Managing in the playoffs is all about balancing immediate payoffs and long-term sustainability. Not ultra long-term, mind you, but managing a bullpen for a seven-game series is trickier than simply pressing the same buttons every day until you win or lose. ALCS Game 4 featured three momentous bullpen decisions. The managers chose differently; they both paid the price. In the end, the Yankees got the better of the Guardians in a 14-pitcher, three-and-a-half-hour, 14-run shootout. But a few early decisions absolutely shaped the way the game went, and so they take center stage here tonight.

No Rest for Cade Smith

Cade Smith was one of the best relievers in baseball this year. If he didn’t play on the same team as Emmanuel Clase, we’d call him a lockdown closer. Instead, he’s a dominant fireman, capable of coming in whenever Stephen Vogt needs him to ice the opposition. And Vogt has needed him a lot. He pitched in all five games of the ALDS. He got the first game of this series off, but then he faced the meat of the Yankees lineup in Game 2 and Game 3.

He’s been pitching nearly every day, which hurts. He’s facing the same batters over and over, which hurts. But what are you going to do, not use your best option against a team that has two MVP-level bats stacked together in an otherwise navigable lineup? Juan Soto had already homered and the Yankees were up 3-2 when the top of the order came up in the sixth inning. On came Smith, for the third time in four days. Read the rest of this entry »

NEW YORK — Though he wasn’t the offensive star of Game 3 of the National League Championship Series — he didn’t hit a moonshot into the second deck like Shohei Ohtani or Max Muncy — Will Smith did collect two hits in the Dodgers’ 8-0 victory over the Mets. They weren’t exactly scorchers, but one was of critical importance, as it drove in the game’s first run. Remarkably, Smith’s performance was just the second time this postseason that a catcher has collected multiple hits in a game, and for as much as Smith has struggled, his numbers still stand out relative to the competition. It’s been an exceptionally difficult October for the men wearing the tools of ignorance.

These days, those tools actually suggest anything but ignorance. Armed with more data than ever, and playing in a pressure-cooker atmosphere where a single pitch can turn a series, Smith and those of his peers who are still standing (or squatting) in October — namely the Yankees’ Austin Wells, the Mets’ Francisco Alvarez, and the Guardians’ tandem of Bo Naylor and Austin Hedges — might be required to navigate a short-working starter and half a dozen relievers through opposing lineups, controlling the tempo of the game when things threaten to spiral out of control, and shaking off untold aches and pains. Hitting? That’s part of the job, but this fall, these catchers’ offensive contributions have felt particularly secondary, not unlike those of pitchers swinging the bat in the days before the universal designated hitter.

The numbers certainly look like those bygone pitchers hacking away. Thus far, the catchers for the 12 postseason teams have collectively hit .169/.236/.255 (40 wRC+) with five homers and a 28.3% strikeout rate through 254 plate appearances. In other words, they’ve been outhit by Madison Bumgarner (.172/.232/.292, 44 wRC+ career). Read the rest of this entry »

Cleveland’s baseball club was known as the Blues when the American League was formed in 1901, but that’s far from what Guardians fans were singing following Thursday’s ALCS Game 3. Two days before A Tribe Called Quest and other musical luminaries are to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Progressive Field erupted in rapture as David Fry circled the bases in the bottom of the 10th inning to cap a stunning comeback and give the Guardians a 7-5 win.

More on that in a moment.

The first inning featured missed opportunities — both teams stranded a pair of runners — as well as a pitch clock violation on a chagrinned Juan Soto and a sliding catch by Guardians center fielder Lane Thomas. That those happenings barely qualify as footnotes says a lot about what would eventually transpire. Ditto a second inning that saw Alex Verdugo chop a ball over first baseman Josh Naylor’s head and leg out a sliding double on a play where second base umpire Jansen Visconti ruled that Brayan Rocchio had a foot blocking the bag (that was debatable). Anthony Volpe advanced to third on the hit, then scored on a Jose Trevino groundball single that made it 1-0 Yankees. Guardians starter Matthew Boyd proceeded to pick off Trevino, which helped to limit the damage. Read the rest of this entry »

Shohei Ohtani doesn’t have a hit with the bases empty. I kept hearing that throughout FS1’s broadcast of Game 3 of the NLCS. My first thought was, “Wow, I’m old enough to remember when they dogged star players for not hitting well enough with runners on base! I guess some people will find any reason to complain!”

My second thought was, “Huh, I thought Ohtani was having a decent postseason.” It could be better, of course. Ohtani is hitting .226/.351/.419, which I suppose is disappointing from a player with a legitimate case for being the greatest of all time. But if you told most managers that their leadoff hitter would post a .351 OBP through the first eight games of the playoffs, most of them would take it. Out of 58 players with 20 or more plate appearances this postseason, Ohtani is 18th in wRC+ and 11th in WPA. By any objective standard, Ohtani’s been perfectly adequate at the plate overall. Read the rest of this entry »

NEW YORK — For as essential as Aaron Judge and Juan Soto were to driving the Yankees offense this season, the team spent much of the first half waiting for its other hitters to provide complementary production. Circa the July 30 trade deadline, the only other Yankees with a wRC+ in the vicinity of league average were Giancarlo Stanton, who had missed five weeks in June and July due to injury; the catching tandem of Austin Wells and Jose Trevino, only one of whom was in the lineup on a given day; and fill-in first baseman Ben Rice, whose initial success proved fleeting. With the deadline addition of Jazz Chisholm Jr. and a late rebound by Gleyber Torres, the big bashers finally got more support, particularly after the latter returned to the leadoff spot on August 16. So far in the postseason, Torres has been particularly pesky, hitting .292/.433/.500 through six games while scoring seven of the Yankees’ 25 runs.

In their 6-3 victory in Game 2 of the ALCS on Tuesday, Torres paced the Yankees’ 11-hit attack by going 3-for-5 with a double and two runs scored. The 27-year-old leadoff man was one of three Yankees with multiple hits, along with Anthony Rizzo (2-for-4, with a double) and Anthony Volpe (2-for-3). His table-setting was well-timed, as he came around to score after opening the home half of the first inning with a double, and was on base when Judge finally got on the board with a towering two-run homer, his first of the postseason.  Read the rest of this entry »

We love a postseason breakout star. September’s hipster favorite who by November 1 is on billboards from sea to shining sea. This year, it’s Mets third baseman Mark Vientos, a 24-year-old who just completed his first full season as a major league regular.

The top four hitters in the Mets lineup have been absolutely critical this postseason, by which I mean that if they’re not hitting, ain’t nobody hitting. Three of those top four hitters are the three highest-paid players on the roster by luxury tax hit: Francisco Lindor, Brandon Nimmo, and Pete Alonso. (Starling Marte and Edwin Díaz make more than Nimmo and Alonso this year specifically, and the Mets paid Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander more than $20.5 million each to play for other teams, but I’m making a point here. Let me cherry-pick in peace.) Read the rest of this entry »

NEW YORK — The Yankees’ road to an AL-best 94 wins wasn’t the smoothest ride. They overcame significant injuries, and at times dealt with a lack of production from just about everybody besides Aaron Judge and Juan Soto. Even as they fought off the Orioles for the AL East flag, they struggled to find the right mix in the bullpen, as All-Star closer Clay Holmes suddenly struggled to lock down the ninth inning. A September shuffle that put Luke Weaver in the closer’s slot has paid big dividends, however, and so far in this postseason, the Yankees bullpen has been a difference-maker. In Monday night’s American League Championship Series opener against the Guardians, Weaver notched a five-out save to preserve a 5-2 victory.

The 31-year-old Weaver — a former first-round pick who until September 6 had never recorded a major league save — has pitched in every Yankees playoff game thus far. He closed out all three Division Series wins against the Royals, going four outs in Game 1 and five outs in Game 3; he also made a one-out cameo in Game 2, New York’s lone defeat. In six shutout innings, he’s allowed just two hits and one walk while striking out nine of the 21 batters he’s faced (42.9%).

In fact, the Yankees bullpen has allowed just two runs (one unearned) in 18 2/3 postseason innings, for a 0.48 ERA. The unit as a whole has surrendered just 11 hits and five walks while striking out 20 (28.2%). Holmes, like Weaver, has pitched every game and has thrown six scoreless innings himself, striking out four while yielding just three hits and one walk.

“Comfortable is not quite the right word. I think tonight was a little bit of a grind for me personally,” said Weaver of Monday night’s 24-pitch save. “I felt really good coming in in the eighth. The ninth, coming back out for the first hitter was a little sloppy, I think that was noticeable. The windup just felt a little funky. I felt the adrenaline coming out of the eighth, [but] going back out for the ninth, was a little depleted… I felt like it was a tick down.”

After Weaver walked Lane Thomas on five pitches to lead off the ninth, he gave himself a bit of a pep talk, flashing a bit of humor as he explained. “So when Thomas got on, it just became like, ‘What are we doing? The fans don’t come here to watch that.’ So I was able to throw some good pitches, and was looking for the double play, but was able to get these good counts.”

Weaver went long because the Guardians had threatened to tie the game. Starter Carlos Rodón had dominated for six innings, holding Cleveland to just three hits while striking out nine without a walk, generating 25 whiffs along the way; meanwhile the Yankees built up a 4-0 lead against starter Alex Cobb and reliever Joey Cantillo, who threw four wild pitches and walked three while retiring just one hitter. The Guardians cut the lead to 4-1 when no. 9 hitter Brayan Rocchio led off the sixth inning with a solo homer off Rodón.

As was the case in the Yankees’ two ALDS wins in Kansas City, Holmes was the first number called by manager Aaron Boone. He didn’t waste much time, inducing Thomas to hit his second pitch, a 96-mph sinker on the outside edge, for a soft groundout. He fell behind Josh Naylor 2-1 before Naylor lined a high-and-away sinker to center field for a routine out. Holmes capped his night by battling pinch-hitter Kyle Manzardo (hitting for right fielder Jhonkensy Noel) for eight pitches before striking him out chasing a low-and-inside sweeper.

“He’s been the nastiest guy we’ve had out there,” said Weaver of Holmes’ middle relief work. “He’s absolutely setting the tone.”

With no off day before Game 2, and with two lefties and a switch-hitter looming, the lane was clear for lefty Tim Hill to pitch the eighth. Guardians manager Stephen Vogt swapped out lefty Bo Naylor for righty Austin Hedges, an even weaker hitter despite the platoon advantage; he flied out. Andrés Giménez followed with a single, and then Rocchio shot a single under the glove of first baseman Anthony Rizzo, who was back in the lineup for the first time since fracturing two fingers on his right hand on September 29. Rounding first, Rocchio made contact with Hill, who in moving to cover the bag ended up right in the baseline. Though the pitcher had the ball and tagged Rocchio once he retreated, the umpires ruled he had already committed obstruction, and awarded Rocchio second base.

Giménez scored on Steven Kwan’s single, offsetting Giancarlo Stanton’s solo homer in the top of the frame; it was the first earned run surrendered by the Yankees bullpen this postseason. That prompted Boone to summon Weaver, who fanned pinch-hitter Will Brennan (batting for David Fry) on three low pitches, the last a changeup in the dirt, then induced José Ramírez to ground out to second base.

In the ninth, after walking Thomas, Weaver recovered to strike out the side. Naylor chased a low-and-away changeup. Daniel Schneemann battled to a full count, then tipped a 95-mph four-seamer into Austin Wells’ mitt for the second out. Finally, Weaver blew Hedges away on three pitches, giving the Yankees a 1-0 series lead. 

Afterward, pitching coach Matt Blake praised Weaver’s command as the key to his success in working long. “His ability to get in the strike zone early and be effective and be efficient with his pitch counts — he can collect outs quickly and he’ll strike guys out, but he doesn’t have to do seven or eight pitches to get there.”

While the save may not have been easy, Weaver still looked like a pitcher who had been doing the job of shutting the door for much longer than six weeks. A year ago, the role would have been unthinkable. Weaver was designated for assignment twice in 2023, first by the Reds on August 16 — a point at which he briefly wondered if he’d reached the end of the line — and then by the Mariners on September 10. Even with three solid September starts for the Yankees, he finished with a 6.40 ERA, his second season in a row and his third out of four above 6.00; to that point across eight partial seasons in the majors, he owned a 5.14 ERA in 574 1/3 innings, mainly as a starter.

The Yankees had seen some traits in Weaver’s spin rate, arsenal, and clean mechanics that they believed they could tweak, and Weaver embraced the possibilities. Over the winter, he simplifid his delivery, ditching a high leg kick and adopting a slide step. He also adjusted the grips of his four-seam fastball — previously, his middle finger wasn’t in contact with a seam, costing him spin efficiency — and his changeup, helping him generate more spin. Needing to throw 15–20 pitches per outing instead of 80–100, he gained velocity, and recovered more quickly. Two weeks ago, Weaver likened the streamlining to a runner with smoother, tighter arm swings and less wasted energy.

Working out of the bullpen allowed Weaver to ditch his less effective knuckle curve, slider, and sweeper. The changes “helped bring some earlier contact, less foul balls, less getting beat on the pitch,” as he said on Monday. “I think it’s really just the perfect storm of better movement and more confidence.”

For the season, Weaver pitched to a 2.89 ERA and 3.33 FIP with a 31.1% strikeout rate in 62 appearances totaling 84 innings. As Marquee Sports’ Lance Brodzowski noted, the vertical separation between Weaver’s fastball and changeup increased from about 8 inches last year (16 inches of induced vertical break for the four-seamer, 8.2 for the changeup) to about 14 inches this year (18.6 inches for the four-seamer, 4.6 for the changeup). The results on those two pitches improved dramatically:

At the outset of the season, the Yankees saw Weaver as a potential sixth starter who could provide multiple relief innings in lower-leverage situations. He allowed seven runs in 10 2/3 innings over his first six appearances, but graduated to a higher-leverage role by reeling off 18 consecutive scoreless innings from April 20 through May 20, giving up just five hits and two walks while striking out 24.

Weaver endured some midseason ups and downs, posting a 3.66 ERA and 4.60 FIP across 32 appearances from May 22 through the end of July. Meanwhile, a whole drama unfolded around Holmes. Through June 9, the 31-year-old sinkerballer allowed runs in just two of his first 30 games, posting a 1.23 ERA and 2.22 FIP. Despite scuffling a bit over the rest of the first half, he made his second All-Star team in three years on the strength of a 2.77 ERA and 2.73 FIP. Even so, he’d already set a career high with six blown saves in 27 chances, owing largely to a .342 BABIP. He blew two of his first three save opportunities coming out of the break; one of those blown saves came in an eventual 7-6 win over the Phillies on July 30, hours after the trade deadline passed.

After jumping out to a surprising 40-19 start without the injured Gerrit Cole, the Yankees went just 25-26 in June and July; the swing merely dropped them from two games ahead of the Orioles to half a game back, but without Holmes’ blown saves, they might have enjoyed a bit of breathing room. At the deadline, even as general manager Brian Cashman supplemented the bullpen by adding Mark Leiter Jr. from the Cubs and Enyel De Los Santos from the Padres, Holmes remained Boone’s ninth-inning guy despite increasing scrutiny and pressure. In his role as team captain, Judge expressed his support for Holmes after the Phillies game, which saw the pitcher surrender a one-run lead on two singles, two groundouts, and a wild pitch:

Aaron Judge on Clay Holmes:

"That's our closer. I don't know what else to tell you. That's our guy. He's been our guy. I want him out there in any situation, bases loaded and no outs or extra innings or bottom nine, top nine — that's our guy. You can ask anyone in this room if…

— Chris Kirschner (@ChrisKirschner) July 31, 2024

Holmes pitched better in August, but still blew two saves, making him just the fifth pitcher over the last decade to reach double digits in that category. By the numbers, which included a 2.67 ERA and 2.48 FIP through August, his season was in line with his 2022 and ’23 campaigns except for a few extra barrels, but the late-inning losses helped keep the Orioles around. As I noted on September 4 while writing about the Yankees’ left field situation, Boone’s avoidance of publicly acknowledging the struggles of both Holmes and Alex Verdugo may have earned loyalty within the Yankees’ clubhouse (and apparently the rest of the organization), but only wound up a frustrated fan base and invited media scrutiny. Things reached a breaking point on September 3, when Holmes served up a walk-off grand slam to the Rangers’ Wyatt Langford. Boone finally addressed the situation the next day: “In the short term, we’ll kind of just get a little creative” with a closer-by-committee arrangement.

He never did have to get too creative. On September 6, he called upon Weaver to close out a 3-0 lead against the Cubs, and the righty did the job, striking out two in the process. “I couldn’t see straight. I was blacked out for the most part. I was on pure adrenaline, but it was a great time,” Weaver said. He went 4-for-4 in save chances, and allowed just one run (unearned) in 11 innings after taking over the role; most impressively, he struck out 24 of 40 hitters in that capacity (60%) while giving up just four hits and three runs. With Holmes in a setup role, things clicked into place for a remade bullpen that included the additions of lefties Hill (who had been released by the White Sox in late June) and Tim Mayza (released by the Blue Jays in early July) and the returns of righties Tommy Kahnle and Ian Hamilton from injuries; the former didn’t debut until May 22 due to a bout of shoulder soreness, while the latter was shelved from May 28 until September 7 due to a lat strain. From September 6 onward, the Yankees bullpen threw 81 innings with a 2.00 ERA, a 3.04 FIP, and a major league-best 32.5% strikeout rate.

Since October rolled around, New York’s relievers have been even better. And now, they’ve helped bring the Yankees within three wins of their first trip to the World Series since 2009.

This is the Carlos Rodón the Yankees thought they were getting. When Brian Cashman inked the lefty to a six-year, $162-million contract in December 2022, Rodón was coming off a two-season stretch in which he’d gone 27-13 with a 2.67 ERA, 2.42 FIP, and 12.23 strikeouts per nine innings. From 2021 to 2022, his 11.2 WAR ranked the third among all pitchers. But, like Samson of old, Rodón’s strength deserted him when his beard fell victim to the Yankees’ facial-hair policy. A forearm strain and a hamstring issue limited him to 14 starts in 2023, and when he did take the hill, he ran an unsightly 6.85 ERA. He was better this season, but he was by no means the ace the Bronx faithful were expecting.

That guy finally showed up on Monday night. Rodón powered the Yankees to a 5-2 victory over the Guardians in Game 1 of the American League Championship Series, going six dominant innings and allowing one earned run on a solo homer. He blew his fastball by the Guardians and tempted them over and over again into chasing his slider as it burrowed into the dirt. Read the rest of this entry »

The magic of baseball is that every pitch counts and no game is ever truly over. There’s no victory formation, no garbage time with two minutes left in a 30-point blowout. If you have outs left, you can string together hits ad nauseam and win the game. But while that’s technically true, the game doesn’t really work that way in practice. Most games boil down to a few key moments, where the stakes are heightened and the outcome is truly uncertain. Win those moments, and you generally win the game.

In Game 2 of the NLCS on Monday, there were three such moments. You could use leverage index to tell you that. You could also just watch the game and count when there were a lot of runners on. The Mets won 7-3 to even the series at one game each, but if those three moments had broken differently, the game could have too.

The first inflection point in the game came early. The Dodgers went with a modified version of their plan from last Wednesday: a Ryan Brasier-fronted bullpen game. Landon Knack came in for the second inning this time, which makes sense to me as an armchair manager. The Dodgers were going to need at least one less-trusted reliever to throw, because Alex Vesia got hurt in Game 5 of the NLDS and was left off the roster for this series, and Daniel Hudson apparently wasn’t even available on Monday. Why not get Knack in early, against the bottom half of the Mets lineup, and see whether he had it or not? A scoreless outing would set the Dodgers up to aim high-leverage options at the top of the New York order the rest of the day. A bad outing? They could pull the ripcord and keep everyone fresh. Better to find that out in the second inning than the seventh.
Read the rest of this entry »

Even in an era brimming with colorful characters and exceptional hurlers, Luis Tiant stood out. The barrel-chested, mustachioed Cuban righty combined an assortment of exaggerated deliveries with a variety of arm angles and speeds that baffled hitters — and tantalized writers — over the course of a 19-year major league career (1964–82) and an affiliation with the game in one capacity or another that extended through the remainder of his life. “The Cuban Dervish,” as Sports Illustrated’s Ron Fimrite christened him in 1975, died last Tuesday at the age of 83. No cause of death was announced.

The son of a legendary left-hander colloquially known as Luis Tiant Sr., the younger Tiant was exiled from his home country in the wake of Cuban prime minister Fidel Castro’s travel restrictions, and separated from his family for 14 years. Against that backdrop of isolation, “El Tiante” went on to become the winningest Cuban-born pitcher in major league history, and to emerge as a larger-than-life character, so inseparable from his trademark cigars that he chomped them even in postgame showers. He spoke softly in a thick accent, but that didn’t prevent his wit and wisdom from getting across, particularly during the latter half of his career, after he emerged from a serious arm injury to become a top big-game pitcher. “In boots, black cap, foot-long cigar and nothing else, he’d hold court with half-hour monologues Richard Pryor would envy,” wrote Thomas Boswell in 1988.

Tiant’s ascendence to iconic status centered around his 1971–78 run with the Red Sox, reaching its pinnacle in their seven-game 1975 World Series defeat, during which he made three starts: a brilliant Game 1 shutout; a gritty Game 4 complete game during which he delivered “163 pitches in 100 ways,” to use the description of Sports Illustrated‘s Roy Blount Jr.; and a valiant, draining Game 6 effort where he faltered late but was saved by Carlton Fisk’s famous body-English home run around Fenway Park’s left field foul pole in the 12th inning. Read the rest of this entry »