There are things that are different about R.A. Dickey, of course. No one pitch was thrown as often as the 2,840 regular season knuckleballs that Dickey threw this year. No other qualified pitcher threw any knuckle balls this year by PITCHf/x. The starter who threw the fewest fastballs other than Dickey threw three times as many. No pitch gets equal swinging strike results in and out of the zone like the knuckleball. Dickey can throw with injuries that would fell other pitchers, mostly because he throws at about 75% effort. He has no Ulnar Collateral Ligament.

And yet, despite the fact that Dickey is a one-pitch pitcher who throws a unique pitch that people seemingly can’t figure out no matter where he throws it, there are also conventional aspects to his craft. And to a certain extent, they’ve come to the fore this year.

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Ben and Sam banter about Johnny Cueto and the differences between the most boring parts of baseball and other sports, then answer playoff-related listener emails.

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Last night, John Hirschbeck ejected Troy Tulowitzki from game three of the ALCS after Tulowitzki complained about Hirschbeck’s called strikes against him in his previous at-bat as he took the field for the top of the eighth inning.

It was a strange ejection, as you don’t usually see a guy on the field thrown out when he’s 50 feet away from the umpire who tosses him, and while we obviously don’t know what was said, there didn’t appear to be any kind of emotional reaction from the Blue Jays shortstop that necessitated an ejection. In his post-game comments, Tulowitzki asserted that the ejection was premature:

“I think it was obvious I didn’t agree with the called third strike,” Tulowitzki said. “And there were other pitches that were questionable. I’m walking out to the field, and he’s looking at me. And I told him that wasn’t a strike. And it was a quick trigger. Obviously he was either holding on to something or something was going on. But I didn’t think what I did was going to eject me from the game.

“Obviously, you don’t want to get ejected right there. Unfortunately, I was. But it will be interesting to see what he has to say.”

Clearly, the bar for what constitutes an ejection should be higher in the postseason; the stakes are so high, the last thing the league should want is a game being decided by backups forced into the game because an umpire had a short fuse. So it would be interesting to hear Hirschbeck’s side, and his rationale for why he had to eject Toronto’s shortstop from the game. Unless he provides a compelling alternate version of events, this event won’t help his reputation as an umpire with too quick of a hook.

But, without defending the ejection, it should be noted that Tulowitzki was wrong about the pitch that ultimately got him ejected. In fact, the Blue Jays complaints about the strike zone seem pretty weak when you actually look at the balls and strikes Hirschbeck called last night.

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Looking at the pitching matchup between the New York Mets and Chicago Cubs tonight, the Mets appear to have a significant advantage. Jacob deGrom has been one of the best pitcher’s in the National League, posting both a sub-3 FIP and ERA this season, while the Cubs counter with Kyle Hendricks, a young pitcher who put together a fine year in the middle of the Cubs rotation. The Cubs, having burned the team’s two best pitchers in Jake Arrieta and Jon Lester in the first two losses, now have to face the Mets’ best pitcher after dealing with Matt Harvey and Noah Syndergaard already. The matchup looks to be a mismatch, but Hendricks is better than his overall numbers appear.

deGrom had a fantastic regular season, finishing sixth in National League with five wins above replacement. His arsenal is Pedro-lite, as Owen Watson wrote last week, and allowed the right-hander to strike out more than 30% of hitters in the second half. Among NL pitchers, only Clayton Kershaw, Max Scherzer and Madison Bumgarner produced a strikeout- and walk-rate differential (K-BB%) higher than deGrom’s mark of 22.2. Only 17 qualified NL pitchers produced even a strikeout rate higher than deGrom’s 22.2% K-BB%. The Mets’ ace has started two games in the playoffs, pitching 13 innings, striking out 20 against four walks, and leading the Mets to two of their three playoff victories in the Division Series. In those two games, the opposing pitcher have been Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke, respectively, and in the latter game, he helped clinch the series over the Dodgers. Giving the Mets a 3-0 series advantage would likely have a similar effect on the Cubs. In Kyle Hendricks, deGrom has downgraded when it comes to the opposing pitcher; Hendricks is no Greinke or Kershaw. That said, he has performed well all season long, even if only in short outings.

Hendricks has produced a solid season, recording an average ERA and a better than average 3.36 FIP (86 FIP-) to go along with 3.4 WAR in 180 innings this season. At the end of last month, Dave Cameron wrote that as Hendricks stopped using his cutter and increased the use of change, Hendricks pitched even better, making him the front-runner for the Cubs third starter in the playoffs. That change has yielded a phenomenal 26% whiff rate on the season, per Brooks Baseball. He used the pitch to get multiple strikeouts in Game 2 of the Division Series against the St. Louis Cardinals. The pitch moves down and away to left-handers, like this pitch against Brandon Moss.

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So here’s something weird. I’ve noticed on Twitter that when Blue Jays fans refer to last night’s ALCS Game Three, they seem to give the credit to the Jays. They say things like, “The Jays were crushing the ball.” But when Royals fans talk about the game, they do it in a Royals-centric context, taking credit away from the Royals, as in, “Cueto sucked.” This isn’t to knock on either fan base. We all do this. I sure do. The truth though, as is often the case, lies in the middle somewhere. The Royals, Cueto especially, pitched badly. The Blue Jays, Troy Tulowitzki and Ryan Goins especially, hit well. But, when parcelling out the blame and/or credit, one can’t be binary about it. Unlike pooping the bed, it’s not an all or nothing thing.

Cueto ended up with a final line of two innings pitched and eight runs allowed. To my eye he struggled, and I doubt your eye would say much different, but based solely on his stuff I wouldn’t have guessed he was eight-runs-in-two-innings bad. Partially because that’s reeeeeeally bad (that’s an ERA of 36.00!), but partially because he just didn’t appear all that awful. So maybe more of the credit/blame for the outcome should fall on the Blue Jays. But then again, I’m not a scout, so maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about.* I was curious to see if I could figure out who should get the credit and how much.

*Maybe?

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Back in July, the Royals and Blue Jays added big name stars to load up their rosters for a deep postseason run. Looking at their team, Kansas City decided they needed a #1 starter, and so they gave up a trio of good young pitching prospects to bring Johnny Cueto over from Cincinnati. The Blue Jays also landed an ace of their own in David Price, but they didn’t stop there, also making a big move to bring Troy Tulowitzki north of the border to take over at shortstop and bolster their offense.

To this point, neither player has quite lived up to expectations. Cueto ran a 4.76 ERA after coming over to the American League and his first round playoff performance was a mixed bag. Tulowitzki, meanwhile, didn’t hit for the kind of power he’s known for, and after missing most of the final season due to a shoulder injruy, he’s been overmatched by the high quality pitching teams have thrown at him in the playoffs.

So in the third inning of the third game of the ALCS, the two July acquisitions met in a moment that looked like it might define the 2015 postseason for one or the other. The Blue Jays already led 3-2 and had a couple of runners on base, but they’d seen the Royals come storming back before, and with Marcus Stroman looking hittable, building a big lead early was going to be important. For Cueto, a double play or strikeout that could let him squash another rally would give him a chance to turn his outing around, as he did after a poor early start in the deciding game of the division series.

And given how poor Tulowitzki has looked in the playoffs, the Royals had to like their chances. A big part of Tulo’s excellence has been his ability to avoid strikeouts in an era where everyone swings and misses with regularity. In 32 postseason plate appearances this year, however, Tulo had already struck out 10 times, and on Sunday, he looked like he just didn’t want to swing. Despite his pedigree, Tulo hadn’t exactly struck fear into anyone’s heart with his recent at-bats.

So, in the biggest at-bat of the game, Cueto decided to go after him. He threw a first pitch cut fastball at 88 mph at the top of the strike zone, and Tulo fouled it off. Perhaps emboldened by the shortstops inability to get around on a pitch below 90, Cueto decided to challenge him with a 93 mph heater, going even higher up the ladder, to see if he could get a swinging strike to get the count to 0-2. Only, this happened.

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The people are growing accustomed to watching the Mets win, and as a side effect of that, the people are growing accustomed to watching Jeurys Familia come in to try to finish the job. Familia has yet to allow a postseason run, and even if you didn’t know anything about him before, you’d be able to tell just from observation that he’s far from a weakness. They say the biggest vulnerability on the Mets is the soft underbelly of the bullpen, and though that would be true for most teams, the Mets make it extra tricky, because the starters often work deep, meaning they can hand the ball to Familia almost directly. Which means there’s almost never any let-up.

What Familia has turned himself into is one of the true reliever elites. It hasn’t always been a smooth and easy path to the top, as Familia has previously fought his own command and struggled to retire left-handed hitters. Both of those are common problems for hard-throwing righty relievers, but Familia this year has overcome them, blossoming into a shutdown closer Terry Collins will trust to get more than three outs. And the thing about Familia is that it goes beyond just his being successful — these days, he arrives at his success on a path all his own.

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Jake Arrieta, Zack Greinke, and Clayton Kershaw are going to be the top three finishers in this year’s NL Cy Young Award voting. This is about as much of a lock as sports award voting gets. They have been that dominant, and that far ahead of the pack. Dave Cameron has written here several times on the race between those three and no others, and that settles things for me.

This means the New York Mets have done something no other baseball team ever has: they have beaten the top three finishers in their league’s Cy Young voting in a single postseason. They defeated Kershaw in Game 1 of the NLDS, aced out Greinke in the deciding Game 5, and on Sunday night, in Game 2 of the NLCS, Arrieta took an L for the first time since July 25 (or June 16, if you give him a pass for getting beaten by Cole Hamels‘ no-hitter).

Yes, yes, I know: it’s probably best to “Kill The Win,” which strongly implies collateral damage upon the loss. I acknowledge the arbitrary component that goes into assignment of pitcher losses. However, if I let that forestall me, we won’t have any fun and we won’t learn anything. So instead let’s have some fun and learn something.

It isn’t just a single-league mark the Mets have set. If you count the top three finishers in both leagues, only the 2015 Mets have ever beaten three top-three vote-getters in one postseason. They join eleven clubs that have managed to beat two.

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Johnny Cueto’s changeup is currently flatter than it’s been in five years. Literally. To some extent, everything in his arsenal is flat right now, but it’s most radical when you look at the changeup. With that wiggle in his delivery and a possibly falling arm slot, it’s easy to find a culprit. But he’s wiggled forever, why has he lost his drop now?

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