JABO: Lucas Duda Ends His Slump

Coming into game four of the NLCS, Lucas Duda was having the worst postseason of any hitter on any team who qualified for the postseason. During the playoffs, he had come to the plate 27 times and made 22 outs, 13 of them via the strikeout. All three of his hits were singles, and the only run he had knocked in came on a groundout. Things were going so poorly for Duda that, in game three, he attempted a bunt after Yoenis Cespedes led off the sixth inning with a single to right field. When your slugging first baseman is just trying to beat the shift to get himself on when the go-ahead run is already standing on first base, you know he’s not exactly abounding in confidence in his own abilities.

So when Jason Hammel watched Curtis Granderson steal second base during Cespedes’ first inning at-bat tonight, part of him had to be okay with that; it opened up first base, and with two outs and a slumping Duda on deck, pitching around Cespedes become the obvious course of action. It wasn’t officially an intentional walk, but Hammel wasn’t pound the strike zone, and seemed quite content to face Duda with men on rather than letting Cespedes get a real shot at driving Granderson in.

So, after four balls to Cespedes, up stepped Duda. Hammel, struggling with his command, fell behind 2-0, but then challenged him with a fastball right down the middle; Duda fouled it off. Of course he did. Hammel then came back with a curveball on the inner half, and Duda swung through that, pushing the count to 2-2. Hammel was just one strike away from getting out of the inning unscathed, and one strike away against a guy with a 49% strikeout rate in October.

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