Kuzul

The 2016 Major League Baseball postseason has featured studs, duds and everything in between.

But since nobody cares about that last part, this discussion shall focus strictly on the first two.

With the World Series set to start Tuesday, there are sizable lists of good and bad postseason performances to choose from. We’re going to narrow things down to a half-dozen each by focusing on stars who have either lived up to or fallen short of expectations. But here’s a spoiler warning that you didn’t hear from me: There might be a couple of players to a slide here and there.

In no particular order, we’ll begin with a stud and then alternate studs and duds until the end.

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You know that thing about momentum being the next day’s starting pitcher? The Los Angeles Dodgers are about to put that to an interesting test.

The Dodgers had all the momentum over the Chicago Cubs in the National League Championship Series, responding to a Game 1 loss with back-to-back shutouts in Games 2 and 3. But then came a 10-2 drubbing at Dodger Stadium in Game 4 on Wednesday. The momentum is with the Cubs again.

And they have ace left-hander Jon Lester ready to take the mound for Game 5. He might have been opposed by Clayton Kershaw, the Dodgers’ own ace lefty, if manager Dave Roberts had made the bold call of starting him on three days’ rest for the second time this postseason.

Instead, Roberts is giving the ball to Kenta Maeda. As he implied after Game 4, per Arash Markazi of ESPN.com, the situation simply doesn’t warrant going to Kershaw:

This checks out. It’s a best-of-seven series. The Dodgers and Cubs have each won two games. Roberts need not act like tickets to the World Series or tickets home are on the line.

Still, it’s not hard to guess where the Cubs come down on this matter. After going into Game 4 with zero runs since a five-run explosion in the eighth inning of Game 1, they breathed some life into their bats in Wednesday’s blowout. Facing Kershaw in Game 5 would have threatened to suck that life right out again.

He is Clayton Kershaw, after all. He has three Cy Youngs. He had a 1.69 ERA this season. Most recently, he shut out the Cubs on two hits in seven innings in Game 2. He also has a good track record on three days’ rest in the postseason, putting up a 3.21 ERA in four starts.

For his part, Maeda is not a bad pitcher. The Japan native put up a solid 3.48 ERA in his first MLB season this year. He struck out over a batter per inning and, per Baseball Savant, ranked among the leaders in average exit velocity at 86.0 mph.

The Cubs weren’t too scared of him in Game 1, however. They got to Maeda for three runs on four hits and three walks in four innings. 

That performance kept up a trend of not-so-good starts when Maeda only gets four days of rest. He had a 3.97 ERA in such situations in the regular season. When he takes the mound Thursday, he’ll be on four days’ rest once again. Cue ominous music.

“This time around, I think I can better imagine how I’m going to get these guys out,” Maeda said ahead of Game 4, per Mike DiGiovanna of the Los Angeles Times. “I remember how each hitter reacted to a certain pitch, so I’m going to base off that when I pitch again.”

Simply being sharper with location would be a good idea. Maeda made mistakes in Game 1, and BrooksBaseball.net shows the Cubs didn’t miss a couple of them. Otherwise, they waited him out and took their walks.

Maeda is at his best when he’s working the outside edge of the zone with his fastball and getting hitters to chase off-speed. That’s not only where he gets his whiffs, but as Baseball Savant shows, most of his soft contact as well. 

Trouble is, the Cubs don’t do much chasing outside the zone. They did that at a smaller rate than all but five other teams this season. If they can force Maeda in the zone, they can beat him.

That’s not something Kershaw has to worry about most days. He works in the zone as much as any starting pitcher not named Rich Hill. He does that because he has the stuff to do it. It’s no wonder he silenced the Cubs in Game 1, not to mention all the other teams he’s ever stifled.

There’s also the long-game portion of this matter. If Kershaw were starting Game 5, he could be used in relief if needed in a Game 7 on Sunday. After what he did in Game 5 of the National League Division Series, that’s an appealing hypothetical.

But does this mean Roberts is making an obvious mistake by not starting Kershaw in Game 5? Not really.

As promising as Kershaw’s track record on three days’ rest may be, the Dodgers have no idea how he can manage two starts on three days’ rest within the same postseason—much less two starts on three days’ rest within the same postseason following an injury-marred regular season.

Make no mistake, these are scary unknowns. Scarier than any matchup nitpicks to be made about Maeda and the Cubs. Too scary to risk on a game that doesn’t need to be won.

And while getting Maeda a couple extra days of rest would be ideal, the fact he would be pitching away from Dodger Stadium in Game 6 may have rendered that moot. He had a 3.74 ERA on the road in 2016, compared to 3.22 at home.

Roberts is effectively gambling on that split. If it works, he’ll have Kershaw ready for the kill on regular rest in Game 6 back in Chicago on Saturday. If it doesn’t, the Dodgers could ask for a worse duo to pin their hopes of a comeback on than Kershaw in Game 6 and Hill in Game 7.

If the Dodgers were going into Game 5 looking to punch their ticket to the World Series or stave off elimination, this conversation would look entirely different. Either circumstance would have made starting Kershaw on short rest again awfully tempting.

But that’s not the situation. The Dodgers are not in a desperate hour. And as such, they can afford to roll the dice on a tough matchup in Game 5 if it means having Kershaw fully locked and loaded for a Game 6 that’s happening no matter what.

Not starting Kershaw in Game 5 may end up hurting the Dodgers. But it’s not going to kill them.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

The Toronto Blue Jays are trying to go where only one team has gone before. They took an important first step in Game 4 on Tuesday.

Facing a 3-0 deficit to the Cleveland Indians in the American League Championship Series, Toronto played its second win-or-go-home game this month. It had the same happy ending as the AL Wild Card Game. The Blue Jays walked away with a 5-1 win, earning the right to play another day.

And now for some obligatory words of caution.

The Blue Jays are still three wins short of joining the 2004 Boston Red Sox as the only teams to ever come back from a 3-0 hole in a best-of-seven MLB series. And while winning four in a row is something they did seven times in the regular season, losing four in a row is something the Indians did zero times.

But there aren’t many other words of caution worth diving into following Toronto’s entry into the W column in this series. A 3-1 deficit is less daunting than a 3-0 deficit, and the Blue Jays looked the part of a team coming alive in Game 4.

Nobody deserves more credit than Aaron Sanchez and Josh Donaldson. Sanchez limited Cleveland to two hits and one run in six innings. Donaldson set the tone early when he put the Blue Jays up 1-0 with a solo homer off Corey Kluber in the third inning:

Donaldson was also heard from on defense in the fifth, making a diving snag and throwing to first to rob Carlos Santana of a single that likely would have tied the score at 2-2. This was the reigning AL MVP putting his money where his mouth is.

“I let the boys know I was coming to play today,” Donaldson told Arden Zwelling of Sportsnet Magazine, recounting what he said at a team meeting before Game 4.

He wasn’t alone. The Blue Jays collected nine hits en route to their five runs in Game 4. Edwin Encarnacion got the other big hit, scoring a pair on a bases-loaded single in the seventh following an intentional walk to Donaldson—highlighted by CBS Sports’ R.J. Anderson as Cleveland manager Terry Francona’s first misstep this October.

Although it wasn’t an offensive explosion reminiscent of the hurtings the Blue Jays put on the Texas Rangers in sweeping the ALDS, Toronto’s offensive output in Game 4 is a start for this series. The Blue Jays scored only three runs in the first three games, hitting just .177 as a team.

There’s a disembodied voice saying “Well, actually” and pointing out that the Blue Jays got five of their hits and three of their runs off three Cleveland relievers not named Andrew Miller or Cody Allen. The Blue Jays earned the chance to do that, though. Making his first-ever start on three days’ rest, a not-too-sharp Kluber was worked for 89 pitches in five innings. 

And now, Toronto’s passing of the Kluber test has ramifications beyond just Game 4.

It was easy to think along with Francona when he decided to start Kluber on short rest. It was either go for the kill or roll the dice on an anonymous left-hander named Ryan Merritt. Easy call there.

But since it backfired, Francona now has no choice but to trust Merritt, who has all of one major league start to his name, to perform well enough in Game 5 on Wednesday to prevent a 3-2 series. The Blue Jays are already champing at the bit.

“With our experience in our lineup, I’m pretty sure he’s going to be shaking in his boots more than we are,” said Jose Bautista of Merritt, via Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet.ca.

If the Blue Jays do what they should against Merritt in Game 5, they’ll get Josh Tomlin in Game 6. He’s more of a challenge, but the Blue Jays could be optimistic about exploiting his chronic homeritis the second time around after failing to do so in Game 2.

If this series goes to a Game 7, Kluber would have to start on three days’ rest once again. He wasn’t especially sharp in one start on three days’ rest. He probably wouldn’t be any sharper in a second straight start on three days’ rest.

It’s not an ideal outlook for Francona, but he has no choice. Trevor Bauer was supposed to be a big part of the team’s plans for this series. His drone mishap put that on thin ice, and that thin ice broke open the same time his stitches did in the first inning of Game 3.

Meanwhile, the Blue Jays are sitting pretty with a rotation loaded with able bodies and healthy fingers. Sanchez did his part by silencing Cleveland hitters in Game 4, and now things are flipped back over for Marco Estrada in Game 5 and, if necessary, J.A. Happ in Game 6 and Marcus Stroman in Game 7. 

Asking the Blue Jays to get it done with offense and starting pitching isn’t asking too much. It’s how they won games all season. And if Game 4 was a wake-up call for the Blue Jays offense in particular, it will be difficult for an Indians team that hasn’t been tearing the cover off the ball and is now light on pitching to close out this series. 

There should be no mistaking that the odds are still against the Blue Jays. We know where history stands on them completing a 3-0 comeback. The digital bean-counters aren’t more optimistic. According to FanGraphs, Toronto has just a 7.2 percent chance of winning the ALCS.

But if Game 4 did anything, it turned a fool’s hope into a fighting chance. Now all the Blue Jays must do is abide by the words veteran reliever Jason Grilli shared with Nicholson-Smith.

“If we’re in this position we may as well make history.”

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

The Toronto Blue Jays found out in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series that the Cleveland Indians can bleed after all.

But unfortunately for the Blue Jays, that applied to only one of the Indians.

The reality that Cleveland walked away from Game 3 with a 4-2 win, pushing their series lead to a commanding 3-0, is borderline astounding considering how bad their mojo was at the outset. There was optimism in the air that Trevor Bauer would give the Tribe a few good innings despite having recently cut his right pinkie in a drone accident. But that optimism slowly began to drip away.

Literally. Bauer threw only 21 pitches before his stitches burst, treating the 49,507 watching at the Rogers Centre and the millions watching at home to an early Halloween horror show. 

When Bauer was forced out of the game, an opportunity the Blue Jays been waiting for finally arrived.

Their normally explosive bats had been quiet in the first two games at Progressive Field, producing just one run and a .159 average. Corey Kluber, Andrew Miller and Cody Allen did their part, but couldn’t help in the immediate aftermath of Bauer’s exit. That ultimately meant 5.1 innings of chances for Toronto to score off Dan Otero, Jeff Manship, Zach McAllister and Bryan Shaw.

But as it turned out, Bauer’s exit was a call to action for the other team on the field.

“Sometimes the circumstances aren’t in your favor,” Bauer told Zack Meisel of Cleveland.com afterward—a clear subtweet at Jose Bautista. “Good teams overcome them and find a way to win.”

Toronto got only two runs on a solo homer by Michael Saunders and an RBI fielder’s choice by Ryan Goins. The latter provided some hope when it tied the score at 2-2 in the bottom of the fifth, but that tie was alive for only a matter of minutes. Jason Kipnis erased it and put Cleveland ahead for good when he hit a home run off Marcus Stroman to lead off the sixth.

Mike Napoli also boosted Cleveland on offense, hitting an RBI double in the first, slugging a solo homer of his own in the fourth and scoring an insurance run on a Jose Ramirez RBI single in the sixth. Cleveland held a more inclusive party on defense, with Kipnis, Francisco Lindor and Coco Crisp all making nifty plays in the clutch.

In all, it was more than enough to buoy the Indians in a game where they needed to get the ball from Johnny Wholestaff to Miller and Allen. When they came in to collect the last nine outs—five for Allen, four for Miller—the Indians finished off a win the likes of which had never before been seen. Per Jason Lukehart of Let’s Go Tribe:

Chalk it up as another victory not only for Cleveland’s bullpen, but for Francona’s management of it.

“He’s been doing it all year,” Napoli said, via Jordan Bastian and Gregor Chisholm of MLB.com. “It’s been so nice to be around him every day. He’s an awesome guy, but for our bullpen to step up like that today was the only reason we were able to win. They’re the only reason why, and for them to do that, it’s unbelievable.”

Although Bauer’s inability to make it out of the first inning without bleeding like a stuck pig didn’t hurt the Indians in Game 3, it could hurt them later if this series is extended. Their starting rotation was already thin. It’s down to Kluber and Josh Tomlin if Bauer’s out of commission.

But if the Indians win Game 4 on Tuesday, Bauer will get a whole week to let his finger heal before the start of the World Series. Francona clearly wants this to be the case. He confirmed during an in-game interview (h/t Bastian) that he’ll be going for the kill with his ace on the mound.

Kluber will be pitching on three days’ rest after starting Game 1 last Friday. He’s never done that before, which could make life easier for Toronto if he doesn’t have his best stuff.

However, Kluber won’t necessarily need his best stuff if he sticks with the game plan he used to shut Toronto out over 6.1 innings in Game 1. It revolved not on trying to overwhelm the Blue Jays with his nasty sinker and cutter, but with his nasty breaking ball.

Per Brooks Baseball, Kluber threw more of those against Toronto in Game 1 than he had in any other start all year:

This was Kluber sticking to the script that’s done nothing but good for the Indians in the playoffs. According to Baseball Savant, Tribe pitchers threw 23.9 percent breaking balls in the regular season. Against first the Boston Red Sox and now the Blue Jays, two of the top offenses in baseball, that figure has been bumped to 37.7 percent.

The risk of starting Kluber on short rest in Game 4 is he could either not get the job done or Cleveland’s bullpen could finally run out of magic dust and blow one.

That would force Francona to go to some combination of Tomlin and Ryan Merritt in Games 5 and 6, and another short-rest start for Kluber in Game 7 if the series went that far. This would be “sub-optimal,” as the kids say, giving the Blue Jays the chance to open the door wider and wider.

But history, of course, is on Cleveland’s side. The 2004 Red Sox are the only team to ever come back from a 3-0 postseason deficit. Francona had a front-row seat for that, so he ought to know how to avoid any karmic justice the baseball gods may have planned.

Plus, there’s the matter of omens. Not even a bloody ankle could undo Francona’s Red Sox in 2004. On Monday night, not even a bloody finger could undo his 2016 Indians.

If the pattern holds, Cleveland will soon be making World Series plans.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

On Saturday night, the Chicago Cubs won their first National League Championship Series game since way back in 2003.

They couldn’t have done it without a few assists from the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The final score of 8-4 in Game 1 of the NLCS makes it look like Chicago won a laugher. Not really. The Cubs were clinging to a 3-1 lead through the first seven innings, but then they seemed doomed to relive the heartbreak of their last two trips to the NLCS when Adrian Gonzalez tied the game with a two-run single off Aroldis Chapman in the eighth.

But then, in the bottom of the inning, the normally reliable Joe Blanton served up this very loud sound off Miguel Montero‘s bat, precipitating even louder sounds from the fans packed into Wrigley Field:

Montero‘s grand slam opened up a 7-3 lead and, according to FanGraphs, skyrocketed Chicago’s win expectancy from 63.2 percent to 98.7 percent. That was the stake through the Dodgers’ heart. When Dexter Fowler added a home run of his own to bump Chicago’s win expectancy to 99.5 percent, that was only the extra little stab to make sure the Dodgers were actually dead.

Oh, they’ll be back. The Cubs still have to win three more games. And in the wake of their heartbreaking loss, at least one Dodger is playing the “This is a good thing!” card.

“This actually gives us a lot of confidence,” said Gonzalez, via Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register. “We know we can beat them.”

Thing is, though, that sense of knowing would be a lot stronger if the Dodgers had actually beaten the Cubs. And make no mistake, they could have.

The 3-1 deficit the Dodgers found themselves in after seven frames was partially owed to bad luck. They put together some tough at-bats against Jon Lester but made the mortal mistake of hitting the ball at the Cubs’ historically great (h/t Aaron Gleeman of Baseball Prospectus) defense.

However, the Dodgers were also guilty of digging a few inches in their own hole. A questionable send home of Gonzalez in the second inning resulted in the death of a rally when he was thrown out by Ben Zobrist. In the bottom of the inning, a 2-0 deficit became a 3-0 deficit when the Dodgers permitted Javier Baez to steal home.

The Dodgers caught a break when the wind helped an Andre Ethier fly ball clear the fence in the fifth inning, but the real breaks came after Cubs skipper Joe Maddon took Lester out after only 77 pitches and decided to get cute with his bullpen. 

That opened the door for the Dodgers to rally off Mike Montgomery and Pedro Strop at the start of the eighth. With a little help from Kris Bryant’s lapse in defensive judgment, they did just that to load the bases with nobody out.

Rather than to prevent any fires, that’s when Maddon finally went to Chapman to put the fire out. Such a decision backfired in Game 3 of the National League Division Series, and it backfired again when Gonzalez turned around a 102 mph fastball. 

Going off this note from ESPN.com’s David Schoenfield, neither of these incidents was a fluke:

Gonzalez’s single dropped Chicago’s win expectancy to 49.8 percent, down from 90.6 a few moments earlier. In that moment, you have to wonder how many in Wrigley Field were keenly aware that it had been the 13-year anniversary of the Steve Bartman incident just a day earlier. Or, maybe some were just thinking “Here we go again” after last year’s NLCS sweep at the hands of the New York Mets.

The game wasn’t lost yet, though. It had become a 50-50 affair. The margin for error was gone, placing even more pressure on each manager’s roulette wheel to land on the right numbers.

Putting Blanton in to start the eighth was an OK move on the part of Dodgers skipper Dave Roberts. He was good in the regular season and had been scoreless in five innings in the postseason. But as soon as he gave up a leadoff double to Zobrist, you had to figure Roberts wasn’t far from getting aggressive with Kenley Jansen like he did in Games 1 and 5 of the NLDS.

Roberts instead decided not only to let Blanton get out of the inning on his own, but to put obstacles in his way. He ordered an intentional walk to Jason Heyward, who OPS’d .631 this season, with one out. And with two outs, he ordered another IBB to Chris Coghlan, who OPS’d .608, to load the bases.

The idea was to bring the pitcher’s spot to the plate and force Maddon to remove Chapman for a pinch-hitter. Per J.P. Hoornstra of the Southern California News Group, this was the card Roberts felt he had to play:

Not the dumbest idea, but the risk would have been far less if Roberts had also put Jansen on the mound. He’s a strikeout pitcher who doesn’t walk guys and who, by virtue of his extreme cutter use, rarely ever throws pitches his catcher can’t handle.

In sticking with Blanton, Roberts was trusting that a pitcher who really likes to throw his slider would execute. He executed two in a row to go up 0-2 on Montero, pinch hitting for Chapman. But the third? Blanton might as well have placed it on a tee: 

And that was pretty much that. The Dodgers did respond to Chicago’s five-spot with an RBI double by Andrew Toles in the top of the ninth, but that was a mere shred of dignity salvaged.

The Dodgers will have their shot at evening the score with Clayton Kershaw on the mound for Game 2 on Sunday. But with this set to be already his fourth postseason appearance following a regular season marred by back trouble, there is a question of how much he can give the Dodgers. And oh yeah, his name and clutch postseason performances are not yet synonymous.

It’s a stretch to say the Dodgers should have won Game 1 when the closest they ever came to doing so was a 0-0 tie in the first and a 3-3 tie in the eighth. But they definitely could have won Game 1. Since it was going to be hard enough to beat this juggernaut of a Cubs team, that’s something for them to kick themselves over.

And as for those Cubs, well, their takeaway from this game should be the same ol‘ 2016 refrain: Maybe this really is their year.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

What do you get when you take the postseason version of Mariano Rivera, flip him around, replace his deadly cutter with a deadly slider and ask him to take on a slightly different role?

Basically the Andrew Miller you’re seeing right now.

There were rumblings of the Cleveland Indians being on the verge of something special with their tall, lanky left-hander during their sweep of the Boston Red Sox in the American League Division Series. The 6’7″ Miller pitched in two games, tallying four innings that included four baserunners and seven strikeouts. The way he was throwing, even foul balls were minor victories for Red Sox hitters.

Now it’s the Toronto Blue Jays‘ turn to find out how that feels.

Miller has picked up where he left off in the American League Championship Series, helping the Indians to a 2-0 win in Game 1 on Friday and a 2-1 victory in Game 2 on Saturday. Between the two contests, he’s logged 3.2 innings, allowed one hit and struck out 10 of the 12 batters he’s faced.

“It’s easy now,” Cleveland catcher Roberto Perez said, per August Fagerstrom of FanGraphs. “He’s too good, man.”

Miller had impressed in six previous October appearances, logging eight and a third scoreless innings with 10 strikeouts. But the mind boggles at what he’s done this October. He’s pitched 7.2 innings in which he’s faced 28 batters and allowed only five of them to reach and none to come home. He’s fanned 17.

That last figure already looms large in the postseason record books. Miller is now tied for the 10th-most strikeouts in a single postseason and is only 11 away from Francisco Rodriguez’s record of 28 from 2002. Even if it’s a clean four-game sweep, Miller could tie or surpass that mark by the end of the ALCS.

But it’s not Rodriguez’s name that’s suddenly being lumped into the conversation with Miller. It’s Rivera’s.

His name is popping up on Twitter in a way that it probably hasn’t since he pitched his last game for the New York Yankees in 2013. Among the hottest takes is this one from fellow pitching great Pedro Martinez:

This isn’t high praise for Miller. It is the highest of praise.

If you haven’t seen it in a while, I recommend going to the table of Rivera’s postseason numbers at Baseball-Reference.com. Like Martinez’s own prime or Barry Bonds’ entire career, it’s filled with so many ridiculous numbers that it looks more like some baseball egghead’s wild fantasy than a record of actual events.

But Rivera really did those things. He really did pitch in 96 games. He really did allow fewer earned runs (11) than there have been men on the moon (12). He really did allow only 86 hits and 21 walks in 141 innings. He really did blow only five saves.

There’s no bad postseason hiding in there. There were eight postseason runs in which the Yankees used Rivera in six or more games. He never did worse than a 1.72 ERA in any of those. His peak was in 2009, when he tallied 16 innings and allowed only one run in 12 appearances.

The difficulty in comparing Rivera in the postseason to Miller in the postseason has to do with their roles. The Yankees almost exclusively used Rivera to finish games. Cleveland skipper Terry Francona is using Miller as a bridge to Cody Allen, bringing him into contests as early as the fifth inning.

But while he may not be finishing games and fattening his numbers even more by doing so, there has indeed been the same kind of “Game Over” feeling when Miller has entered games that used to exist with Rivera.

This is partially a matter of signature pitches. Rivera had his cutter, which Chipper Jones once said was “like a buzz saw,” per Bob Klapisch at Fox Sports. Miller has his slider. It’s a devilish pitch that he throws often. Per Baseball Savant, swings and misses on sliders accounted for 13.8 percent of all Miller’s pitches in the regular season, easily the highest mark of any pitcher.

It’s been same ol’, same ol’ in October, where not even reigning AL MVP Josh Donaldson can keep himself from looking like a rag doll after swinging at it. Behold the visual evidence from Fagerstrom:

What Miller also has in common with Rivera in October is his ability to work more than one inning. Rivera did that 58 times. Miller has gone more than one inning in each of his appearances this October, and eight of 10 for his career in the postseason.

As such, the innings in which Miller’s dominance is taking place are really the only difference between him now and Rivera at his postseason best. And even that is arguably only footnote fodder now that the relief pitcher landscape is changing the way it is.

“It’s turning the baseball world upside down, the way bullpens have been used lately,” Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said before the ALCS, per Ted Berg of For The Win.

Miller and Francona are at the vanguard of the movement. The conventional wisdom used to be that elite relievers were to be used only in high-leverage innings, preferably with the last three outs on the line. Following a trade that brought Miller from the Yankees in July, Francona made it clear with his aggressive use of the lefty that he was tired of abiding by that wisdom.

“I hate waiting for the ninth inning,” Francona told The Ringer’s Ben Lindbergh. “I never did understand that. You know, you wait around, wait around, and you lose a game in the eighth. Well, wait a minute, that might’ve been the most important inning of the game.”

What Francona is doing now is something so obvious it’s a wonder he’s the first to do it. He’s essentially treating all postseason innings as the most important inning of the game. They’re all high-leverage innings. That means taking no chances, which means using your best pitchers when you can.

Even if he’s not yet on the future Hall of Famer’s level, Miller is basically the second coming of Rivera in this sense: He’s the best at doing what only the best relievers should do.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

We learned a few things in the 2016 American League and National League Division Series.

We learned it will be the Cleveland Indians vs. Toronto Blue Jays in the AL Championship Series and the Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Chicago Cubs in the NL Championship Series. All four teams won three games to advance, which I suppose is another lesson in case anyone’s new to this whole postseason baseball thing.

As for the other key takeaways from the division series round, well, that’s what we’re here to get into. Let’s look at one takeaway for each of the surviving teams and three bigger-picture takeaways for the division series round as a whole.

After all those “takeaways,” it is with no shame that I now say this: Take it away!

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The first and only winner-take-all game of the 2016 MLB division series will go down Thursday at Nationals Park.

Los Angeles Dodgers. Washington Nationals. Game 5 of the National League Division Series. A trip to the National League Championship Series on the line. Aw, heck and/or yes.

But while we could just sit here and be excited until first pitch at 8:08 p.m. ET, there are serious discussions about what the Dodgers and Nationals must do to win Game 5. Let’s narrow it down to three keys for each team, starting with the visitors.

Keys for the Dodgers

Take Max Scherzer Deep

Now, here’s advice not even John McClane would hesitate to accept. Hitting home runs is a good way to beat any pitcher. It’s science.

The difference with Scherzer, who starts for Washington in Game 5, is that home runs are the only way to beat him. The ace right-hander is rally-proof. He allowed just a .199 batting average and 2.2 walks per nine innings in the regular season, striking out 11.2 batters per nine innings. 

However, he did give up the long ball. Precisely 1.2 of them every nine innings. And he may be especially prone to home runs now, as Neil Greenberg of the Washington Post can tell you about how Scherzer‘s arm slot and fastball have flattened out recently.

The Dodgers have already shown they’re up to the task. They only collected five hits off Scherzer in their 4-3 win in Game 1, but two of them left the yard. If there’s more where that came from, the Dodgers could have all the offense they need.

Rich Hill’s Leash Should Be as Long as His Curveball Is Good

Nothing has been confirmed by the Dodgers as of Wednesday night, but Rich Hill told reporters (including ESPN.com’s Doug Padilla) after Game 4 that he’ll be starting Game 5.

With the Dodgers season on the line and Hill on short rest after starting in Game 2 on Sunday, it goes without saying his leash will be short. But in this case, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts can look for something specific to determine how short it should be.

Hill’s curveball is going to be on display in Game 5 for reasons that Mike Petriello of MLB.com covered ahead of Game 2: It’s always on display, it’s really good and it’s a lethal weapon against the Nationals.

Or, so it seemed. What actually happened in Game 2 was Washington piled on the sudden hittability of Hill’s curveball, pictured here courtesy of Brooks Baseball:

This smoke leads to some fire. The velocity on Hill’s hook has been down lately, and his location of it has been up. It remains a good pitch, but that’s not a favorable combination. If it gets Hill in trouble, Roberts must not have too much faith he can work out of it.

Have Joe Blanton on Speed Dial

Assuming he’s not the one who gets the start, the expectation now is that 20-year-old left-hander Julio Urias will piggyback off Hill in Game 5. Following his impressive second half, this is a solid idea.

But rather than pin too many hopes on Urias, Roberts should be ready to replace him with Joe Blanton at a moment’s notice. Or, just go directly to Blanton if he’s needed in the middle innings.

We know two things about Blanton. One, he can go more than an inning if need be. Two, he’s been solid all season and even better lately. He had a 1.74 ERA with 13 strikeouts in 10.1 innings in the last month of the regular season and has pitched 3.2 scoreless innings with five strikeouts in the NLDS.

It’s all about Blanton’s slider. He’s been using it more lately, and the hits against it have been few and far between. Per fellow reliever Luis Avilan, Blanton made it clear he would be sticking with it when Dodgers pitchers were preparing for the Nationals.

“I don’t know about you guys,” Avilan told Pedro Moura of the Los Angeles Times, relaying Blanton’s words, “but I won’t throw fastballs at all. I just throw sliders.”

A fine plan. If Blanton does his job after the Dodgers offense hits a few home runs while Roberts plays it safe with Hill and/or Urias, the Dodgers could find themselves back in the NLCS.

Keys for the Nationals

Work Rich Hill, Attack Julio Urias

The aforementioned advice of “hit home runs, win game” also works for the Nationals in Game 5. Heck, it may work even more for them given that they’ve gone yard only three times all series.

But scoring off the Hill/Urias piggyback will also require more tact, specifically in how Nationals hitters approach them. Against Hill, they should look to work him and drive up his pitch count. Against Urias, they should be aggressive and try to hit him right out of the gate.

Being patient with Hill makes sense in light of his short rest. But there are also his splits to consider. Hill sticks with the same pitch mix each time through the order, making it easier for hitters to adjust. Lo and behold, he’s vulnerable to the usual times-through-the-order penalties. Nationals hitters got a taste of this in Game 2, when he was sharp early before falling apart. The Nats should force the issue again.

Urias is different, struggling with a .758 OPS the first time through the order. This is when he’s looking to establish his fastball, throwing it 60 percent of the time. By default, that means more pitches to hit.

If the Nationals can get even a couple of runs off the Hill/Urias piggyback, that could be enough for Scherzer and the bullpen. Speaking of which…

Be Ready to Go to Tanner Roark

After throwing only 85 pitches in Game 2, Tanner Roark was asked if he would be ready to go in Game 5 if need be.

“Oh yeah, I’ll be ready to go,” Roark responded, per Mark Zuckerman of MASNSports.com.

Nationals manager Dusty Baker may not need to call Roark‘s number if Scherzer is on his game. If not, Roark is just the guy for him to turn to if things need to be calmed down.

He didn’t look the part in allowing seven hits and three walks in 4.1 innings in Game 2, but Roark is normally an efficient pitcher who specializes in missing barrels. He was among the leaders in soft-hit percentage this season, and he was the leader in hard-hit percentage.

This could make him just the guy if the Nationals need to put out an early fire. Not only could Roark get multiple outs in a pinch, but the nature of those outs could leave Dodgers hitters frustrated after having taken some shots at one of the best strikeout pitchers in the business.

Be Aggressive with Mark Melancon

Roark can be the long man in Washington’s bullpen in Game 5. But after posting a 1.64 ERA with a 65-to-12 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 2016, Mark Melancon is the Nationals’ relief ace.

Thing is, Baker may have to use him like a true relief ace for a change.

It’s true that Baker hasn’t stuck too rigidly to the traditional closer rules with Melancon. After rarely appearing in non-save situations with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post highlighted in September how often Baker used Melancon in such situations. Fine by him, apparently.

Baker has been more shy about bringing Melancon in to get more than three outs at a time. Including the postseason, he’s appeared before the ninth inning just once as a National. Regardless of the situation, it’s typically been ninth-inning-or-bust for him.

Baker should be prepared to change that in Game 5. As good as his bullpen has been in this series, Game 5 might not even be happening if Melancon had appeared in an eighth inning that got away from the Nats in Game 4. If he had, they may have preserved a 5-5 tie and gone on to win later.

Whether or not there’s a late lead to protect, Baker should not be so cautious in Game 5. This postseason has featured aggressive usage of relief aces such as Andrew Miller, Cody Allen and Roberto Osuna. Melancon should be next.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

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Max Scherzer has started 276 games in the major leagues. That includes 11 in the postseason, which have covered a World Series game and Game 6 of the American League Championship Series.

According to him, none of these compares to his assignment in Game 5 of the National League Division Series on Thursday.

“This is probably the biggest start of my career, the biggest start of my life,” the Washington Nationals ace said about his date with the Los Angeles Dodgers, via MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo. “How you handle that, going out there and using the emotion of that scenario that everything’s on the line—look, I’m not going to shy away from it. This is the biggest start of my career.”

This might be Scherzer’s lust for revenge speaking for him. The NLDS is tied 2-2 in part because he fell flat in Game 1, allowing four runs in six innings in a 4-3 loss. Surely, the former Cy Young Award winner wants redemption.

Still, there’s no denying the other stakes at play in Game 5.

Supposedly too battered and bruised for the task, the Nationals are trying to finish off an upset over the favored Dodgers. Including their past life as the Montreal Expos, the Nationals are also trying to go to just the second National League Championship Series in franchise history.

There’s also more than just revenge at stake for Scherzer. He’s been as advertised in two seasons since signing his $210 million contract, but a clutch postseason performance would be much-appreciated icing on the proverbial cake. It would also put him back on the map as a postseason ace. 

It’s hard to look back and see other cases of postseason dominance while still being blinded by the ethereal October light of Madison Bumgarner. But Scherzer was darn good for the Detroit Tigers in 2012 and 2013. He made seven total appearances, including six starts, and racked up a 2.50 ERA while holding hitters to a .173 average and .572 OPS.

The best part? In 39.2 innings, he struck out 60 batters. That’s a rate of 13.8 batters per nine innings. He was basically 2001 Randy Johnson for two Octobers.

Scherzer hasn’t missed a beat in three regular seasons since then, racking up a 2.96 ERA and striking out 10.8 batters per nine innings.

After winning one in 2013, he was a top-five finisher in the Cy Young voting in 2014 and 2015. He may be the favorite to win it in the National League this year after posting a 2.96 ERA and leading the NL in wins (20), innings (228.1) and strikeouts (284).

However, that 2013 postseason remains the last time anyone saw Scherzer at his October best.

Before his flop in Game 1 of the NLDS, he endured a five-run flop against the Baltimore Orioles in Game 1 of the ALDS back in 2014. Go back a little further, and the fine print has a reminder that he unraveled against the Boston Red Sox late in Game 6 of the 2013 ALCS.

Scherzer could ask for worse circumstances for getting off the schneid on Thursday. He’ll be at home in Nationals Park. He’ll be facing a Dodgers lineup that, while formidable, is hitting just .221 with a .686 OPS in this series. He’ll be opposed by some combination of Rich Hill on three days’ rest and Julio Urias making his first postseason appearance.

There is one thing that could sink Scherzer: home runs. He led the NL by giving up 31 of them in the regular season. He gave up two more to Corey Seager and Justin Turner in Game 1. Going back to the end of the regular season, he’s served up multiple dingers in three out of his last four starts.

Neil Greenberg of the Washington Post dug into Brooks Baseball and noticed that Scherzer’s arm slot has dropped, leading to a flatter fastball. It’s also been slower, as Scherzer has worked with his worst velocity all season in October.

Less life and less velocity are never good things, but they’re especially bad things for Scherzer in light of how he uses his fastball. He’ll work both sides of the plate, but he mostly prefers to challenge hitters in terms of vertical placement:

Scherzer can normally get away with this due to the sheer electricity of his heater. But without that electricity, he’s vulnerable. Seager demonstrated as much when he went yard on a belt-high fastball in the first inning of Game 1.

There’s no indication anything is physically wrong with Scherzer, so it may be a mere mechanical glitch that’s made his arm slot drop. If he can get that ironed out, he can get back to being his usual self in Game 5.

His usual self can tear through the Dodgers lineup. Scherzer had the highest swinging-strike rate of any qualified starter this year and the third-highest strikeout rate at 11.19 per nine innings. These are the things he can do when he’s combining his excellent fastball, slider and changeup with strong command.

And indeed, these are the things he had when he was tearing through the postseason in 2012 and 2013. He’s mostly been that same pitcher over the last three years. He just needs to remember how to do it in October.

If he can do that, he can own the biggest game of his life.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

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In Terry Francona’s script for the latest season of MLB‘s hit drama Postseason Baseball, the most important role in the American League Championship Series may be a middle reliever.

This one just so happens to be played by one of the nastiest pitchers in the league.

It’s a departure from the usual script, but it’s a reality the Toronto Blue Jays must be prepared for with Game 1 of the ALCS set for Friday. Francona used Andrew Miller twice in the Cleveland Indians‘ AL Division Series sweep of the Boston Red Sox, and the lefty took no prisoners:

Short version: 16 batters faced, four baserunners, seven outs the easy way and, most importantly, no runs. 

These outs loomed large in real time, when there was no ignoring how the postseason bullpen mantra of “Just have a lead after six” changed into “Just have a lead after four or five.” These outs also loom large on paper. Baseball-Reference.com calculates Miller swayed Cleveland’s win probability by 26.3 percent. Through Monday’s action, only three pitchers had done better in the divisional round.

So much for the decree that elite relievers must handle only high-leverage innings, much less the last three outs. This was Francona and Miller acknowledging that all postseason innings are high-leverage innings. But also, this was acknowledging that the big picture is really quite simple.

“The point isn’t to use your best relievers in the biggest moments,” wrote Neil Weinberg at FanGraphs. “The point is to maximize your odds of winning the game.”

Indeed. And for Francona and Miller, the revolution began well before the postseason arrived.

With a 1.77 ERA and 14.9 strikeouts per nine innings in the first year-and-a-half of his four-year, $36 million contract with the New York Yankees, Miller was an obvious trade target for an Indians bullpen that needed another shutdown arm to pair with closer Cody Allen. But to justify the price of acquiring Miller—the remainder of his contract and a package of prospects headlined by Clint Frazier—the Indians would need to get a lot out of him down the stretch.

That was precisely what Francona had in mind, telling The Ringer’s Ben Lindbergh that he saw “a guy that is willing to pitch any inning.” He put that theory to the test when he called on Miller in the sixth inning in just his second appearance with the club on August 4.

That equaled the number of times Miller had come into a game before the eighth in his entire tenure with the Yankees. It ended up being one of nine times he did so in his 26 appearances with Cleveland. He dominated the whole way, racking up a 1.55 ERA with 46 strikeouts and two walks in 29 innings.

Miller obviously still has the stuff that’s made him one of baseball’s elite strikeout relievers since 2012. He throws a mid-90s fastball with good life and a slider that can make hitters dance as if an old-timey Western villain is shooting at their feet.

Observe an example here, courtesy of The Pitcher List:

When necessary, Miller also has the goods to last more than one inning: a background as a starting pitcher and efficiency that, even despite his now-extreme slider usage, has never been better.

He walked a career-low 1.1 batters per nine innings this season with control that, given his history as a left-handed clone of Nuke LaLoosh, even his biggest believers from back in the day didn’t see coming. Here’s Aaron Fit of D1Baseball.com:

And whereas other late-inning relievers might scoff at being used so far away from the almighty “save,” Miller has an aw-shucks attitude about it.

“I don’t know why I get credit for that, I think most guys would do the same thing,” Miller said on the eve of the ALDS, via Erik Boland of Newsday. “I think at the end of the day if everybody’s on the page that winning’s the most important thing, something like that doesn’t matter.”

One question for the future is whether Cleveland’s usage of Miller will be the start of a league-wide trend, or if it’s a unique situation. It seems everyone wants to believe the former, but it may be the latter.

After all, relievers with great stuff and great control and a previously stretched-out arm and a willingness to do heavy lifting before the late innings aren’t plentiful. If teams want them, they’re going to have to cultivate them. That runs the risk of overextending a relief pitcher or diminishing the role of an otherwise promising starting pitcher.

The question for today, however, is for the Blue Jays: How are they going to avoid letting Miller do to them what he did to the Red Sox?

The most obvious solution is to not repeat the Red Sox’s mistake of letting games fall into Miller’s hands. He had leads to protect both times he pitched in the ALDS because Boston hitters couldn’t get to Cleveland starters, scoring only five runs off Trevor Bauer, Corey Kluber and Josh Tomlin.

The Red Sox had the best offense in the league this year, but it got passive. Per Baseball Savant, Boston hitters swung at only 40.9 percent of the pitches they saw, the lowest mark of all playoff teams as of Tuesday morning. Even against Tomlin, a notorious strike-thrower, too many bats stayed on too many shoulders.

The Blue Jays must change the way they operate to avoid falling into that same trap. They had the most patient offense in MLB, seeing a league-high 4.03 pitches per plate appearance. That had the purpose of feeding the team’s .330 on-base percentage and .426 slugging percentage, but it could backfire if it doesn’t lead to runs before Miller Time.

Failing that, whatever aggression Josh Donaldson, Edwin Encarnacion, Jose Bautista and the rest of Toronto’s hitters don’t take out on Cleveland’s starters should be saved for Miller himself. In the regular season, anything after the first pitch was thin-ice territory:

• First pitch: 1.214 OPS
• Even count: .724 OPS
• Batter ahead: .556 OPS
• Pitcher ahead: .282 OPS

In this context, “be aggressive” isn’t meant to encourage Blue Jays hitters to string hits together off Miller. For all his dominance, he gave up eight home runs this season. That’s an open invitation for the Blue Jays to be true to their nature.

“We rely upon that home run ball,” Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said after his team slugged eight dingers in their ALDS sweep of the Texas Rangers, via Brittany Ghiroli of MLB.com. “You know what? Whether you like it or not, that’s the kind of players we have.”

The Blue Jays will be in trouble if they can’t get to Indians starters or to Miller himself. Give or take, that would leave them with three innings to do damage against the rest of Cleveland’s pitchers. That’s a small window that will be populated by good arms. Although not on Miller’s level, Allen, Dan Otero and Bryan Shaw are quality pitchers.

And the Blue Jays may need more than just one or two runs if they can’t break through before the late innings. The Indians have a deep lineup that features a near-constant platoon advantage. Following a season in which it finished second in the AL in runs, the Cleveland offense hit a solid .271 and scored 15 runs in the ALDS.

So while Miller won’t be the best player on the field in the ALCS, he will indeed be the most important. He’ll be the ace everyone knows Francona has up his sleeve, forcing Gibbons and the Blue Jays to play their cards accordingly. If they do that well, Miller’s ALDS dominance will be an anomaly.

If not, things will keep going according to Francona’s script.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

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