent to 2.6 percent.

Over a small sample, that poor plate discipline didn’t adversely affect his numbers, but it’s quite possible that major league pitchers would find ways to further exploit Victorino by discovering where he’s weakest. Alternatively, it’s not hard to imagine that Victorino could improve those rates with practice, although it does seem a bit late in his career to work that out.

Had Victorino stuck with his plan from prior to Game 5, he would have come to the plate against Veras batting left-handed with the bases loaded. He probably would not have hit a grand slam. The Sox did have a 56 percent chance to win the game at that point and our hypothetical lefty batting Victorino may have added to those odds. But it probably would not have the 37 percent leap that his home run provided.

The Boston Red Sox beat the Detroit Tigers tonight and are going to the World Series. It seems an odd time to criticize lineup decisions by John Farrell. That is especially true when his two most-questionable moves turned into gold. Jonny Gomes doubled to lead off the seventh inning. Four batters later, Shane Victorino sent Fenway Park into a frenzy with a grand slam.

Leading up to the game — a 5-2 Red Sox win — I opined on Twitter that Gomes shouldn’t be in the lineup, and Victorino should be moved to the bottom of the order. There was logic behind my opinions. In retrospect, I still think I was right, even though I may have been wrong.

Farrell put it this way prior to the game: “At this point in time, gut feel comes into it a little bit more than numbers on a stat sheet or a given category. The way players respond in this environment has got equal weight, if not more, than what the numbers might indicate, or drive you to make a decision over the course of a regular-season game. This is a different environment.”

The Red Sox manager wasn’t referring specifically to his decision to play Gomes over Daniel Nava. The question posed to him was more general in nature, but for all intents and purposes, that’s exactly what he was referring to. Read the rest of this entry »

In a playoff atmosphere, everything gets magnified a bit. Situations are always more tense, every little thing seems to carry more weight. It seems that, if you ask enough people, almost every play could be labeled as a “game-changer” by someone. That’s because there are only so many plays to go around. Outs are finite. In the playoffs, they seem astronomically finite. So when a home run is hit, or a great defensive play is made, it seems to matter more. An approving eyebrow raise in the regular season turns into a full-on shout in the postseason. A minimal eye roll on a random Wednesday in June morphs into an audible “UGH” sound in October.

Nothing can produce an audible reaction faster than a double play. The double play seems to be the only situation where both sides react in an equal and opposite way. Home runs are one-sided. Run-scoring singles are one-sided. Double plays raise sounds out of both sides. Someone is quite happy and someone is quite upset. This is because the twin killing is seen as such a momentum changer — it’s two outs for the price of one. The idea of momentum is something some in the statistical community scoff at a bit. They scoff because they scoff at things they can’t measure, at least accurately. But I’ll come right out and say it, I believe in momentum. I believe that when I’m in a good mood, I do better work. I pay more attention, I get things done quicker, and the overall product is of higher quality. I don’t know how to measure this on a baseball field, but I believe it exists there, too. To think that everything on a baseball field is static and has no affect on anything else in the entire game seems shortsighted. Double plays take wind out of sails, so to speak. They bother people.

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If the Cardinals are to earn a berth in the World Series Friday night, they’ll have to do so opposing a team starting Clayton Kershaw, presumably baseball’s best starter. Taking the mound for the Cardinals will be a still-mostly-unproven rookie in Michael Wacha, and on the face of it, that puts the Cardinals at a considerable disadvantage. But, a few things are working in their favor. One, the Cardinals are at home, and the home-field advantage is undeniable, even if it’s almost impossible to observe in the moment. Two, Wacha and the Cardinals just beat Kershaw and the Dodgers earlier in this very series, by a 1-0 final. So nothing here is impossible. And three, some people figure that by this point in the season, pitchers are pitching on fumes. Wacha, however, only seems to be getting stronger. The gap between Kershaw and Wacha exists and is big, but right now it’s probably not as big as you might’ve thought.

There’s something to be said for postseason adrenaline. There’s something to be said for Wacha still finding his way as a starter in the bigs. And there’s something to be said for the way Wacha has been handled this year, as the Cardinals didn’t want a repeat of the Strasburg Shutdown in 2012. The Cardinals anticipated the future, they wanted to have Wacha available down the stretch, so they gave him some breathers over the course of the summer. As a result, Wacha’s stabilizing a late-season rotation that’s missing Shelby Miller. He’s not just throwing his pitches — he’s throwing his pitches better.

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According to multiple reports, the White Sox have agreed to terms with free agent first baseman Jose Abreu on a six year, $68 million contract. Abreu, who turns 27 in January, has been a star slugger in Serie Nacional, the premier baseball league in Cuba, and played for the Cuban team in the World Baseball Classic this past spring. The $68 million guarantee shows that Major League teams are beginning to put a little more faith in players from Cuba, as the big successes of Yoenis Cespedes and Yasiel Puig have likely instilled some confidence in players coming over without needing a long transition period.

However, there’s a pretty big difference between Puig, Cespedes, and Abreu: they were signed in part because of their athleticism. Cespedes was signed as a center fielder, and though Puig was reportedly out of shape when other teams scouted him, the Dodgers clearly saw the dynamic tools that allowed him to make a huge splash this summer. Both Puig and Cespedes had Major League skills that went beyond what they did at the plate, and didn’t necessarily have to develop into upper level sluggers in order to justify their paychecks.

Abreu is, by all reports, strictly a 1B/DH type, and comparisons to guys like Ryan Howard don’t exactly inspire confidence that he’s more 1B than DH. The entirety of Abreu’s value is likely going to come from how well he hits. And $70 million for a guy who has to hit in order to be a big leaguer seems like a bit of a gamble, given that hitting seems to be the single hardest thing to forecast.

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Spend enough time around the Detroit Tigers and you’re certain to see Alex Avila take an absolute beating. He took a beating in Thursday’s Game 5 against the Boston Red Sox, and was removed during the game in favor of Brayan Pena. The main issue? Avila got run over at the plate by fellow catcher David Ross and wound up with a knee injury. Shortly thereafter, Avila took a foul tip right off the chin, with Ross this time standing in the batter’s box. Ross, of course, didn’t intend to knock Avila out. Surely, catchers are more sympathetic when they inflict pain on other catchers. But talk to the Tigers and they’ll tell you this is a pattern. They’ll tell you Avila get knocked around more than any catcher they’ve seen.

For example:

After struggling through a season of more foul tips than coaches and teammates have seen any other catcher endure, Detroit Tigers starter Alex Avila is out of commission with delayed concussion symptoms.

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The Dodgers are still alive in large part thanks to Adrian Gonzalez, and for Gonzalez, it’s been a series somewhat defined by the inside pitch. The crucial double he hit off Adam Wainwright — the double that would eventually lead to the manufactured, insufferable Mickey Mouse racket — was hit against an inside cutter off the plate, by the hands. In Wednesday’s Game 5, Gonzalez yanked a pair of solo home runs, the first giving the Dodgers a lead. In the bottom of the third, Gonzalez pulled an inside Joe Kelly fastball for his longest home run since 2009. In the bottom of the eighth, Gonzalez again went deep, getting in front of a high, inside John Axford curve. With Andre Ethier hurt, Matt Kemp genuinely out, and Hanley Ramirez effectively out, Gonzalez is feeling more pressure to deliver than usual, and he’s been a big part of what success the Dodgers have had.

The Dodgers, of course, expect Gonzalez to be a rock in the middle of their lineup, which is one of the big reasons they made that insane trade in the first place. And Gonzalez has the track record of being an underrated offensive superstar, and he’s still just 31 years old. He’s coming off a 124 wRC+, which isn’t fantastic, but which is good, and which is an improvement from the year before. But while Gonzalez can still hit and while he can still make a difference in a critical series, it’s interesting to observe how things have changed in the process. What Adrian Gonzalez was, he appears to no longer be.

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There is always a bit of a lull between the end of the minor league playoffs in September and the start of the annual top prospects lists in early November. Because of that gap, I’m breathing new life into an old feature that I wrote for the site in FanGraphs’ infancy back in 2008 and 2009.

The series ‘A Minor Review of 2013′ will look back on some of the major happenings in each MLB organization since the beginning of April as a primer for the upcoming FanGraphs Top 10+5 prospects lists. This series will run throughout September and October. I hope you enjoy the series and are eagerly anticipating the start of ‘Prospect List Season.’

The player listed in the sleeper section was featured in a pre-season series that looked at one fringe prospect in each organization that was expected to take a big step forward during 2013, chosen by myself, a scout or a front office talent evaluator.

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