Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 742: Price’s Puzzle, Kershaw’s Seventh, and the Astros-Royals Reversal

Episode Date: October 13, 2015

Ben and Sam banter about how this year’s playoffs compare to last year’s, then discuss the postseason performances of Clayton Kershaw and David Price, the crazy Astros-Royals reversal, and more.

From New York to L.A. From New York to L.A. To L.A. To L.A. I'm a star in New York, I'm a star in L.A. In my life there's no place for the man that I love Cause I'm living my life just to see And be free, and be free

From L.A. to New York, from New York to L.A. Good morning and welcome to episode 742 of Effectively Wild. Your daily podcast from Baseball Perspect is brought to you by the Play Index at BaseballReference.com. I'm Sam Miller, along with Ben Lindbergbergh grantland hi ben hello how are you quite all right okie doke anything you want to talk about before we just start talking about whatever you want to talk about anyway i don't think so i think we've got plenty of playoff material remind me last year it was that all the games were super close, but all the series were not close at all, right? Like every game was a walk-off or extra innings or one-run game,

but they were all like sweeps. Is that right? Yeah, that's true. There was like one extra game played or two extra games played in the entire division series round. Right, because the Royals kept sweeping everyone. Yeah, but all the games were super exciting and then this year we're getting lots of games we were getting what uh two five game series

at minimum and two other four game series which as we all know could very easily be five game series so it's conceivable that we could max out. And there have been some good games, but not like last year. Generally speaking, it feels like the majority of games have been fairly well decided by the time that we would normally be yelling about third time through the order penalties, right? Yeah, with the exception maybe of yesterday's Astros-Royals game. Well, I didn't say all. I said for the most part. Obviously, there have been a bunch of exceptions, but we're talking about 14 games, 16 games,

and of those 16, it feels like the majority have been less close. I would agree. All right. So, do you have a preference less close. I would agree. All right. So do you have a preference? I think I liked last year's better. Yeah, I do too. I was very into last year's. Yeah, I agree.

And it's especially so if you're writing about them because fewer games that are more exciting, that's a double win. Yeah, that's true. I mean, at this point in the season uh you are kind of counting down how many games there are left to write about and how many how many leads can i come up with how many framing devices can i come up with how much time am i gonna have to spend on these and um and uh so uh to some degree sweeps are kind of nice and games that are interesting to write about and that give you

very clear things to write about are also nice uh if it's a night game and you need to pound out a recap real quick then you'll take the blowout but for the most part those games like you don't even want to write about those games those games are tough they tend to be pretty boring uh unless you have uh something exciting like for instance there was a near blowout yesterday in which Carlos Correa, who had already broken out about 17 times as a rookie, but really broke out. And that was going to be an easy one to write about, an easy Astros win, clinch, Carlos Correa being anointed as not just a great young player, but as a historic player in the first leg of his certainly historic career. So that was going to be an easy one.

I was already halfway through that one. Yeah. I enjoyed your recap of that crazy game, but I think I would have enjoyed it just as much if your entire recap had just been that Tony Sip screenshot. I know, right? That expression on his face. Everyone should go read the article, if only just to Sip screenshot. I know, right? That expression on his face. Everyone should go read the article, if only just to see that screenshot.

Let me look at it. It's just, it's horror. It's just, it's a scream mask face. It is. I wonder if he knows that he can make that face. He does if he listens to this podcast. Yeah, it's an amazing screen capture. And before that, he actually, I'm going to not exaggerate and then I'll probably exaggerate.

But before that shot, he drops to the ground and puts his head on the ground as though he is like mourning God forsaking him. Like he's like rending his garments and everything like that. He's fully on the ground in the middle of a play. He just drops down. I cannot believe he didn't throw his glove like we all want to do when we make an error. Because he collapses to the ground mid-play out of horror. It was an amazing moment. Yeah.

So one thing that we might not talk about, we might not talk about Clayton Kershaw. I'm going to the Mets game tonight, Clayton Kershaw starting on short rest. And both he and David Price, who we probably will talk about, have had a game or two games that were not up to their usual standard after having come into the postseason with a subpar postseason record. So they've both pitched 12 postseason games. Kershaw's pitched about seven more innings because some of those Price games were out of the bullpen. Kershaw has a 4.99 ERA. Price has a 5.04 ERA. So they're essentially the same level of struggle in October thus far. And there's been sort of a debate in the Facebook group because the inclination is to just write it

off and say it doesn't mean anything. It's still a pretty small sample. And obviously there's precedent for really excellent players having some postseason struggles and then being great in the postseason, whether it's Bonds in 2002 or A-Rod in 2009. And obviously it's still a fairly small sample, but we can say accurately that they have been worse in the postseason than they normally are. So we talked during the regular season about how much higher Kershaw's ERA would have to be than some other pitcher for you to trust him less if he had the same fielding independent stats. So if we play the same game with postseason, how much higher does his postseason ERA have to be

for you to trust him less than someone with worse regular season stats but a better postseason record? At what point do you start to buy that he is anything less than Clayton Kershaw or that David Price is anything less than David Price at this point with with the current ERAs there with the five-ish ERA that they have yeah because I mean if if if you're imagining a situation where their ERA is like if we're doing two variables then there's going to be two different answers so well so why don't we just say how many innings would these guys have to pitch at their current postseason performance for you to downgrade them?

Well, so first of all, for Kershaw, the answer would be extremely high. Because Kershaw is essentially pitching at a very high performance. I'll look at Price in a minute. But a couple of Kershaw's bad outings came in 2008 and 2009 when he was a very good pitcher but not yet a Cy Young pitcher. He was like 22. He might have been even younger than that. And he had one start where he walked a bunch of guys in 2009,

and then he had a couple of relief outings in 2008. And, I mean, this was not Kershaw. It's like that I'm willing to just throw aside completely. That was four years before he made it back to the postseason and was clearly a different pitcher. So since then, he's got seven starts, and he's still got a 4.6 ERA, which is what people are responding to. But in those seven starts, he's got seven starts, and he's still got a 4.6 ERA, which is what people are responding to. But in those seven starts, he's thrown 42 innings.

He's got 58 strikeouts, which is insane. He's got four and a half strikeouts per walk. And, yes, there's more home runs than you want in there, four home runs and 42 innings. But, A, that's not an extreme total. B, it's only one more than three, and three would be a normal total. C, a couple of those home runs have come in games where he was stretched in ways that are kind of slightly irregular for a postseason pitcher. that are kind of slightly irregular for a postseason pitcher.

Although you could say that he is tiring more quickly than he usually does. He's not being asked to go nine. He's being asked to go seven, and he's falling apart in the seventh or something. Yeah, so then you could maybe take that and say there's two conversations. There's Kershaw as a pitcher starting a game, and then Kershaw as a pitcher being left in in the seventh as though he is somehow different than every other pitcher who you'd like to pull around the seventh in postseason games. So let's say for the first one at his current level,

which I think is a very high level, I would say infinite innings before I changed my mind about Clayton Kershaw or near infinite innings. I think he's been a great pitcher who has had a couple of bad starts, but has had a lot of super great starts. And his start on, what day was that, Saturday? Was a pretty great start. I mean, he was in the sixth inning with 11 strikeouts, one run allowed.

And then he gave up a couple singles, which was now taking us into the seventh inning conversation, which we'll get to in a minute. And then his reliever came in and cashed those singles in and cost him two runs and turned what was going to be a dominant start into just an okay one. But he was incredible that game, right? That was great Kershaw for six innings. Slightly less great than DeGham but yes great yeah and i mean barely i mean he had 11 strikeouts through six uh and one run

allowed so as great as you can ask of a pitcher now as the seventh so he had a bad seventh that game. He had a bad seventh in his first NLDS start in 2014, which was the one where everything got way out of hand and he ended up just getting crushed in the seventh. And then he got pulled mid-inning after putting a couple guys on in the seventh of the second outing. Is that right? Yeah. So that's three straight bad sevenths in a row.

And then before that, he didn't make it to the seventh. He didn't pitch in the seventh. He didn't pitch in the seventh. And then in the first start of the 2013 LDS, he went 1-2-3. Not 1-2-3. He went walk, strikeout, strikeout, strikeout in the seventh. So we're basically talking about three innings, none of which he completed, which is the point, but also means that it's less than three innings. I guess actually,

yeah, so last year's was the second one was the one where he went single, single home run. So in the seventh, he's, ah, what the heck? While we're here, I'll do the math. So I misspoke. I said that he gave up a couple singles in the seventh. He actually gave up three walks in the seventh. That's how he loaded the bases. Before that, he gave up a couple singles in the seventh. He actually gave up three walks in the seventh. That's how he loaded the bases. Before that, he had 11 strikeouts in one walk going into the seventh. And then he went walk, out, walk, out, walk. And one of the outs was a bunt by the pitcher.

So anyway, I did the math, Ben. Okay. While you... That was fast. Yeah. And in his last three seventh innings, he has recorded three outs. So he has one inning of official work and he has allowed seven singles, a homer and three walks. So that's pretty bad. So that's eight out of 11 as far as hits. It's 11 out of 14 as far as on

base. And it's 10. It's a slugging percentage of 3,300. So if you were going to make the case that Kershaw is less than his typical self in the postseason, then you would have to argue that he isn't pacing himself as well. Maybe he's putting more pressure on himself, and he's not saving as much for the end of the game. You would have to argue either that or that he just has a mental block on the seventh because he had. I mean, I'm not I'm not arguing this, but that he had that horrible start, horrible seventh inning in his first start last year where the Cardinals got to him in the seventh and it became a big thing. And then he was horrible in the next one. And you could say, oh, well, there it is. He's worried about the seventh and then he comes into this one and he was horrible in the next one. And you could say, oh, well, there it is.

He's worried about the seventh. And then he comes into this one and he's bad in the seventh again. So you could argue that too, if you wanted to. So how many sevenths would it take me to feel this way about him? I would probably feel this is a true thing about him if he had like three more bad ones in a row or maybe two more bad ones in a row or like five of the next six or like six of the next nine or seven of the next nine something like that

however even acknowledging that it's a true thing I still wouldn't necessarily take that to mean that the next one he couldn't fix it that he couldn't get past it like this seems to me like something that could both be true but non-persistent because if it's a pacing thing well then maybe that's just a mindset issue and if it's a mental block well a lot of times confidence is only one out of way okay and i don't and i'm probably and i don't think it is a confidence thing. And Price has a 5-ish ERA in 50 innings,

and half of his appearances have been out of the bullpen. And his peripherals are pretty much fine. I don't know, maybe not quite as good as his regular season, but he's not always an extreme strikeout guy. So I don't know how it compares fairly favorably to his lifetime stats, given that it's the postseason and the competition is better. Although he's also been in the bullpen, so you would expect him to be better because of that. But anyway, it's not like he is, you know,

walking as many guys as he strikes out or something. That's correct. Okay. So should we just talk about Price since we're on the subject? All right. Yeah, Price. So Price is—well, now I have to answer the same question about Price, don't I? Okay. So Price's worst postseason was 2010 probably.

Maybe. He had two starts, gave up eight runs, struck out 14 and walked nobody, which is pretty good. But, yeah, his peripherals are somewhat, eh, I don't know. He's allowed a lot of home runs, hasn't he? So Price, I don't know. Price doesn't, the answer with Price is similar to Kershaw, but even though Price is similar to Kershaw, but even though Price is similar to Kershaw,

I give Kershaw a lot more deference than I would give any other pitcher. And Price is somewhat more human. I would say that with Price, what would be the argument for Price? Because Price is a little different because you can't excuse his problems by saying, well, they were a long time ago. They were when he was a rookie. Some of them were a reasonably long time ago in 2010, but Price was pretty much Price by then,

and since then he's been consistently bad. So what would be the argument against Price? That he just is a choker? I suppose. Okay. I don't know. I would probably need like uh with these peripherals I would probably need like like 115 innings and he's at 50 right now okay what's he's probably

not going to get any farther than 50 in this notes or ever no team will ever let him pitch again that was hang on I'm looking at so, I thought Clemens was worse, actually. Clemens was 375 in 199 innings. And in my head, he was always higher than that. But I was wrong. Oh, Verlander was probably who I was thinking of. Because Verlander was bad for a pretty long time, right? Verlander's got 98 innings.

No, he's been good never mind okay so the weirdness with price in game four oh that's right verlander salvaged it with the 2013 he was bad until 2012 and then he had in 2013 he had 23 innings and allowed one run and that made things a lot different and that's probably a pretty good thing to remember okay so the weirdness with price in game four is that he came in in relief and not only that he came in relief but that he came in in relief when the blue jays had a big lead. It was four and two-thirds innings into the game, which was strange because it's rare or relatively rare for managers to pull a starter when they're one out away from a win. I think Russell Carlton wrote an article about that once showing that that was the case, that when starters are going after that 15th out, managers give them a little leeway.

that when starters are going after that 15th out, managers give them a little leeway. And Ari Dickey was pitching pretty fine. And Price came in with a guy on first, two outs in the fifth, with a six-run lead, which is extremely low leverage, at least by postseason standards when everything is sort of high leverage. high postseason standards when everything is sort of high leverage. And that was a weird one because now Price, according to Gibbons, can't pitch in game five. So the question is, why did he pitch in game four?

Great. Tell me. I don't know. I'm glad we have these postseason mysteries every year. There's always one. It's like, why aren't the Cardinals using Shelby Miller? Or why aren't the Royals using Danny Duffy? Or why are the Blue Jays using David Price in relief? So I don't know.

He was warming up late in Game 3, which was at least a close game. And you could still envision him coming back in the subsequent games or in game five. And I get why you wouldn't want to mess around. We saw what happened to the Astros, and you don't want that to happen. And maybe the Blue Jays don't have great left-handed options relative to their right-handed options in the pen. options relative to their right-handed options in the pen but as for why you would want to bring price in in that situation instead of saving him for game five i don't really have a great theory unless the blue jays don't believe in him for whatever reason right now right if he's if they specifically chose to put him in their most insignificant

situation because they wanted to not use one of their any of their better pitchers than him of which they determined that they have seven then that's the only the only way that you can explain it simply and convincingly and that obviously is nuts right there? There's no way that David Price, who might win the Cy Young and had like a 2-4 ERA for them in a half a season, has been given up on because of one outing. Yeah. Right? Which wasn't even that bad an outing. Yeah, I don't know. And he was not great in relief.

He pitched three innings. He gave up three runs. He was not great in relief. He pitched three innings. He gave up three runs. And I don't know. If they just don't want David Price pitching in a decisive game, then I guess that would explain it, why you'd want to put him in there, because he's still decent or, you know, as good as your left-handed relievers,

and it's a big lead, so he has a cushion. But I don't know why he would go from game one starter to mop up man after one outing unless there's some issue with his health yeah he was throwing as hard in his start as he normally does in fact harder than he had in his september starts overall um so there wasn't an obvious sign of that. He pitched deep into the game. If they were worried that he was hurt, they certainly could have. Or if they worried that he was anything, if they worried he was fatigued,

they certainly could have reasonably pulled him earlier than they did because they pulled him late, as they tend to do, as teams tend to do with David Price. I mean, it doesn't make sense because even if they don't want him starting game five, it still doesn't make any sense to use him in game four. I mean, they had a seven-run lead, and they had, or maybe it was a six-run lead when they pulled Dickey. There was one guy on and two guys out,

and even if you're not worried about Dickey getting the win or anything like that it's still a weird time to pull your pitcher period yeah you don't pull your pitcher there unless you really really want to get a guy in yeah instead of him and so to bring him in there is weird to bring him in and leave him in so long when the game is clearly not close either means that you have, well, it's one of three things. You either have a very, very warped idea about win expectancy, and you thought that a seven

run lead is actually really super close, and that you've got to use your best guy to lock that one down, which would be nuts. Two is that Price is now your mop-up man, and you don't trust anybody else. I mean, there was no point in saving the rest of the bullpen. They had a day off today. Nobody had thrown more than 11 pitches the day before, and they had a

day off before that, and so there's zero fatigue in the bullpen. There's zero holding the bullpen or saving the bullpen at play there. So that's not a factor. And so anyway, you can't plausibly think, I don't think that there's anything about Price that makes him broken. So then is it conceivable that this whole point is that they just want to make sure, once they decided that Stroman is going to be the guy in game five, maybe they decided, and we're not going to use Price in game five because we need to have somebody for game one

of the LCS if we get there. We're not just playing to win game four or to win game five. We're playing to win the World Series. And so we have to also think about the LCS. And we want to make sure that Price or Stroman is ready for game one. If we use both of them in game five,

then that won't happen. So we might as well say right now that one of them is not for game one. If we use both of them in game five, then that won't happen. So we might as well say right now that one of them is not pitching game five. And if one of them is not pitching game five, then we might as well use them in game four because it doesn't cost us anything. He'll be able to come back and start game one of the LCS anyway. It's a valiant attempt. I think it's plausible. It's not bad thinking. Now, the only reason it's a valiant attempt i think it's plausible it it's a it's not bad thinking now the only reason it's bad thinking is because even if you're committed to not using one of those guys in game five there does come a scenario a realistic scenario that could happen where you go on second

thought we have to yeah there's there. There's just no way around it. Either the game gets really wild and long, and it's tied or something or whatever, and you really are out of good relievers, and you want him to go an inning or even a batter. Or Stroman gets knocked out in the top of the second, but your offense is so awesome that it's like an 8-6 game. And now all of a sudden you do need a starter, after all, who can keep you in the game.

And it's no different than if it were 0-0 in the second or 2-0 in the second. So it's much more likely that one of those weird events would happen that forces you to reconsider your commitment to not using one of those pitchers than that anybody else in your bullpen blows the seven-run lead in the fifth inning or later. And so I think that if that is the thinking, it's still probably bad process and it's still weird. And it's also the best explanation there is.

It's by far the best explanation there is. It's by far the best explanation there is. Yeah, I think that's right. Okay. And wow, Derek Holland was, we talked the other day when we were previewing the series about his home run rate against right-handed hitters and how he has one of the highest over the last several years.

And then he got destroyed. That was like the worst possible matchup for Derek Holland, and he gave up three home runs very, very quickly, and other extra base hits. And there wasn't really a great alternative, except I guess you could have just started Colby Lewis, who came in to relieve him anyway. But it was defensible to start Holland,

but I would have been extremely scared as a Rangers fan watching Derek Holland start. I haven't looked, but does it feel to you like the starter pitching on short rest had a moment, a dip in history where everybody kind of acknowledged that it wasn't a great idea? And it happened still, but it seemed like it only happened at higher levels of desperation. And it happened still, but it seemed like it only happened at higher levels of desperation. And now it's almost just become the expectation for certain teams to do it. Or certain, like, it almost feels like you either have to have a really good number four starter, a bad number one starter, or a schedule that doesn't allow it. Or a finicky ace who doesn't like to do it.

Or a finicky ace that doesn't like to do it. So now, am I imagining things? So let's see. Who has done this so far in this series? The Cardinals didn't. The Cubs didn't. The Dodgers did. The Mets are not.

I'm imagining it, aren't I? The Blue Jays did not right kershaw's doing it yeah uh the rangers i think are not the royals did slash r although there was the weird there was the rain thing yeah although i think they would have anyway but yeah the royals did and the astros didn't okay so it's only two guys never mind okay all right so what else so arietta started arietta won as usual but he was not as untouchable as he has been is there anything to say about that still looked good to me he gave up as many runs in one game as he had given up in the past four months but he won anyway because he

always wins how many runs did he give up i saw the one bad inning he gave up four yeah struck out nine five and two thirds yeah i don't know he had he gave up he had a very very bad pitch to johnny peralta and i don't know how the other two scored. So, I mean, whatever. Yeah, he's still great. He's not in the Rich Hill category where he's one mediocre outing away from me completely giving up on him. No, no. What he's doing is, I mean,

for the rest of our lives, we'll be making Arrieta references, I think, regardless of what he does in however many remaining starts he has anytime any pitcher is on an incredible run for the rest of our lives we will invoke Jake Arrieta we should do an episode maybe we should just do it right now instead of talking about all these other games but we should do an episode where we think of all the players who have something that we invoke their name for. Like what Bumgarner did, who's the next Bumgarner.

That's a thing, right? Probably. It's only been a year, so we don't have the historical perspective to say that it will last forever. But it probably will, unless he's supplanted by someone else. Yeah, I wonder how many people you could say, Do A, his last name and people would know what you mean yeah like if you said like hershizer right do a hershizer but what is a hershizer exactly just having a really long score listening streak uh-huh yeah you could

i feel like with hershizer it's almost too on the nose because the streak is itself already a thing that speaks for itself. But yes, you could. Like if you said do a Jeter, what would that mean? A jump throw, a fist punch. A jump throw. See, because my first thought is that it means running into the stands to catch a foul pop-up. But that's kind of my point is that you really need to say

do a Jeter into the stands. It's not enough just to say do a Jeter. An out of position flip play. It could be lots of things. The Bonds treatment. You know what the Bonds treatment is. Yes, that's true. Let's see.

We still say Ted Williams shift. You do say Ted Williams shift. That's a good one. I wonder if we could come up with 30 things where you say do a and then the guy. I might, maybe we'll do this someday. Okay. Another day. All right.

All right. So you recapped Astro's Royals. Is there anything you want to point out from the crazy rally? We talked about the Astro's bullpen going into the series and how it had been the best or one of the best over the full season and then had kind of collapsed in September, at least ERA-wise. And if you look at what it did yesterday, which was allow seven runs in two-plus innings or two-something innings, it looks like a big bullpen meltdown. But it wasn't quite that, probably. Yeah, I mean, they didn't pitch well there were

about three pretty bad mistakes in there uh and i guess the inability to finish off drew drew butera is never a good look yeah um i did not expect to see drew butera this month playing no neither i mean well unless someone got hurt and someone did get hurt. And that someone getting hurt brought us Terrence Gore, which was nice. Yeah. But, yeah, for the most part, that inning, if you just looked at the pitches and saw the pitches in isolation, you wouldn't see a bullpen meltdown, I don't think. I mean, there were a couple of extremely hittable pitches, but there always are.

There were some missed locations, but there always are. But mostly there was Escobar, well, after Alex Rios, I can just go down the whole list, but Alex Rios got an extremely fat pitch that he hit, but it was the first pitch to Alex Rios with a

4-run lead. That's what you're going to do, right? You're going to throw him a pretty hittable pitch on the first pitch. And he hit it. So that's, I guess on them. Escobar hit a stupid pitch. I mean, he shouldn't have swung at it and he hit a bad, a bad ball up the middle weekly for a single. Zobrist got a hanging breaking ball that he flared into center. I think that you could maybe argue that the second ish maybe the third maybe the third ish most important play was that carlos gomez was in center field and couldn't i don't i don't think i don't think i could be wrong about this but i don't think that that that ball's a hit if carlos gomez or any healthy center fielder is out there yeah i think that he didn't want to dive

and maybe if delano deshields was out there i'm not i'm not very impressed with what i've seen of delano deshields in center maybe he's got a strained intercostal and you just don't know it but it's kind of a weird thing that gomez is playing um because he's uh he's clearly hurt he's He looks to be hurt. And I don't know, I didn't see it, I only heard it, but when he was picked off in the ninth inning of game two, I know that a lot of people were noting that the injured guy got picked off in the ninth inning after going in as a pinch runner and wondering whether the injury mattered. But it seemed to me that clearly in this case,

your center fielder was incapable of running in and sliding for a catchable ball and yet you don't want to rip the Astros for it because Gomez has been their second best hitter and hit a home run in the same game and has been hit a home run in the wild card game has been kind of awesome and other than not being able to catch an occasional flare in a four run game uh he's been a guy that you want in the lineup and it just so happened that a baseball was hit in the two foot patch of grass that differentiates carlos gomez or a healthy center fielder from a non-healthy center fielder and um so i don't know what you do about that i think i'd probably would keep gomez in and uh feel somewhat sad that he got hurt just before the playoffs and somewhat happy that he didn't get

hurt worse but i don't know i'm not sure how the the math plays there i don't know maybe he's a defensive replacement candidate at this point though or maybe i'm completely wrong every once in a while you get a misleading angle and it turns out that the ball just couldn't get caught. I don't know. So then Kane hits a ball that was, you know, fine, but it wasn't like up or anything like that. It was fairly low in the zone. He hits it well. Hosmer almost strikes out on an impossible to hit slider and instead managed to take it and then hits a ball at the knees for a line drive that Altuve misses by a foot. Morales hits a pitch that he should not have swung at. It's a tailor-made one, two, three double play that is basically going to end the Royals season. Well, not entirely,

but it would have kept the Astros at like 80% win probability if he makes it and Sip misses it. And then it gets some weird spin and Correa misses it. And then it gets some weird spin and Korea misses it. And all of a sudden that's the game. So I don't know that there's a lot there that you can say, yep, there's the, there's the famously choking Astros bullpen. They had a couple of pitches that were somewhat hittable,

but for the most part, unless it's that their stuff was bad or that they just didn't have it, uh, you can't really find the answer in the movement, I don't think. There was plenty there that looked like competent pitching. And then the Butera at bat, which was huge and which kept the rally going long enough for Alex Gordon to drive in the winning run. They made some good pitches and Butera fought them off and he almost got rung up and he almost

chased strike three a couple times and he did chase strike three a bunch of times but managed to foul it off. I mean, they threw him, I think they threw him one pitch in the strike zone. So, again, you can argue out of ten. So you could argue, yeah, you should be able to put away Drew Butera, especially when you're

throwing him pitches out of the zone that he's chasing. But, you know, dude drives a nice car too. Good pitcher. Yeah, he is a good pitcher. He knows how you're going to work him. He's got an advantage. I would be as fine bringing any Astros relievers in today as I would have been. I think that the Astros bullpen, even before September, certainly before this week, it was always a group that I had a hard time liking as much as I should have.

They had good numbers. They had good traditional numbers. They had great advanced, more sophisticated numbers this year. But it always looked like a group of non-elite pitchers. They don't throw hard and they don't have a Davis, a scary guy. Right. And there's, I mean, one of the things that when a team has sort of shifting roles throughout the season, as the Astros have a lot of times, it's because it's guys who have relatively

short histories of success. And that's why they don't kind of get the deference that most eighth inning or ninth inning guys get. And so the Astros have always been a group that seemed like it might be a weakness, even though they were pitching quite well. And so I'm hesitant to say, absolutely, they're nails. They're going to shut everybody down.

But I don't think that I have a different opinion about them today than I did a couple weeks ago. Maybe Fields, a little bit of Fields. Maybe a little bit of Perez, of Oli Perez. But as a group, still fine. They're good enough to win a World Series, not good enough to carry you there. All right. And later today, the Cardinals and Dodgers try to stay alive.

Oh, well, the Cardinals are using Lackey on short rest so there's another short rester excellent Michael Michael Waka was pretty bad Michael Waka has been pretty bad for a while now and that was a concern coming into the series the Cubs hit six home runs in all four games there were 21 home runs hit which is kind of crazy which is a playoff record for a single day and maybe a continuation of the home run uptick we saw in august and september in the regular season and i don't know we've we've hit all the the main points from those games i think is there Is there anything else? There's not. Okay. So I will talk to you after I get back from Citi Field. I get to ride the 7 train all the way to 11th Avenue now.

There's the new Hudson Yards station open, which is great for someone who lives in the Hudson River, basically. So you can send us emails at podcast at baseball perspectives.com can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild rate and review and subscribe to the podcast and subscribe to our sponsor, the play index by using the coupon code BP to get the discounted price of $30 on a one-year subscription. We'll be back tomorrow.