Trevor Bauer’s Dominating Curveball
Yesterday, I wrote about how Jon Gray’s curveball didn’t work in the NL Wild Card game. Gray hung a bunch of poorly-located curves that the Diamondbacks crushed, and he was chased from the game in the second inning. Last night, though, Trevor Bauer showed what a good curveball in the postseason looks like.
| Thrown | Ball | Called Strike | Whiff | Foul | In Play |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 35 | 12 | 8 | 4 | 4 | 7 |
With only four whiffs, you might not think the pitch was particularly dominant, but Bauer’s curveball was his best pitch of the night. Because, unlike Gray, he was able to keep it down.
Instead of just relying on whiffs, Bauer also managed to freeze hitters with curves in the zone, like he did to Aaron Judge here.
Eight times, Bauer froze a Yankee hitter with a curveball in the zone, including Aaron Judge twice for strike three. And when the Yankees did swing, it didn’t go much better for them.
15 times, a New York hitter went after Bauer’s curveball. Only seven of those 15 swings resulted in a ball in play. Here is what they did with those seven balls in play.
| Batter | Exit Velocity | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Brett Gardner | 65 | Pop Out |
| Chase Headley | 89 | Fly Out |
| Brett Gardner | 84 | Groundout |
| Gary Sanchez | 70 | Doulble Play |
| Aaron Hicks | 100 | Double |
| Brett Gardner | 83 | Groundout |
| Gary Sanchez | 75 | Groundout |
Hicks rocked a poorly located curve, but besides that, this is as weak as contact gets. With Sanchez’s double play, he still managed to rack up seven outs on the seven balls in play. Combined with the four strikeouts, Bauer got a total of 11 outs out of his 35 curveballs. Not bad indeed.
Bauer’s curve has always been his best pitch, and it’s probably not a coincidence that he’s had his best season while throwing his pitch more frequently than ever before. Bauer threw his curve 30% of the time in the regular season, and upped that to 36% last night. He’s not quite Rich Hill yet, but given what Bauer did to the Yankees with his breaking ball last night, they probably should expect a healthy dose of them if he gets into another game this series.
Of course, with Corey Kluber going today and Carlos Carrasco in Game Three, the Yankees might not see Bauer again this season.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
I’ve been on the Cleveland-to-Championship bandwagon basically all season, so I’m not exactly unbiased. But I always thought it was funny how everyone was saying that no one would want to face the Yankees (in different ways). The Yankees are exceptionally good for a wild-card team, but Cleveland is a terror. Cleveland’s third best starting pitcher just shut down the second-best offense in MLB (although to be fair, they’re only a shade better than Cleveland’s offense).
The Yankees will probably get their favorite relievers back in Game 2, which is good for them. Of course, they’ll also be starting CC Sabathia up against Kluber, which is…less good. I’ll be interested to see how Girardi handles the bullpen in this situation.
As a Cleveland fan, the Yankees in the short series definitely worry me more than any other possible matchup though. I acknowledge that Cleveland themselves are the ultimate worst matchup for basically everyone. But NY has the unique ability in the short series to neutralize Cleveland’s main advantage with their starting pitching. Like Sabathia vs Kluber, favorable for Cleveland, but if the game is tied or Cleveland is trailing after 3 innings nothing would prevent Girardi going to the bullpen and using guys who are as good as Kluber on a per-inning basis.
Being that Cleveland has such a similar bullpen, that ultimately isn’t that much of a disadvantage though. It would just mean the Yankees are having to utilize their pen for more innings, while the Indians will better have theirs saved for when it matters most.
I don’t know that Cleveland’s bullpen is similar. Miller and Allen, and Bryan Shaw and Joe Smith, but after that it’s guys who have little/no experience as relievers, Clevinger and Salazar. They have the stuff to be dominant out of the bullpen, but you really don’t know what you’re going to get. And I would certainly take like Chapman and Kahnle over Shaw and Smith. With the off days in the ALDS, you don’t really need to “save” your relievers at all, as long as the starter can give you at least 3 innings
“Miller and Allen, and Bryan Shaw and Joe Smith, but after that” …it’s Olsen (2.41 FIP) before you even get to the 2 extremely impressive Starters currently in the pen (one of which is canceled out by the Yankees carrying Garcia in a similar fashion)
You need to “save” your bullpen only insomuch as you can’t expect them to be eating 6-8 innings almost every game. Expecting your starter to go 6-7 means you can use the full pen, even every single day if need be, to 1-2 guy match-up strengths rather than having to expect a full inning or more of each guy each time they step on the mound.
The scenario you presented is Sabathia going 3 – that leaves 6 innings for their short relievers. Already a coupe pitched yesterday, and they might be needed again Sunday and Monday too. That’s a ton of relying on the pen, even if there is an off-day; while Clevelands pen is available for situational appearances