Mapping Out The Game 7 Pitching Plans

Tonight, two great teams play for the championship. An outstanding World Series will end with the best theatre the sport has to offer; one game, winner takes it all. Game 7s are unlike any other baseball game of the year, and for the second year in a row, we might be in for a classic.

The biggest change in any Game 7, of course, is that neither team has to worry about tomorrow. The need to weigh present versus future performance goes away. Tonight, the only thing the managers have to decide is who, in each moment, gives them the best chance to win tonight, and then everyone can go rest for five months afterwards.

The game will start with Yu Darvish and Lance McCullers on the mound. Neither will be around for the finish, though, and the biggest task either manager faces today is to map out how he plans on getting 27 outs. So let’s look at the options for both Dave Roberts and A.J. Hinch.

For the Astros, the goal is probably to use as few pitchers as possible. It’s pretty clear that Hinch wants to avoid the guys who spent the regular season in the bullpen if he can, and with the exception of Justin Verlander, his four regular season rotation guys are all relatively fresh tonight. McCullers will be pitching on full rest, Charlie Morton will be available with three days rest, while Dallas Keuchel and Brad Peacock both have had two days off since they last threw. If Hinch has his druthers, my guess is those are the only four pitchers to see the mound tonight.

So, in Hinch’s everything-goes-perfect plan, it’s probably something like McCullers for the first five innings, then Morton for two or three, then some combination of Keuchel and Peacock closing it out, depending on who is due up. Justin Verlander is probably Hinch’s emergency option if whoever the last man standing needs help to get the last few outs. Collin McHugh is likely the extra-inning long guy; I’d be surprised if he makes an appearance in the first nine innings, given the need to still have someone available for multiple innings once all the starters are burned.

But, of course, things rarely go perfectly, and the big question Hinch may have to answer tonight is what he does if McCullers gets in trouble. Or, alternately, how early is he willing to pull his starter if the pitcher’s spot comes up in a run-scoring situation, as it did last night. McCullers isn’t Verlander and has no real shot at pitching deep tonight, so if his spot comes up in the 4th inning and the Astros have a chance to drive in a run by pinch-hitting, will he make the trade off of asking for roughly six more outs from his bullpen than he hoped for in order to try and put runs on the board?

Mathematically, the right call will be to pinch-hit if there’s a significant run expectancy; the differences between having McCullers bat versus a pinch-hitter dramatically outweigh the run prevention difference between McCullers or a guy like Will Harris or Chris Devenski pitch for the next inning. Especially with three starters down in the pen expected to pitch tonight, all of whom can go multiple innings, you don’t want to surrender a chance to score runs just to try and squeeze a few extra outs out of your starter.

So, even if McCullers is throwing well, there’s a chance he might only go three or four innings if he needs to be lifted for a pinch hitter. Whether Hinch is willing to trust any of his extra arms may determine his decision in a high-leverage spot early in the game; the data says he should be willing to look at more than just recent postseason performance and trust the guys who helped get this team to the playoffs, not just the ones who have pitched well (at times) over the last few weeks.

I’m guessing we won’t see Ken Giles unless the Astros are up by double-digits. Which is too bad, because there’s probably going to be a spot where the Astros could use a high-K right-hander to get a big out, and he’s probably still their best option to get a strikeout out of the pen. It’s hard to imagine Giles pitching unless the game goes extra innings, though. More pressingly, it will be interesting to see if Hinch is willing to put any of his other relievers in at any point to allow for a pinch-hitter if one is needed.

On the Dodgers side of things, Roberts probably has some more difficult choices to make, because he has a lot of guys he’d probably like to use, but not many fresh arms of that group. By using Brandon Morrow, Kenta Maeda, and Kenley Jansen yesterday, the Dodgers probably need to get more than just a token appearance from Clayton Kershaw today.

The trick for Roberts remains the decision on who gets to face the top of the order. The stack of five right-handers make it difficult to use a guy like Alex Wood as the bridge arm, so even though he’s available out of the pen, I’m not entirely sure I see an obvious role for him unless Darvish is pulled early, either for struggles or pinch-hitting reasons.

With Darvish being a righty, and a righty who has a history of dominance against RHBs, I think there’s some chance we might see him pitch deeper tonight than Roberts has allowed his other starters to work in this series. The Alex Wood/Rich Hill decisions have made it clear that he wanted those guys out after two trips through the order, but those guys are lefties, and the Astros big bats crush left-handers. So if Darvish survives to get through the order twice, I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if he got to face the first four or five hitters in the line-up a third time, since the Dodgers don’t have that many other right-handed options to go after those guys.

In Roberts’ dream scenario, he probably gets to stick with Darvish for 22 or 23 batters, getting somewhere between 15-18 outs. If he can stick with Darvish through Correa, then he could use Wood or Tony Watson/Tony Cingrani to go after the back-half of the line-up, where the lefties have a better chance of success. So then you’re looking at Darvish for 5-6, then one of the lefties to push it through the sixth or maybe even begin the seventh, depending on when the pitcher’s spot bats again for LA.

Roberts’ big decision probably comes if Houston has put enough guys on base to bring the big hitters up a fourth time at some point in the seventh inning. Morrow looked excellent yesterday, but has pitched in every game in this series, and those guys lit him up on Sunday, so that’s not the automatic call it would have been had he not had to bail Hill out yesterday. As great as Kershaw is, you probably don’t want to bring him in on two days rest to face the top of the order if you don’t have to. And Maeda has thrown 81 pitches in three outings over the last five days, striking out only three of the 19 batters he’s faced in that span. More than anyone else, he’s the one I think fatigue might be the biggest factor for tonight.

So, if Springer comes up in the seventh, I wouldn’t be entirely shocked to see Kenley Jansen get the call if the game is close, especially if there are guys on base. He’s their best right-handed arm, and if they can shut down a top-of-the-order rally in the seventh, they might not have to face the Astros best hitters again, so saving Jansen to let him close out the game might mean he’s facing weaker hitters later.

If they can go Darvish/Pick A Lefty/Jansen to get through seven, and maybe even eight depending on when in the seventh Jansen would have to come in to face Springer, then you’ve still got Kershaw to close out the game in the ninth, with Morrow hanging around as an option to bail him out if he looks gassed and the big righties come back around. That would be a pretty great scenario for the Dodgers.

Of course, things happen. If Darvish gets in trouble early or there’s a big spot to pinch-hit in order to put runs on the board, then that changes everything. Then you’re probably looking at Alex Wood for multiple innings, and probably Morrow to face the right-handers the third time they come up. So if Darvish comes out after just a few innings, then the plan is probably something like Darvish/Wood/Morrow to try to get through 18 outs, then some combination of Kershaw/Jansen/Watson/Cingrani to get the last nine. That’s less ideal, obviously.

So while both Roberts and Hinch would love to see their starters dominate, it’s probably a little more important for Darvish to get deeper than it is for McCullers. Having Darvish pitch well enough to be entrusted with the top of the order a third time through gives the Dodgers a great chance to never let the Springer-to-Correa group see a left-hander. If Darvish goes out early, then one or two of the southpaws — probably Wood and Kershaw — will probably have to get the Astros’ big bats out.

Game 7. It’s nuts, but it’s awesome. This should be a fun one.