Well that was a fun second night.
What Happened
Max Scherzer was fine. He wasn’t bad, but he was just…fine. He walked an uncharacteristic three batters. He took nearly 100 pitches to get 13 outs. He kept the Cardinals to one run, and a scrappy run at that, but it probably would’ve been more, timing excluded. He was fine.
And the Dodgers were fine with that.
There’s this thing about the Dodgers’ lineup, and it’s true of their bullpen as well, which is that it’s just so damn deep. Odds are, you’re going to find guys who produce. Max Scherzer was fine, but then five Dodger bullpen arms came in and slammed the door. One walk, over their 18 batters faced. Just two hits, and fittingly also just two balls hit harder (off of them) than 89 mph. The Dodgers’ offense kept putting the ball in play, but was mostly fine, and then Justin Turner homered and Cody Bellinger became a pest and Chris Taylor finished it off.
To be fair, yes, stars led the way. Mookie Betts and Trea Turner were each on base twice. Scherzer did keep the damage to just one run. But if you want to look at the real identity of these Dodgers teams the last five (more, now) years, look at Taylor—the savvy pickup from the Mariners who exploded in his first full season in LA and, yes, can play anywhere—and look at Blake Treinen, the free agent the Dodgers made sure they got after 2019 because he’d shown once he could be elite and you can never have too many arms that could do it. Tommy Kahnle hasn’t worked out. Treinen has. And while payroll does help with this (the Dodgers have bought some pricey lottery tickets), it’s not the determining factor. Taylor and Treinen each make about $8M a year. Moneyball with money, as they say.
On the Cardinals side, Tommy Edman was a spark and the pitching—Adam Wainwright, Luis García, and Giovanny Gallegos—held until it didn’t (Jack Flaherty, Dakota Hudson, and others were curiously left in the bullpen), but beyond Edman and Paul Goldschmidt, only three Cardinals reached base, and each did it just once. While the Dodgers trotted out Steven Souza Jr., Gavin Lux, Billy McKinney, and Albert Pujols (who smoked one in what was set up to be a Disney moment) the Cardinals’ only change was to insert Paul DeJong for Edmundo Sosa late in the game. It’s not all on Mike Shildt. The pitching got odd late, but even that may have been due to things we don’t know. Rather, the Cardinals were just out-depthed.
The Dodgers will do that to you.
The Heroes
Taylor had the highest WPA, at 0.35, followed by Edman at 0.21, García at 0.16, Bellinger at 0.15, Wainwright and Treinen at 0.14, Kenley Jansen at 0.13, and Joe Kelly at 0.12. Which really goes to show how close of a game this was. Lot of Cardinals on that list. Tons of relievers on that list. It’s a high-leverage position, guys.
What It Means
The rest of baseball suffered a bit of a letdown, given that you’d much rather have the Dodgers not in the playoffs than in the playoffs if your goal was to win the World Series and you were not the Dodgers. They become a 24.6% World Series favorite, per FanGraphs, and a 41.8% favorite to win the NL pennant.
For the Cardinals, there are the good graces of the late-season surge and the playoff appearance, but structurally, the franchise is still in a questionable space—aging, with plenty of good players but few certain studs. They’ll likely be in the NL Central mix next year, but they’re more in the pack than the last few weeks might lead one to believe.
Other Notes:
- Even with Scherzer only making it through four innings and a third, the Dodgers bullpen will be fresh tomorrow night. Only Treinen threw more than 16 pitches, and he only threw 32.
- There were five stolen bases in the game, which isn’t outrageous but is kind of a lot.
- The Dodgers walked the same number of times and had a much higher xBA than their opponent, at .295 compared to .182, implying this maybe shouldn’t have been as close as it was.
***
Moving on to today, starting with the early game: Astros vs. White Sox.
The Basics
Where: Minute Maid Park
When: 4:07 PM EDT
Broadcast: FS1
Starting Pitchers: Lance McCullers Jr. (HOU); Lance Lynn (CWS)
Odds: HOU -135; CWS +115; o/u 8 (u -120) [English translation: The Astros are roughly 55% likely to win; the White Sox are roughly 45% likely to win; the expected number of runs scored is slightly below 8]
The Details
Who was the best offensive team in baseball this year? The Astros. Kyle Tucker and Yordan Alvarez have broken out, and there was already plenty of bat around them. They’re healthy, they’re loaded at the plate, they’ll be difficult to get out.
On the mound, McCullers isn’t always talked about as an ace, but he’s never had a FIP of 4.00 or above over all six of his big-league seasons. Among qualified starters, he ranked 18th in FIP this year, and his 3.66 FanGraphs projection is actually better than that of his opponent, Lance Lynn, he of the 2.69 ERA and significant Cy Young candidacy early in the year (Lynn’s dealt with some knee inflammation since the Field of Dreams game).
Lynn, to use his words, is “a big bastard.” Listed at 6’5” and 270 lbs., the 34-year-old Hoosier (using that to mean “person from Indiana,” which we should normalize outside of that state—Lynn’s a University of Mississippi product, not IU), the White Sox’ Lance is large, tough, and mean, a workhorse’s workhorse (in theory—he didn’t actually reach the qualifying innings threshold this year).
In the lineup, there’s a little intrigue surrounding José Abreu, the 2020 AL MVP who’s struggled a bit and is now sick with something that isn’t Covid-19. If Abreu can’t go, the Sox will have to turn to someone projected to be below-average at the plate—potentially Andrew Vaughn, who covered first base duties for Abreu on Sunday.
In the bullpen, the Sox have the advantage, with Liam Hendriks, Craig Kimbrel, Aaron Bummer, Garrett Crochet, and Michael Kopech all sub-4.00-FIP-projected pitchers. Kimbrel’s struggled since coming to the South Side, but there are sample size questions with that, and Kimbrel’s long had narratives, rightly or wrongly, stating that he pitches best under the most pressure.
For the Astros, only Ryan Pressly and Phil Maton are sub-4.00-projected guys, with Pressly doing a lot of the work on that front. Dusty Baker might not want McCullers to go three times through the order, but he’d be well-served if he did, or if the Astros could get a big enough lead to limit Pressly’s use to an inning.
Finally, speaking of Baker, yes, this is a Dusty Baker/Tony La Russa rematch. Feels like 2000.
The Stars
Lynn, of course; McCullers, to a lesser extent. I’m not sure we all realize just how good Hendriks is, or Pressly, for that matter. The big ones, though, are in the field: Carlos Correa. Jose Altuve. Alex Bregman. Tim Anderson. Abreu.
The White Sox have a few guys that aren’t the biggest names, but do a lot of lifting. Yasmani Grandal is arguably the best catcher alive. Eloy Jiménez and Luis Robert are a powerful tandem. Yoán Moncada, the Chris Sale return back in that deal, is blossoming. Tucker and Alvarez are good. The Sox lack the Astros depth at the plate, but they can just about match the big guns.
***
And, in the nightcap, the Red Sox and the Rays:
The Basics
Where: Tropicana Field (orange juice all over the place today)
When: 8:07 PM EDT
Broadcast: FS1
Starting Pitchers: Shane McClanahan (TBR), Eduardo Rodriguez (BOS)
Odds: TBR -150; BOS +140; o/u 8 (u -115) [English translation: The Rays are roughly 58% likely to win; the Red Sox are roughly 42% likely to win; the expected number of runs scored is juuuuust below 8]
The Details
Yes, yes, the names of these pitchers should be flipped if we’re being true to the demographics of the locales. Wasn’t Shane McClanahan on the 1980 U.S. hockey team?
To really kill the joke, McClanahan’s been a gold-medal pitcher for the Rays this year, with a 3.43 ERA backed by a 3.31 FIP over 25 starts, 15 of the last 17 of which have lasted five or more innings (he was pulled early on Friday, something I think they did to keep him fresh, and not because of any injury or soreness). McClanahan went to high school near Fort Myers and went to college in Tampa (at USF), making him a local for the Rays, something we’ll probably hear about a lot on the broadcast. One thing to keep an eye on with him is hard contact. His ERA and FIP are great, but his xERA’s only 4.57, which is rather medium.
Rodriguez doesn’t share McClanahan’s hard contact problem. His xERA’s only 3.55 and his FIP’s a sharp 3.32. His ERA, though, is 4.74 on the year, implying some rough luck on balls in play. In other words, he’s probably better than he looks.
The Rays, like the Dodgers, are deep at the plate, capable of putting a lineup out there in which eight of the nine slots are filled by hitters projected to be above-average. For the Red Sox, as we saw on Tuesday, it’s a similar story, with the added boost that J.D. Martinez has been added to the ALDS roster, suggesting he may be available sometime this weekend.
Not on the ALDS roster for the Sox is Matt Barnes, lights out early in the year but now cast off. (At least for now…) We talked a bit Tuesday about those bullpen problems, but to recap: There just isn’t a guy out there for the Red Sox in whom anyone can feel extraordinarily comfortable. Contrast that to the Rays, who have four relievers below that 4.00-FIP-projection mark (Andrew Kittredge, Pete Fairbanks, Collin McHugh, David Robertson), and you can see where things are going if these games go towards extras.
The Stars
For the Red Sox, it’s still Xander Bogaerts and Rafael Devers, though Alex Verdugo and Kyle Schwarber and Kike Hernández lead a strong crew on the second line. For the Rays, Nelson Cruz is in the middle of the lineup, with Brandon Lowe smoking the ball these days, last October’s sensation Randy Arozarena back for more, and Fernando Tatís Jr./Vladimir Guerrero Jr.-level prospect Wander Franco doing little but get on base all the freaking time since coming up to the bigs a few months ago.
Two very different organizations here. Two very different rosters. Two teams very familiar with one another (if you’re wondering, the Rays won the season series 11-8, going 9-4 from the trade deadline onwards).
