ALCS Game 3 Preview: Taking the “Circumstances” To Toronto

MLB: ALCS-Toronto Blue Jays at Cleveland Indians

The Indians venture “north of the border” to continue the American League Championship series in Toronto. They look to add to their 2-0 advantage in the series.

The Blue Jays have been held to one run in two ALCS games so far, and in fact they only have 10 hits and two walks in their 18 offensive innings. Cleveland’s pitchers have shut them right down. According to Jays slugger Jose Bautista, the Indians have had some help from “circumstances” as well.

Via the magic of Brooks Baseball, are called balls and strikes against right-handed batters (like Bautista) for Games 1 and 2.

ALCS Game 3 Preview: Taking the

ALCS Game 3 Preview: Taking the

The red squres are called strikes on pitches thrown by Indians pitchers. Red triangles are called strikes for Blue Jays pitches. Are there more red squares outside the strike zone than red triangles? Yes. Yes there are. Because the Indians threw more pitches there in general. It’s not like the Blue Jays aren’t getting the same call.

Home plate umpires Laz Diaz and Jim Wolf called big strike zones in Games 1 and 2. That’s true. The PitchFX data confirms it. The Indians got more called on pitches off the plate because they threw more pitches there. They took advantage of the big zone. The Blue Jays did not.

Trevor Bauer

Bauer has had an interesting week. He was originally scheduled to start Game 2 of the ALCS on Saturday, but after cutting his pinky repairing his drone, he had to be pushed back to Game 5. The cut is on the top of his finger and Bauer is expected to start Game 3 with no issues.

Bauer faced the Blue Jays twice this season, and, interestingly enough, one of those came as a reliever. The two teams played a 19-inning game on July 1, and Bauer threw the final five innings as the last guy out of the bullpen. He also struck out 13 Blue Jays in eight innings on August 19.

Several Blue Jays have had great success against the Bauer, including Michael Saunders (5 for 9 with a double) and Russell Martin (3 for 6 with a homer). The health of Bauer’s finger will be key. Pitchers don’t use their pinkies much, but if there’s any discomfort, it could throw Bauer off.

Marcus Stroman

There were big expectations for Marcus Stroman coming into last season on the heels of a strong rookie campaign that saw him throw 130.7 innings of 3.65 ERA, but a very impressive 2.84 FIP. A heavy groundball focus, 4.0 K:BB ratio, and stifling homers (0.5 per 9) laid the foundation for the lofty expectations before a torn ACL in Spring Training put all of that on hold. To his credit, he returned in time to make four starts in the regular season and three more in the postseason.

In the first half of this season, he pitched to a 5.33 ERA in 101.3 innings with just a 16% strikeout rate – worse than the passable-but-modest 20% rate he’d posted in 2014-15. His fastball was the biggest issue, garnering a 7% strikeout rate that stood 94th of the 96 qualified starters. This includes both his four-seamer and sinker, but neither were anywhere near the 16% league average strikeout rate for fastballs. Adding in the cutter elevated him to 10%, but he still slotted just 81st. The soft stuff had a passable 31% mark, just over the 29% average, but the slider, curve, and change accounted for just 30% of his plate appearances, muting the impact of those strikeouts.

He flipped the proverbial script in the second half, posting a much better 3.42 ERA with a 23% strikeout rate. If you prefer K9, he added two full strikeouts to his rate boosting it up to 8.3 in the 102.7 innings of work. There was improvement with the four-seamer, but more in the “less-is-more” vein than anything else. It had just a 6% rate in 146 PA in the first half, but then a 30% mark in 47 PA in the second half. He used that excess to both the cutter and sinker, with the former really driving the overall surge. He maintained his 24% strikeout rate with the cutter while essentially doubling the plate appearances ended with the pitch.

Cutter & Sinker by Half
BF K% OPS
CT-1H 58 24% 0.727
CT-2H 114 24% 0.545
SI-1H 103 9% 0.765
SI-2H 188 9% 0.798

Stroman was more coy with his soft stuff, but netted almost as many raw strikeouts. In the first half, he got 39 strikeouts on 128 PA with the three pitches. In the second half, he got 38 in 71. As is often the case, the heat sets up the off-speed and in Stroman’s case, it was a matter of picking the proper heat to dispense. His 93-94 MPH four-seamer isn’t bad (in fact, it could be a key to righties tonight, but more on that in a minute), but the sinker and cutter are just better. He only sacrifices 1 MPH with the sinker plus the movement while the cutter works more 90-91, running away from righties and boring in on lefties. In fact, it was the latter that spurred him against southpaws.

In that second half, he started burying that cutter in underneath the hands of lefties with much better results yielding a .597 OPS and 22% strikeout rate in 68 PA, compared to a .776 and 19% in 37 PA during the first half. Those added plate appearances all came out of the four-seamer, a pitch lefties brutalized in the first half: 1.047 OPS, 4% K rate in 68 PA; .769, 25% in 24 second half PA. The cutter will be his key pitch tonight against Carlos Santana, Mike Napoli, Fransisco Lindor and Lonnie Chisenhall.

Look for the cutter and curveball to lefties, the four-seamer to righties, and the slider to both as key drivers if Stroman is going to be successful tonight. His excellent groundball rate helps him keep the ball in the yard at a great clip, but he’ll want as little contact as possible against this mashing team and those pitchers will be instrumental in delivering that.

It’s been a while since Stroman has pitched in a game. He started the Wild Card Game against the Orioles and allowed two runs in six innings. That was October 4. Thirteen days prior to Game 3. Stroman will be well-rested, if nothing else.

Stroman faced the Indians twice during the regular season and both were excellent. He allowed one run in 6 2/3 innings on July 1, then one run in 7 1/3 innings on August 21. Mike Napoli has the most at-bats against Stroman among Indians hitters and he’s 0 for 9. Carlos Santana and Rajai Davis are both 3 for 8 (.375).

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