For the sixth consecutive season, the Astros are in the American League Championship Series, and for the third time in that span, they’ll face the Yankees for a chance to play in the World Series. They beat the Yankees in seven games in 2017 before advancing to defeat the Dodgers, victories now tainted by the subsequent revelations regarding their use of illegal electronic sign stealing (which, yes, included the postseason). Amid further allegations of sign-stealing, they beat the Yankees in six games in 2019 before losing to the Nationals in the World Series. Suffice it to say, this is not a friendly rivalry, though the Yankees have publicly downplayed its relevance as it pertains to this matchup.

Both of the Astros’ ALCS victories over the Yankees came with A.J. Hinch at the helm, but Dusty Baker has taken over since. He’s trying to take them back to the World Series for the second season in a row — they lost to the Braves in six games last year — and secure the first championship of his 25-year career as a manager. The 73-year-old Baker would surpass 72-year-old Jack McKeon as the oldest manager to win a World Series, but first things first, the Astros have to get there. After winning an AL-high 106 games and securing home-field advantage for as long as they’re still playing, the Astros swept the Mariners in a Division Series much closer than its three-games-to-none outcome suggests, with the games decided by a total of four runs and the two bookend games won in Houston’s final half-inning; the finale extended to 18 innings and ended with a 1-0 score via Jeremy Peña‘s home run. Yordan Alvarez was the big star in the series, hitting a walk-off three-run homer in Game 1 to complete a comeback from a 7-3 deficit and then a two-run, go-ahead shot in Game 2; his seven RBIs accounted for more than half of Houston’s 13 runs. Alvarez (4-for-15), Alex Bregman (5-for-15 with a double and a homer) and Yuli Gurriel (6-for-15 with a homer) together accounted for 15 of the Astros’ 28 hits, masking Jose Altuve’s 0-for-16 performance. Meanwhile, a dominant Astros’ bullpen combined to allow just one run and nine hits in 20.1 innings, with a total of eight relievers combining to strike out 23 batters while walking only five.

Where the Astros swept their way into the ALCS, the 99-win Yankees not only had to go the distance against the Guardians but needed an extra day to do so because rain on Monday night forced the second postponement of the series. Stellar work from Gerrit Cole in his two starts, a strong start from Nestor Cortes on three days of rest, some very good work by a banged-up bullpen, and a 9-3 advantage in home runs — including three by newcomer Harrison Bader and two apiece by Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton — helped to elevate the Yankees past the upstart Guardians. They didn’t have much time to celebrate on Tuesday night; inside of an hour after the final out, the plastic sheets protecting the clubhouse from the spray of champagne were taken down so that the players could fly to Houston. Read the rest of this entry »

The Division Series between the Astros and Mariners only went three games, but it wasn’t short on drama. Overlooked amid the extra innings madness and the late game heroics was the performance of Jose Altuve. That might be for the best, as the Astros second baseman struggled mightily:

Going 0-for-16 with six strikeouts is, to use a technical term, real bad. What was going on? Let’s start with Altuve’s plate discipline:

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They ran roughshod over the league for six months thanks to an elite offense, great pitching, and exceptional defense, posting a win total that hadn’t been seen in decades. Yet a stretch of a few bad days in October sent them home, consigning them to the status of historical footnote and cautionary tale. Somebody else would go on to win the World Series.

Such was the fate of the 2001 Mariners, though everything above applies to this year’s Dodgers as well, who won 111 games — the most by any team since those Mariners, and the most by any NL team since the 1909 Pirates — but were bounced out of the playoffs on Saturday night. A Padres team from whom they had taken 14 out of 19 games during the regular season beat them three games to one in the Division Series because they got the clutch hits they needed while the Dodgers didn’t. The combination of an 0-for-20 streak with runners in scoring position that ran from the third inning of Game 1 to the third inning of Game 4 — after which they began another hitless-with-RISP streak — and some puzzling bullpen choices by manager Dave Roberts doomed them.

There’s been plenty of that going ’round. The Padres, who won 89 games this year, were facing the Dodgers only because they first beat the 101-win Mets in the best-of-three Wild Card Series. Earlier on Saturday, the defending champion Braves, who claimed the NL East title with 101 wins this year and like the Dodgers played at a better-than-.700 clip from June through September, were ousted by the Phillies. On Saturday evening, the 99-win Yankees let a two-run lead in the ninth slip away against the 92-win Guardians, pushing them to the brink of elimination, though they rebounded on Sunday night, pushing the series to a decisive Game 5 in New York.

Upsets in short postseason series are practically as old as postseason series themselves. In 1906, in the third modern World Series, the 93-win White Sox, a/k/a “The Hitless Wonders,” took down their crosstown rivals, the 116-win Cubs, four games to two. In 1954, the 97-win Giants beat the 111-win Indians in the World Series. In 1987, the 85-win Twins bumped off the 98-win Tigers and then the 95-win Cardinals. Last year, the 89-win Braves felled the 106-win Dodgers in the NLCS, then the 95-win Astros in the World Series.

Such unexpected wins are a cornerstone of baseball history. As MLB.com’s Anthony Castrovince noted, in terms of the gap in winning percentage between the underdogs and the favorites, the Padres trail only the aforementioned 1906 White Sox in the annals, with a 136-point gap (.549 to .685) compared to the Chicagoans’ 147-point gap (.616 to .763). In third place is the 122-point gap from the 2001 ALCS between the Yankees and Mariners (.594 to .716), and in fourth is the 107-point gap from last year’s NLCS between the Braves and Dodgers (.547 to .654). The 86-point gaps between the Nationals and Astros in the 2019 World Series and between the Braves and Phillies in this year’s Division Series are tied for seventh. By that measure, seven of the top 11 upsets have happened in this millennium. Read the rest of this entry »

SEATTLE – My train begins to fill with Mariners fans. Most are wearing jerseys, but others are outfitted in more home-made looking fare. A young woman sports a dress covered in the team’s logo; its skirt is puffed slightly by teal tulle, with navy bows on her shoulders holding the whole thing upright. Further down the car is a man in a 1995 Division Series shirt. His snowy goatee suggests that unlike the sweatshirt I own of similar vintage, his wasn’t a thrift store find; I wonder if the one he’s wearing smells musty like mine first did. Much of the chatter is about the day finally being here, and how long they’ve all waited, how many disappointments they’ve registered in the years since 2001. I’m surprised by how little I hear about Seattle’s chances today, as if no one dares to entertain the possibility of a tomorrow with baseball, or one potentially without it.

A few stops later, a member of the University of Washington marching band steps off the train; upon seeing his regalia, a couple near me wonders if the football game, which kicks off around 2:30 PM, will cause trouble for their ride back home from SODO. “These cars can get so crowded, you know.”

As I approach the media entrance, lines snake around the ballpark, and the coffee cups and puffy eyes make clear that some of these folks have been here a while. The gates don’t open for another hour and a half, but after almost 21 years, what’s a little more waiting? Read the rest of this entry »

Finally, a postseason game that went into extra innings. Everyone was waiting for it to happen. After all, that sort of thing hadn’t occurred since… a week ago. In retrospect, that “marathon” Guardians-Rays game was pretty zippy. Just 15 innings? Only 394 pitches? On Saturday night, the Astros and Mariners cordially invited the Guardians and Rays to hold their beer. Then another. Then perhaps six more.

How about an 18-inning game, tied for the longest in postseason history? How about 498 pitches? How about a record 44 strikeouts? The teams combined for 18 hits across those 18 frames. Christian Vázquez came in as a pinch hitter in the seventh and batted five times. Luis Garcia came on in relief and very nearly notched a quality start. The Mariners didn’t allow their first walk until the 16th (though they did hit four batters). Read the rest of this entry »

Every time Yordan Alvarez has stepped to the plate against the Mariners this week, I’m reminded of Star Trek. There’s an in-show famous training exercise known as the Kobayashi Maru, one every single officer candidate tries. The goal is to rescue a ship named, you guessed it, Kobayashi Maru. It’s famous because you can’t beat it. No matter what you try, you fail. The test isn’t about succeeding; it’s about how you handle failure.

That’s the energy Alvarez is bringing to the plate in the ALDS right now. He always seems to step into big spots — Jeremy Peña has done a great job getting on base in front of him — and delivers runs in droves. He’s 4–8 with two homers and a double and has accounted for seven RBI on those hits. Bring in Robbie Ray to face him? He doesn’t care. Refuse to enter the strike zone? He doesn’t care.

In the bottom of the eighth inning last night, Scott Servais attempted a new Kobayashi Maru solution. With Peña on first base and two outs in a one-run game, he chose to walk Alvarez intentionally. That put a runner in scoring position for Alex Bregman, hardly a weak hitter. Bregman singled home that insurance run the Astros were aiming for, the Mariners didn’t score in the ninth, and that was that. Read the rest of this entry »

There were two big stories coming into Game 2 between the Astros and Mariners. The first was Yordan Alvarez, hero of Game 1, destroyer of both baseballs and worlds. Before the game, TBS reported that Scott Servais had borrowed a line from Ted Lasso, encouraging his players to be goldfish and forget Tuesday’s heartbreaking defeat. Goldfish or no, the Mariners definitely remembered to be terrified of Alvarez. They also continued their strategy of throwing him sinkers, failing to understand that there is no such thing as the right pitch to throw Yordan Alvarez.

The second story was the pitching matchup. Luis Castillo was coming off a masterful start against Toronto in the Wild Card Series. Framber Valdez had a breakout 2022, including 25 consecutive quality starts. Weak pulled contact is his strength; per the broadcast, the Mariners spent batting practice working on shooting the ball the other way in preparation.

The matchup lived up to the hype. Together, Castillo and Valdez set down the first 10 batters of the game, though the former had a couple of bad misses in the first inning, yanking two pitches in a row against Jeremy Peña and sailing a four-seamer up and away against Alvarez. None of the rest of his pitches to the latter that at-bat touched the strike zone, but that was by design. Here’s what he saw in all three of his plate appearances:

Kyle Tucker kicked off the scoring in the second inning, pulling a slider that caught too much of the plate for a 370-foot home run to right. The solo shot had a launch angle of 43 degrees, which would’ve tied for the 18th-steepest regular-season homer of 2022. Read the rest of this entry »

Hindsight is always 20/20, a truism that is acutely felt after a particularly heartbreaking loss. It’s one ringing true in the heads of Mariners fans who witnessed a Game 1 victory in the AL Division Series slip through their fingers yesterday. Ben Clemens had the game recap, but I wanted to hone in on the final, decisive at-bat in the bottom of the ninth. More specifically, I want to try to answer the question in the headline: what were the Mariners thinking when they brought in Robbie Ray to face Yordan Alvarez?

On the surface, the move looks defensible. Paul Sewald had gotten the first two outs of the inning but had allowed two baserunners to reach to bring Alvarez to the plate. Why not bring in the lefty to gain the platoon advantage? Seattle even thought this very situation through in the lead up to this series. After the game, Mariners manager Scott Servais explained how that plan came to be:

“It was something going into the series where we were at, looking at our rotation, where we were going to head, and talking with Robbie about using him out of the bullpen as a bullet, so to speak, for that type of scenario. Bringing in a lefty against Alvarez, although Alvarez is one of the better hitters in the league … I looked at it in the seventh inning and said, ‘Hey, this could happen.’ So that was the plan going in.”

The Mariners aren’t strangers to game planning around Alvarez, having faced him dozens of times in the regular season during his career. Not that it’s done them much good: he has a career .305/.385/.597 (166 wRC+) slash line against Seattle in 179 plate appearances. You really can’t game plan around Alvarez, either; he’s one of the best hitters in the league and was one of the two best hitters in baseball this year. And it’s not like gaining the platoon advantage is much of an advantage anyway, given his impossibly small career platoon split: a .404 wOBA versus right-handers and a .406 wOBA against left-handers. His career strikeout rate against southpaws is even a few points lower. Read the rest of this entry »

The Mariners didn’t have an imposing offense this season. They hung their hat on pitching and defense, with a pinch of offense when they most needed it. The Astros turned otherwise-imposing offenses into weaklings; they allowed a shocking 3.2 runs per game, second only to the Dodgers in the majors. They brought out the likely Cy Young winner for today’s matchup. I’m sure you can see where this is going: Seattle scored seven runs and allowed eight.

It’s fair to say that Justin Verlander didn’t have his best stuff today. His slider came out flat; of the first eight that the Mariners swung at, they came up empty on only one. His fastball was scattershot, its normal backspinning movement coming and going, as did his command of the pitch. But he might have gotten away with it, if it weren’t for that meddling kid.

The kid, in this instance, is Julio Rodríguez. He’s an electric talent, a generational Seattle superstar in the mold of Ken Griffey Jr. After a sensational rookie season, he had a quiet start to the playoffs in Toronto, but he was in the straw that stirred the drink for Seattle today. Read the rest of this entry »

Decision-making in the playoffs is a micro-focused as you can imagine. The level of preparation which goes into these games will never be fully known in the public sphere, but if a team wants even the slightest competitive edge, you better believe the details are as granular as the fine sands of Puerto Rico’s Playa Negrita.

Every opposing hitter has a zone and/or pitch that is a weak spot. You must know who on your pitching staff is best suited to throw to those weaknesses, and what hitters are most adaptable to use pitch sequences that will play to those same weaknesses. The following matchups are a few areas that could sway any given game in either direction. They are certainly not the only of high importance, but the statistical or situational holes make them worth mentioning. I’ll go through series by series and pick one that deserves attention, starting with the Yankees against the Guardians.

Guardians’ offense vs. Yankees’ sinkerballers

The Yankees’ bullpen is loaded with turbo sinkers and groundball pitchers. Lou Trivino, Jonathan Loáisiga, and Clay Holmes, to name a few, all feature a sinker as their primary fastball. Each of them will be used in high-leverage scenarios against any layer of the Guardians’ lineup, which has been the very worst in the American League against the sinker, posting the second-lowest wOBA (.317) and the lowest xwOBA (.319).

There’s plenty to suggest the Yankees’ bullpen will give the Guardians issues. Because of those turbo sinkers, New York’s bullpen led all of baseball in GB% (49.1%) and Run Value (-20.3 runs). The next best in both categories was Baltimore, which trailed in each by a decent margin (1.5 percentage points and 1.9 runs). In today’s game, being better than every team at throwing sinkers provides a significant competitive advantage, as it keeps batted balls out of the air and on the ground. Read the rest of this entry »