Clayton Kershaw continued to chip away at the mostly misguided narrative that he’s not a postseason pitcher, throwing seven dominant shutout innings against the Cubs at Wrigley in Sunday night’s 1-0 NLCS Game 2 victory, striking out six while walking just one. Kershaw talked manager Dave Roberts into letting him face the final batter of the seventh inning with reliever Kenley Jansen ready for action in the bullpen. Having thrown just 84 pitches after the conclusion of the seventh, Kershaw certainly would have gone out for the eighth inning if this were regular-season game, and likely would have gotten a shot for a complete-game shutout in the ninth.

As his final pitch count indicates, Kershaw was incredibly efficient with his pitches against Chicago’s typically uber-patient lineup, needing just 45 pitches to get through 4.2 perfect innings before Javier Baez’s two-out single in the fifth broke up his bid for perfection. He either got ahead of or retired each of the first six batters he faced, and seven of the first nine the first time through the order.

The pitches he threw to those nine batters the first time through the order:

Even the two that missed were close. In text form, in case you couldn’t pick up the pitch types from the video, those nine first-pitches were:

1. fastball
2. fastball
3. fastball
4. fastball
5. fastball
6. fastball
7. fastball
8. fastball
9. fastball

This isn’t exactly a new development for Kershaw. We talk a lot about Kershaw’s extremes, and one of the perhaps underrated Kershaw outlier tendencies is his reliance on the first-pitch fastball. To measure this, I took every pitcher who faced at least 500 batters this year, using BaseballSavant, and I calculated their fastball rate on the first pitch of at-bats, and on the rest of the pitches in at-bats, and found the difference between the two, indicating the pitchers who most relied on the fastball to begin at-bats, relative to the rest of their arsenal.

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It’s convenient the way this worked out. In the worst-case interpretation, Javier Baez got away with something on Sunday. In the best-case interpretation, Baez might’ve taken advantage of a rule-book loophole. What Baez did provoked Dave Roberts to complain at least a little bit, but in the end, the Dodgers scored one run, and the Cubs scored less than that. Because the Dodgers won, Baez’s play doesn’t matter. So now we can talk about it a little bit without emotions threatening to take over.

In Game 2, Baez was praised for his casual on-the-fly brilliance, and it came up because of a double play he started in the top of the sixth. The play allowed for the Cubs to get out of a jam, keeping the deficit at the narrowest margin. The Dodgers wouldn’t have any real protest if Baez started a regular double play. But this double play started with Baez very much intentionally not catching a catchable baseball.

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Baseball can be such a complex game. We’ve got radars and cameras that track every movement on the field and spit out massive data sets at the conclusion of each contest. We’ve got run-expectancy simulators and lineup optimizers and a tool that allows one to search any combination of season, game, split, event, and streak stats from any player in any number of years dating back more than a century. We love baseball due in part to its layers of intricacies; there’s something for everyone, and no two fans share an identical relationship with the sport. At its core, baseball, to the observer, serves as nothing more than a distraction, and the complexity of the game affords those observers a seemingly infinite supply of secondary distractions when the primary one is insufficient.

Baseball can be such a simple game. Sometimes, even with all the information at the disposal of the coaches and players, it can be best not to overthink things. Important moment? Bring in the best pitcher. Bring in the best pitcher, the way Dave Roberts did with Kenley Jansen with two men on and no outs in the bottom of the seventh of an NLDS Game 5, facing elimination. Got a good pitch? Throw that pitch. Throw that pitch 39 out of 47 times, the way Jansen did with his cutter to carve up the Nationals for 2.1 erratic but effective innings.

Jansen’s decisions with the cutter were nothing out of the ordinary — he threw his cutter 83% of the time last night, he threw his cutter 88% of the time during the regular season — but there was something about his outing, something about the way that he works in a near-state of perpetual motion, that brought a sort of calming beauty to an otherwise hectic and turbulent affair. A 4-hour, 32-minute game which featured a 66-minute seventh inning, a 13-pitch walk, 11 pitching changes, and, eventually, a moment of triumph. And in the middle of all that was a 29-year-old former catcher from Curaçao, standing on the pitcher’s mound in the middle of a whirlwind in perhaps the biggest moment of his career, just throwing cutter after cutter.

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Let’s pick it up in the bottom of the sixth, shall we? In a decisive Game 5, the Nationals held a 1-0 lead, and they were looking to stretch it. With two outs and someone on first who can run faster than you can, Ryan Zimmerman knocked a double to the left-field corner, and the Nationals’ third-base coach got aggressive. He waved Jayson Werth around, figuring that an insurance run would be absolutely massive. An out and, well, you tried, and you’ve still got the late lead. Werth gave it what he could.

That’s Werth at the bottom, running his tail off. Coach Bob Henley isn’t even looking anymore, now that the matter would be out of his hands. By this point he must’ve had a suspicion. Based on my calculations, the break-even rate here was 35%. That is, it made sense to send Werth around third if you thought he’d be safe at home at least 35% of the time. With the throw coming from just past third base, it looked like Werth would be safe at home about 0% of the time.

The camera has panned, and you don’t see the baseball. That’s because the baseball is in the glove of the catcher, and Werth is maybe, what, two-thirds of the way to the plate? Less than that? Werth is out. He’s so out. Baserunners are practically never this out. Werth is so out he might’ve given brief consideration to turning around. Until just a few years ago, a play that developed like this might’ve at least resulted in an exciting collision. Collisions are easy sells to the members of an average audience. Runners used to have one way out. That way was dangerous, and sometimes electrifying.

Werth stopped. He didn’t stay stopped — he went to the trouble of closing the distance. But Werth gave up. He was out, and he knew it, and he accepted it, and the Nationals still had the lead. So concluded a thrilling baseball sequence, by which a casual baseball viewer might not have been thrilled.

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Over time, teams take on the characteristics of some of their key players in the minds of analysts and fans. The Rays are eternally linked with Evan Longoria, known for power taking precedence at the plate, with a focus on defense. Similarly, Ryan Braun is the poster child for the Brewers, a bat-oriented player without a material defensive presence.

This week and next, let’s allow the players themselves to fade into the background, and draw some conclusions from a simple set of numbers — namely, each of the 10 playoff clubs’ team ball-in-play (BIP) statistics, broken down by exit speed and launch angles. We’ll examine what made these teams tick during the regular season and allowed them to play meaningful October baseball.

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In a few hours, the Dodgers and Nationals are going to play for their seasons; one team will advance, one will go home. The Nationals are in a pretty good position, hosting the game in Washington while throwing their ace, Max Scherzer; it’s hard to ask for much more than that if you’re in an elimination game. The Dodgers used their ace in Game 4, however, so they’re going to be mixing and matching in order to try win this one.

While they haven’t officially announced anything, the team is expected to start Rich Hill. Given his health track record, however, and the fact that he’s going on three days rest, they’re probably not going to have him work too deep into the game. In fact, reading the tea leaves from Andy McCullough’s game preview, it sounds like the Dodgers are going into this game planning for something of a tandem start.

“We talked about Rich as an option, obviously,” Manager Dave Roberts said after the Dodgers’ 6-5 win on Tuesday. “But so is Julio, and how we want to strategize to win Game 5, we’re going to talk through it.”

…

The combination of Hill and Julio Urias is unorthodox, but it would reduce the chances of Washington’s top four hitters — Trea Turner, Bryce Harper, Jayson Werth and Daniel Murphy — from getting comfortable at the plate against either. Hitters tend to perform better when they have seen a pitcher more than once in a game. The Dodgers will try not to allow that to happen on Thursday.

If the Dodgers are serious about limiting Hill and Urias to one trip through the order, that would be something indeed; they’d be limiting themselves to getting likely six or seven outs from each pitcher, and would be relying on the rest of their bullpen to get the other ~13 outs, despite being worked pretty heavily in both games in Los Angeles. It would be the most aggressive kind of bullpen game we’ve been expecting so far in the playoffs, but unfortunately for the Dodgers, I’m not sure how well set up they are to actually pull it off.

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Clayton Kershaw looked on from the dugout while the inning he started lived on. It was the seventh inning of Tuesday night’s Game 4 of the NLDS between the Dodgers and the Nationals in Los Angeles, and Kershaw was responsible for all three of the men on base in a three-run game. Pedro Baez took the mound in an attempt to preserve the lead. Baez threw one pitch, it hit Jayson Werth’s elbow, a run scored, and out went Baez. Kershaw might not have flashbacks, but he’s seen this situation before. The camera panned to the dugout.

In came Luis Avilan. He threw two pitches, the latter of which hit Daniel Murphy’s bat, landed in the outfield grass, and two runs scored. Game tied. The camera panned to the dugout.

The Dodgers went on to win the game, 6-5, forcing a Game 5, so in hindsight, what happened in this inning doesn’t much matter. But Kershaw’s pitching line won’t change: 6.2 IP, 7 H, 5 ER, 2 BB, 11 K, 0 HR. I’m not alone in saying Kershaw pitched much better than that line might indicate. In fact, all things considered — pitching on three days rest, throwing a 27-pitch first inning, being asked to throw 110 pitches and face Bryce Harper three times, despite those two preceding points — I’m guessing I wouldn’t be alone in saying Kershaw pitched brilliantly. And yet, he’s been charged with five earned runs. His ERA for the day was 6.75.

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The Dodgers, of course, announced that they’re going with Kershaw today. But I’d still have gone the other way.

It’s becoming an October tradition; as the Dodgers head into game four of the NLDS, they are considering whether to bring back Clayton Kershaw on three days rest. As I sat down to talk about their decision on who to pitch today, I realized this is the third time in four years we’ve written this same post.

Back in 2013, Jeff Sullivan wrote about the decision between starting Kershaw or Ricky Nolasco. In 2014, Jeff again wrote about the call to pick Kershaw over Dan Haren. Last year, apparently we got distracted by Chase Utley’s slide or something, because we didn’t appear to write about the Dodgers using Kershaw in game four of the series against the Mets, but that happened too; the Dodgers have thrown Kershaw in games one and four of the division series three straight years, bringing him back on three days rest each time.

This year, though, I think they should do it differently. I think they should start Julio Urias today.

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I know that the game has moved on — as I write this right now, the Nationals are beating the Dodgers 4-3 in the sixth inning of Game 3. This game will turn on so many things, a handful of them yet to happen. But I still want to take you back quickly to the bottom of the first. The Dodgers jumped out to a 1-0 lead, and Yasiel Puig came up with one out and a runner on second. He took three balls, then the count ran full, then Gio Gonzalez attacked Puig inside with a heater.

Let’s slow that down, with a ball-tracker that I will choose to believe in this instance is reliable:

That’s a good general pitch location, and that’s also a good job of receiving by Jose Lobaton. I’ve seen far, far worse pitches thrown in full counts. But that pitch isn’t a strike. That pitch isn’t even a borderline strike. That pitch is a ball, full stop. Gameday provides its own evidence:

From Baseball Savant, here are the 2016 full-count pitches called strikes against right-handed hitters. I’ve highlighted the pitch to Puig in blue.

I’m not writing this because I have a rooting interest — I don’t. And I’m not writing this because I think it’ll cost the Dodgers the game. I’m writing this only because it was an important pitch in an important game, and this was a pretty extremely bad strike call. Not the worst of all time or anything, but bad nevertheless, and this was the whole difference between a walk and a strikeout. Puig didn’t do anything wrong. He did what he was supposed to do exactly right — he took a pitch even in a situation in which he might’ve been feeling aggressive. Puig should’ve been rewarded for his patience, but instead Gonzalez was rewarded for, I don’t know, throwing a ball with precision?

I don’t want to dwell. Again, the game has moved past this, and the first inning has long since been forgotten. But had this pitch been called properly, it would’ve made a win-expectancy difference for the Dodgers of about five percentage points. Another way of thinking about it: the run value of calling this a strike instead of a ball was 0.6. More than half of a run, which is substantial, as individual pitch-calls go. We don’t get a whole lot of opportunities to come to the defense of Yasiel Puig’s plate discipline. Yasiel Puig should’ve drawn a walk. I don’t know what the hell this must do to a player psychologically.

Coming into the NLDS, Dusty Baker took a good number of questions about the shortstop position. Danny Espinosa finished the year in a hell of a slump, but as Baker said to the media, he didn’t really have any other options. Espinosa was and is the best shortstop on the roster, and you have to give him one thing: for all of his flaws, there might be no one better at getting hit by a pitch.

So, actually, nevermind, there is still a Brandon Guyer floating around out there. But Espinosa is a hit-by-pitch machine, and he’s already been struck three times in the series, which is incredible. Even more incredible is the most recent HBP, because, see, Espinosa was granted first base, even though he got hit by a strike.

A strike!

Danny Espinosa got hit by a strike.

A strike, is what Danny Espinosa got hit by.

A borderline strike — sure, I’ll grant that. Espinosa didn’t get hit by a pitch that was literally down the middle, because that would be a physical impossibility. But what we’re dealing with here is insane. I went to Baseball Savant and pulled all the 2016 hit-by-pitches. You can basically see the bodies of righties and lefties in the plot below, and the overwhelming majority of these pitches make total sense. With a few, you see the profiles of elbows. The pitch to Espinosa is the only one that would’ve otherwise counted as a strike for the pitcher.

There’s a rule about this.

(6.08) The batter becomes a runner and is entitled to first base without liability to be put out (provided he advances to and touches first base) when:
[…]
He is touched by a pitched ball which he is not attempting to hit unless (A) The ball is in the strike zone when it touches the batter, or (B) The batter makes no attempt to avoid being touched by the ball;

If the ball is in the strike zone when it touches the batter, it shall be called a strike, whether or not the batter tries to avoid the ball. If the ball is outside the strike zone when it touches the batter, it shall be called a ball if he makes no attempt to avoid being touched.

Usually, when people complain about HBPs, they complain that umpires don’t enforce the make-an-effort part of this rule. That whole thing about making an attempt to avoid being touched by the ball — umpires almost literally never use that. So, the precedent has essentially been established. The rule is a non-rule. But here people can complain twice over. Espinosa made no attempt to move, and the pitch was a strike. So that’s two reasons why he shouldn’t have been granted first base, two reasons right there in the rule book. Dave Roberts, though, came out to make his case, and Espinosa still remained at first. He was never called back, and he was never going to be. The rules take care to detail what ought to count as a hit-by-pitch, but it seems that that part of the book was never assigned in umpiring school.