The Indians were able to shut down the powerful Toronto offense in game one with a combination of the best pitching available as Corey Kluber, Andrew Miller and Cody Allen tossed a shut out while striking out a dozen. At the same time, the offense only managed a pair of runs against Marco Estrada and both sides of the game will be significantly tougher Saturday in game two.
Left hander J.A. Happ will start for the Jays in game two after winning 20 games in the regular season. While he definitely benefited from that powerful offense, some luck and good defense (his FIP was 3.96 compared to a 3.18 ERA), there is no question that this has been a breakout year for the 33 year old. He pitched just one game against the Tribe during the regular season (July 3rd) and was dominating, throwing seven innings and allowing just one run while striking out 11.
Facing the lefty will almost certainly be the same Indians line-up that took on David Price in the ALDS, one that features only right handers or switch hitters excepting for Jason Kipnis and possibly Lonnie Chisenhall. Of course, Chisenhall ended up being the hero in that game with a three run home run against Price making up the majority of the scoring.
Against Happ, few Indians have significant at bats, in fact, only the former AL East players Mike Napoli and Brandon Guyer have more than 15 plate appearances. The pair have had completely contrasting results despite generally being successful against left handers. Neither have hit for power, but Napoli has hit .316 with a walk while Guyer has just two hits in 18 plate appearances. As always seems to be the case, Happ has hit Guyer with two pitches.
As for the rest, Carlos Santana and Kipnis have had success in limited at bats, with the DH hitting .400 and the second baseman hitting three doubles in 9 PA. While Chisenhall has struck out in his only two at bats, reliever Andrew Miller has faced him as a batter more often as we continue to see the irrelevancy of small sample sizes.
Like Happ with Cleveland, Tomlin hasn’t spent much time facing off with the Blue Jays sluggers. He had a similar appearance to Happ’s regular season start against the Indians in the same series when, on July 1st, he went six innings and allowed just one run while striking out eight. He did, however, face them one more time during his absolutely terrible August and allowed six runs in 4.1 innings as part of a month where he allowed at least three runs in every game and a 11.48 ERA overall in 26.2 innings across six starts.
Given his success in September and October (a 1.69 ERA in 26.2 innings across four appearances, three starts) and his mastery of Boston in the ALDS, where he allowed two runs in five innings, one would expect this appearance to be more like his first than his second. This is not to pretend like he will be able to completely dominate Toronto. He still allowed 26 home runs in 24 games outside of those in August and while he didn’t allow a home run against Boston, he hasn’t been so lucky against Toronto in his career.
As already said, Tomlin hasn’t faced the Blue Jays line-up much, but five different hitters have taken Tomlin deep including regular starters Edwin Encarnacion, Russell Martin and Jose Bautista. Melvin Upton, Jr. and Justin Smoak have also knocked around the cowboy, but besides the fact that a line-up that hits a ton of homers has hit a few homers off a pitcher who allows a ton of homers, there isn’t much to be garnered from the history of these players.
Against Boston, Tomlin avoided the big bats by keeping ahead in the count as I wrote earlier this week. This needs to be the strategy against Toronto as they are essentially Boston in the extreme. Boston has a patient line-up that walks a lot, but Toronto walks more (632 in 2016, 1st in the AL). Boston hits for power, but Toronto did so at an even greater level this year, hitting 221 (3rd in the AL) with a .178 ISO (nearly identical to Boston’s .179 and 3rd in the AL). While Tomlin has been among the worst in Indians history at allowing home runs, he has been among the best in team history in avoiding walks (1.4 BB/9 in his career, lead AL with 1.0 in 2016).
These two facets of Tomlin’s game run hand in hand. If he pitches like he did against Boston, with tremendous control, always ahead in the count and never being forced to throw pitches with too much of the plate, he could dominate the Blue Jays just as he did the Red Sox. If he can’t, it could be a blood bath. The good news for the Indians is both that he has been great in recent starts and that, with Kluber pitching most of game one and Trevor Bauer scheduled for game three, they have an entire bullpen ready to go. It’s filled with pitchers who are usually starters (Cody Anderson and Ryan Merritt) and others who have been unused to this point in the post-season.
Kluber put the Indians ahead 1-0 and Tomlin gives them a solid chance to make that 2-0. It will all depend on his ability to get ahead in the count and the Indians right handers coming through against Happ, both reasonable, but nowhere near assured outcomes.
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