Almost A 5 Hour Playoff Game!

In yesterdays’ blog I wrote, “ Anyway, rushing to pull Tanaka to get Ottavino in, who has not pitched well, was also surprising.  With the righty Springer up and the lefty Brantley you had two guys who are better against righties, followed by the two guys you would want Ottavino to face, Altuve and Bergman as they are lefty killers and Ottavino is so tough on righties.  So why not let Tanaka pitch to the first two batters and see what happens?  If you really felt like Tanaka might struggle, have a lefty (CC if he can pitch or Tyler Lyons) ready to face Brantley if Tanaka doesn't get Springer out and then bring Ottavino to face the two righties.  This was not thought out well but thankfully did not hurt us.”  That was the exact situation we had again and Boone made the mistake again and it hurt us as Ottavino hung a first pitch slider and it was deposited for a game tying HR.  Now I know Ottavino in to face a righty is still a good thing, but it is a righty who is better against righties and more importantly, you then have him face a lefty which is not the matchup you want.  Further, and this is the biggest mistake, why take Green out?  He pitched 2 innings without a hit or a walk, this was very early in the game still (5^th inning) and Green had just struck a batter out so he was already out for the inning and his stuff was good; why not let him throw more than 26 pitches?  He has thrown 47, 44 and many times threw 30+ pitches, so he can easily give you 40 if needed, this is the playoffs!   This was a very poor decision and as I said yesterday, at the worst I would have let Green pitch to the righty and if he got on, depending on how he got on I could bring in Lyons or CC or let Green get them out.  But why bring in Ottavino in again, especially because he has not been sharp! 

Boone did a good job of yanking Paxton although it was very early and when that happens you need to extend some of your pitchers a little, which makes you wonder even more about pulling Green.  I understand that Green MAY have been the plan to start game 4, but who cares, you have a chance to win this game and you can pitch Cessa for an inning or 2 to start if needed.

Kahnle did an outstanding job of going 2.1 innings without a hit or a walk.  He had thrown 25 pitches but for him, that is the 2^nd most this year and even though this is the playoffs he had extended into 3 innings or 2 in between innings and I thought taking him out made sense as we enter the 8^th.

Britton came on and looked pretty good walking one and not allowing a hit, but he only pitched 12 pitches.  In a game that is very likely to go into extra innings, you can’t get only 12 pitches out of one of your best relievers and the guy with your lowest ERA.  You need to extend them and get another inning or at least another 1 or 2 outs and you can get the other 1 or 2 outs out of Chapman.  I said this to my brother last night as we watched it that I would let Britton start his 2^nd inning because 1) I would rather Britton/Chapman get the other inning rather than what we had left and 2) Chapman pitched the 9^th to the lower part of their order and then someone else would be pitching to their meat of the order (this ended up not mattering, but there needs to be a thought process).  Again, what did matter was we didn’t get an extra inning out of our best pitchers and then we were forced to use someone else.

That someone else was Loaisiga, who came in after Boone used CC correctly to get Brantley out.  Loaisiga, just didn’t throw strikes and walked 2 guys and he had to come out.  To be fair, that is a tough chore on a young guy to face Altuve and Bergman, their two best hitters and Loaisigawas not up to the task.  Happ came in to face the lefty Alvarez and I have to say that I was shocked he threw nothing but 11 straight fastballs and many of them were over the heart of the plate as he missed his spots frequently.  We were lucky that they did a poor job of hitting as Happ got us out of it.

After another inning of not swinging the bats well, Happ came out and was trying to get a fastball up and in (his bread and butter) and instead left it out over the plate for the walk-off HR.  But again, we should have used our better relievers longer, especially when you know the game has a shot at extra innings and even back when you take your starter out after 2.1 innings.

Our batting approach was poor.  Sometimes when your players are swinging at balls in the dirt it is because of the great pitching on the other side, so we have to understand that and give credit, however other times it is because of a poor approach. Early in the game, Verlander did an excellent job of not leaving anything over the plate.  Sliders away with good bite and an excellent 12-6 curve ball were spotted well and supported by a fastball consistently at the top or above the strike zone.  His fastball was usually around 94 so it wasn’t blazing.  As the game got through the first few innings, Verlander was not as sharp with his command and many hittable pitches were left over the plate.  Therefore, when you swing at a slider in the dirt, and then take a hanging slider for a strike and then swing at a terrible curveball in the dirt, your approach is bad.  This same approach saw many of our players taking fastballs down the middle and then swinging at fastballs well out of the strike zone.  Outside of swinging at many breaking pitches out of the strike zone (that will happen), we also swung at fastballs well above the strike zone.  Gardner, Edwin and Sanchez were the main culprits. But, Didi didn’t help himself as well.  Edwin has been awful and I have no clue what he is thinking as he is swinging at terrible pitches and letting strikes go right down the middle?   Again, the approach was off because if you are looking fastball and you get a fastball and miss it that can happen, but when you take the fastball for a strike and then you swing at a fastball over the strike zone then you did a poor job with discipline. 

A few notes:

·         I want to discuss the Sanchez AB in the 11^th with 2 men on he struck out on the worst pitch call of the night by the umpire (who made his two worst calls of the game during this AB).  First, it was a battle of 10 pitches although many were balls as Sanchez swung at the first pitch way above the strike zone, but at least he went after a pitch with a plan.  The problem is that Sanchez simply has not been able to line up any pitches as even when he knows something is coming and it is down the plate he is missing it.  Anyway, after Sanchez didn’t check his swing he should have struck out, but the ump agreed that Sanchez foul tipped the pitch.  This was a bad job by the ump and I think somehow he was notified that Sanchez should have been out and called the next close pitch a strike.  That is kind of BS, but he should have been struck out.  All that being said, my issue was that instead of trying to say he foul tipped the ball (even though that somehow worked), if Sanchez just takes off for first, I think he beats the throw, even with his speed, that ball got away very far from the catcher and the catcher was running toward 3^rd so there is a good chance that he could even throw it away.  Sanchez should have just taken off and we might have scored. 

·         Hicks pinch-hitting and the going in to play defense was a good sign. 

·         It stinks Stanton hurt himself as we can use his bat.  I would not be surprised to see him DH and Edwin not play. 

·         Edwin was on 2^nd base in the 11^th inning and I was wondering why we didn’t have anyone on our roster who could pinch-run for him?  I guess keeping Wade off the roster was assuming Maybin could pinch-run as one didn’t expect Stanton do get hurt, but with our great medical staff, it is probably a certainty someone gets hurt.

·         The gamble to send DJ home obviously failed.  I have to say that while it didn’t work out and you could see that Correa did a good job moving toward the ball, that is really an immediate decision that isn’t a normal situation and the defensive play was executed perfectly by Correa, who raced to the ball, picked it up perfectly and quickly threw a hard strike home to easily get DJ.  But, if anything isn’t perfect he might be safe.  I can’t really criticize that play as it was a great play by Correa.

We had a huge opportunity that we lost as going up 2 would have been great, but let’s get the bats going against Cole!