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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

For eight innings, the Dodgers’ impromptu bullpen game was going nearly to plan, with their cavalcade of relievers holding the Braves to two runs on just four hits. With the game tied heading into the bottom of the ninth inning, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts brought in his eighth pitcher of the evening, Blake Treinen, hoping to force extra innings. It proved to be a bridge too far for his relief corps. A one-out bloop single by Ozzie Albies followed by a stolen base put him in position to score the winning run. Austin Riley delivered the big hit, his second of the night after a game-tying home run in the fourth inning:

It was a bit of déjà vu for both Riley and Treinen. These same two teams met in the NLCS last year and it was Riley who wound up hitting the game-winning home run off Treinen in the ninth inning of Game 1. In this case, it was a line drive single to left field that easily scored Albies from second base. It was the first walk-off hit of Riley’s career and just another high point in a breakout season for the 24-year-old.

After a promising debut in 2019, Riley made some adjustments to his approach in an attempt to address his 36.4% strikeout rate. Those changes worked — his strikeout rate dropped to 23.8% in 2020 — but he struggled to maintain contact quality as good as it had been during his debut. This year, he put everything together, sustaining his plate discipline gains while also producing fantastic contact quality. It led to a 135 wRC and 4.2 WAR, a season that should produce some down-ballot MVP votes.

For the Dodgers, starting off the series on the back foot was always a possibility after Max Scherzer was deemed unavailable to start following his ninth inning appearance in Game 5 of the Division Series. The ZiPS Game-by-Game odds shifted more than five points in the Braves favor after Corey Knebel was named the starter, though Los Angeles was still favored to win, 51.3% to 48.7%. The game didn’t start off exactly to plan either. Eddie Rosario led off with a hard-hit single down the right field line, stole second, advanced to third on a ground out and finally came around to score on a wild pitch. Read the rest of this entry »

The bill for using Max Scherzer to close out Game 5 of the Division Series against the Giants has come due. On Saturday afternoon, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts announced that he would again use Corey Knebel as the opener in Game 1 of the Championship Series against the Braves, presumably to give Scherzer — who threw 13 pitches in closing out the Giants, earned his first career save, and indicated his intent to “party hard” in celebration afterwards — an extra day of rest before his NLCS start, a move that bumps Walker Buehler and Julio Urías back one game as well.

Prior to Game 5, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of the possibility of using Scherzer, “He’s ready for whatever we need. Obviously the most important thing is to win tonight. But we still have to think about when and if we fire that bullet there is a cost, and we have to weigh other options as far as guys we already have in particular roles who have thrived.”

With Knebel and Brusdar Graterol each pitching scoreless (but hardly adventure-free) innings ahead of Urías on Thursday, the Giants emptied their bench early in order to gain the platoon advantage, but were left with righty Wilmer Flores — who was 0-for-17 with eight strikeouts in his career against Scherzer to that point — batting with two outs in the ninth. He struck out, aided by first base umpire Gabe Morales‘ dubious strike three call on a checked swing. Knebel will again open, and Roberts has indicated that Tony Gonsolin, who has not pitched since September 30, will figure prominently in a bulk role.

From the standpoint of our ZiPS Postseason Game-By-Game Odds, the overall cost is negligible thanks to the quality of the Dodgers’ pitching. The swing in the odds of the individual games appears somewhat steep in spots as the Dodgers reshuffle their rotation, with the Braves’ decision to pitch Ian Anderson in Games 2 and 6 (if necessary) and Charlie Morton in Games 3 and 7 (if necessary) nudging the needle as well:

Max Fried’s Game 1 assignment and the Braves’ use of some kind of bullpen configuration for Game 4 were thus the only constants for either side. Still, it all comes out in the wash, moving the overall series odds by less than 1%:

When the postseason began, a rematch of the 2020 National League Championship Series only had about a 21% chance of happening, according to our Playoff Odds. But after some particularly unlikely occurrences — not just the lower seeds advancing in the Division Series — here we are. Freddie Freeman became the first lefty to hit a homer off Josh Hader in nearly 13 months, and the first to do so on a slider in more than two years, while lifting the Braves past the Brewers in Game 4. The Dodgers won the Wild Card game via a walkoff home run by a slumping Chris Taylor and then eked out a narrow victory over the 107-win Giants in similarly heart-stopping fashion, with the winning hit in Thursday night’s Game 5 delivered by Cody Bellinger on the heels of a nightmare season. That’s baseball, Suzyn.

Unlike last year, this time around the Braves will have home-field advantage despite winning 18 fewer regular season games than the Dodgers, because the current playoff format deals a stiff penalty to teams sneaking into the postseason via the Wild Card door. Atlanta’s advantage could be significant at some point in the series, particularly if it goes past five games, but it’s worth noting the Braves went just 42-38 at home, tying the Marlins for the NL’s 10th-highest win total in that split; meanwhile, their 46-35 road record ranked fourth in the NL. The Dodgers had the best home record (58-23) and third-best road record (48-33), and just won an elimination game (and two of their three Division Series games) in enemy territory. The talent gap between the two teams probably matters more than the venue in which they meet, though in a short series… you know the rest. Read the rest of this entry »