Corey Knebel has come a long way since I first talked to him four years ago. At the time, the hard-throwing right-hander was wrapping up an Arizona Fall League season, five months after the Detroit Tigers had drafted him 39th overall out of the University of Texas.

Knebel is now 25 years old and coming off a season where he logged 39 saves and a 1.78 ERA for the Milwaukee Brewers. In January 2015, the NL Central club acquired him from the Texas Rangers, who’d earlier procured his services from the perpetually-bullpen-deficient Tigers.

According to Knebel. while some things have changed since our 2013 conversation, overs haven’t. By and large, he’s the same guy on the mound.

“I guess I’ve kind of grown into this new role,” the 6’4″ 220-lb. fastball-curveball specialist told me in September. “Other than that, I’ve just tried to perfect two pitches. I like to focus on what I know I can do. My delivery is the exact same — I’m still herky-jerky — although I don’t go from the windup anymore; I’m just straight stretch.”

There has been a velocity jump. Knebel’s heater averaged 97.8 MPH this season, up a few ticks from previous seasons. He didn’t have an explanation for why that is, but he does know one thing — it’s not because of a weighted-ball program. Read the rest of this entry »

In a win-or-go-home game that finishes 9-8, there are going to be a lot of important moments. Big plays made or not made by players. Important decisions made or not made by managers. Huge calls made or not made by umpires. We never want to focus on the umpires if at all possible because it takes away from the more important and more entertaining aspects of the game. At some point, however, it’s impossible to omit them from the conversation.

In the top of the fifth inning of last night’s deciding Division Series game between the Cubs and Nationals, the visiting team had runners on first and second base. With two outs and an 0-2 count, Max Scherzer threw Javy Baez a pitch in the dirt. Baez swung and missed for strike three, but the ball got past Matt Wieters, allowing Baez to run to first base. During Baez’s backswing, his bat made contact with Wieters’ helmet.

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The Cleveland Indians’ season concluded on Wednesday night. The team that had thrilled fans with their September winning streak and entered the postseason as the oddsmakers’ favorite to win the World Series was eliminated by a very good New York Yankees team. You can argue how fair it it that the Indians, by virtue of being the best team in the American League this year, had to face the Wild Card-winning Yankees, perhaps the second-best team in the the American League. In any event, that’s the way the playoffs are set up: the Yankees won and the blame game can begin.

People will look to the young star hitters Jose Ramirez and Francisco Lindor, who combined to reach base at a .227 clip, strike out 13 times, and record just a single extra-base hit over the five games. Others will (foolishly) question the Indians’ mental fortitude after dropping six consecutive potential series-clinching games in the past two years. And yes, many will place blame at the feet of Indians ace Corey Kluber, who was as rough in this year’s playoffs as he was brilliant in last year’s.

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Back when he was a minor leaguer, Didi Gregorius hit a combined total of 26 home runs. Gregorius is now the regular shortstop for the Yankees, who are a major-league franchise, and last week, he hit his 26th home run of this year alone, off of Ervin Santana. In Game 5 of the ALDS, Gregorius hit home run number 27, off of Corey Kluber. Two innings later, he hit home run number 28, also off of Kluber. Gregorius hits for power now, and while this feels like a fairly sudden development, it hasn’t been so sudden that Gregorius hasn’t been able to perfect the subtle bat flip. By now, Gregorius has hit enough home runs that he knows what they feel like right away.

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In one of the craziest, weirdest, most bizarre baseball games anyone has ever seen, the Cubs beat the Nationals 9-8 tonight, advancing to the NLCS. The game had everything you could think of and then some: catcher’s interference, RBI strikeouts that maybe shouldn’t have counted, Max Scherzer hitting a batter to force in a run, and Michael Taylor hitting a bomb on a pitch at his eyes. But, unfortunately, the lasting memory of this game might just be that MLB’s replay rule on slides into a base still sucks.

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CLEVELAND — In a spartan, fluorescent-lit conference room adjacent to the home clubhouse of Progressive Field sat Corey Kluber early this morning. The night before, he’d started — and lost — Game 5 of the ALDS to the Yankees. It was clear as Kluber pitched on Wednesday that something wasn’t right. It hadn’t been right in his Game 2 start on Friday, either.

Surrounded by a swelled press corps containing local and national reporters, he was asked what was wrong, what had gone wrong. Inevitably, the topic of his health arose. Despite producing a Cy Young-caliber season, Kluber had also visited the DL from May 2 to June 1 with a back strain.

By the end of the series against New York, Kluber had allowed nine earned runs and 13 baserunners — including four home runs — in 6.1 innings over two starts. Two of the home runs he’d conceded were off his curveball. He’d allowed only two homers off the curve all season, a sample of 811 pitches.

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There was a point during Game 3 of the National League Division Series between the Cubs and Nationals at which I began to play out some extra-innings scenarios, wondering who would pitch for the Cubs in such a case. We discussed the possibilities a bit in the Live Blog. With Pedro Strop, Carl Edwards Jr., and Wade Davis having already appeared in the game, Mike Montgomery seemed the most likely choice. I suggested John Lackey, though someone commented that he would probably be saved in case Jake Arrieta didn’t go deep into Game 4.

The game never reached extra innings, of course, the Cubs coming back for a 2-1 win (box). The next day, though, some of our questions were answered when Arrieta failed to pitch deep into Game 4. It wasn’t John Lackey who relieved Arrieta, however, but Jon Lester. With three days of rest thanks to an earlier rain delay, Lester pitched 3.2 innings in relief to keep the game at a 1-0 deficit. Unfortunately, Carl Edwards Jr. and Wade Davis allowed the deficit to expand, and now the Cubs must win today to advance their season. And just like last year, it appears as though Joe Maddon has lost trust in his bullpen.

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Last night, the Yankees and Indians combined to strike out 31 times, the most strikeouts ever recorded in a playoff game that didn’t go extra innings. And during our live blog, complaining about the size of Jeff Nelson’s strike zone was a common occurrence. Accusing the home plate umpire of malfeasance is a regular thing fans do, especially in the postseason when the stakes are the highest, but in looking at the data today, there is some validity to the arguments. Last night, Jeff Nelson called a pretty huge strike zone.

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Dave Dombrowski held a press conference yesterday following the Red Sox’ announcement that John Farrell won’t be returning as the club’s manager next year. He wasn’t particularly forthcoming when asked to explain why. Nor was he willing to address whether it would have happened had the Red Sox gone deeper into the postseason. The latter is an especially compelling question, as Dombrowski cited a need for change multiple times during the 30-minute media session.

Would Farrell have been retained as a reward for playoff success, even though the front office believed a different voice was needed? Or would that dynamic have changed with a World Series berth? In other words, does an October run transform a manager’s ability to lead in the forthcoming season?

I decided that Dombrowski’s deflection of the “what if” scenario deserved a follow-up. Well after the Boston Globe’s Alex Speier initially posed the question, I barked up the same tree, using distinctly different verbiage:

When acquiring or retaining a player, the future is more important than past performance. To what extent is that true for a manager, and does success or failure in the postseason impact a manager’s effectiveness going forward?

The extent to which his answer shed light on the Farrell decision is debatable.

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Maybe it was the antibiotics, maybe it was the shame. Whatever the reason, Stephen Strasburg pitched Wednesday and offered an extraordinary performance, particularly given the context.

Strasburg gave us his Jordan-with-the flu, Reed-coming-out-of-tunnel, Gibson-homering-on-zero-healthy-legs, Schilling’s-bloody-sock moment on a dreary, blustery afternoon at Wrigley Field.

Largely because of Strasburg, there will be a Game 5 in this series. Against the Cubs last night, Strasburg surrendered just three hits over seven shutout innings, striking out 12 while conceding just two walks. Over two starts and 14 innings in the NLDS, Strasburg did not allow an earned run, striking out 22 and walking just three. He’s pitching as well anyone on the planet.

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