Rates & Barrels - A Drama Packed Weekend of Playoff Action

Episode Date: October 7, 2024

Eno and DVR discuss a busy weekend for all four Division Series -- including the early outburst from the Cleveland lineup that set up a Guardians' Game 1 win, a back-and-forth battle in the Bronx that the Yankees held onto win over the Royals, and two splits on the National League side where bitter rivalries have generated some great early-series drama.  Rundown 2:56 The Guardians' Offense Erupts in Game 1; Thoughts Behind Tigers' Opener Strategy Against Cleveland Bats 11:17 Game Planning Against Tarik Skubal 18:11 A Missed Opportunity for the Royals? 22:44 One Particularly Important Play By Jazz Chisholm Jr. 28:40 Phillies-Mets Is Delivering Through Two Games 39:37 Padres-Dodgers Continues to Escalate 50:27 Jurickson Profar Fooled Us! Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Plus keep up with the game's future stars on the Friday Prospect series. Whether we're diving deep on one topic, discussing the latest news, or breaking down last night's OT winner, you can't miss a single episode. Listen to the Athletic Hockey Show wherever you get your podcasts. College football is back like never before. I'm David Ubbin and I host Until Saturday, the Athletics Leveled Up College Football Podcast. Three times a week, you'll hear me and my co-hosts, fellow athletics senior writer Chris Finini, and two time national champion Damien Harris embrace the sport's new madness with you. We're also just going to have a ton of fun enjoying all the things that make college football great. Check out the brand new Until Saturday every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday this fall. You can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts. Welcome to Rates and Barrels Monday, October 7th. Derek Van Riper, Eno Saris here with you. A lot has happened.

The division series are all underway and I'll side two games through AL side having game twos here on Monday. So we'll talk about the breakdowns of what happened over the weekend and what we can expect here as those series continue on. Eno, how was your weekend? Good. My nine-year-old turned 10. So I had a house full of screaming children.

The internet went out for two days. Did they break it? I had an earful of screaming children. Why? Why isn't that working? That's tough. For that age especially, because the internet's just always been there, right?

We're old enough, we lived in a time when the internet wasn't available in our homes. I was like, go read a book. Yeah. Yeah. I actually don't mind if it goes down any time of day, like after work is over, until my son's asleep. So between like four or five o'clock in the afternoon until about nine o'clock,

the internet goes out. I don't care because I'm not watching TV. I'm not really on my phone for that little window anyway. I'm catching up once he goes to sleep. If it's down when he goes to sleep, then I turn into your kid. Then it makes me very upset. And this is, this is my time. I'm supposed to have a half hour hour here before I fall asleep. So it's a lot of profanity, a lot of unplugging and replugging the router, all that stuff. We've had a crazy, uh, heat stroke situation here.

So I think yesterday, uh, the Bay area set, um set overall highs for that date or maybe forever highs. 97 in the city and it was crazy. Down here it hit 100 and usually this happens in September for us. So I bet you some component melted or something. There was a brown out and so I think it was related to that. But yeah, so it was. And then just the general running around and taking the of the children to the little league games, which were being played in 85, 90 degree weather.

And so the kids were pretty gassed after everything. Welcome to summer in the Midwest, living out on the West Coast, man. It's rough out there right now. Hopefully everybody's staying safe. I know it's hurricane season. It's already been a bad one with Hurricane Helene. And I've seen some reports about Hurricane Milton being a big one coming that way too.

So just stay safe out there. Let's get to some of the games from the weekend though. We have four series to catch up on. We'll start with the one that gets underway first on Monday, just so the previews all sort of line up and there's a chance some folks might actually hear everything before the game start. The Guardians opened up the ALDS series with the Tigers. The game won win got on the board early and often.

They became the first American League team to score five runs before recording and out to start a playoff game according to stats perform. Stephen Kwan narrowly missed the lead off Homer. There was a walk. There was a Jose Ramirez error or double depending on how they finally scored that later. I think they flipped at least once right after it happened. There was a Josh Naylor single and then Reese Olsen came in, gave up a Homer that Lane Thomas took out of the yard. So it was a quick strike for the Guardians, and it was all they needed.

They were able to cruise behind Tanner Bybee in that bullpen thereafter. Yeah, I mean, a lot maybe should be rightly made about the decision to pitch Tyler Holton to begin the game, but in the end, if you score zero runs, it's pretty much impossible to to win the game. But in the end, if you score zero runs, it's pretty much impossible to to win the game. So on some level it was on the on the bats there. But, you know, bringing in a lefty reliever makes some sense because, you know, Stephen Kwan, a lefty, is at the top of that lineup.

And I think maybe more importantly, you're looking ahead to Josh nailer and you're just like. If there are people on base and Josh and I have supplied rather have a lefty up there. That already because the splits for Kwan he is the exact same batting average against lefty's rights and I know it is not a batting average show but just thought that was kind of amazing because for any player like He's like one of the few players. We're like maybe batting average does capture a lot of what he does so like Him having a 285 batting average lifetime against lefties and righties means I don't think I need to split him Turn him around. I don't need you know to have a lefty against him. Then you have David Fry or righty, you know, and then Jose Ramirez, switch hitters, you look to the splits or he's pretty much equal.

Yeah, I mean, over the course of a very long career, I think this year, if you just look at twenty twenty four, he's done very, very well against lefties. But you can't take a one year split against lefties and put a ton of stock into it. So I think it did come down to if someone's going to be on base against Naylor and against the top of the Guardians order, you're sort of expecting maybe one guy to reach base. Then you've got the matchup you want. Maybe get through that matchup, get out of the first inning unscathed, give it to Olsen, have Olsen go three, four or five innings, depending on how it's going and work from there. I guess the other consideration, too, the Guardians are mixing

and matching right now with David Fry and Kyle Manzardo. So if you decide to use a lefty opener, you're sort of pushing David Fry into the lineup as opposed to Manzardo. So maybe there's a preference there, but I do think the nailer plate appearance is the one you're probably thinking the most about in that entire sequence. And it went OK, you know, thinking the most about in that entire sequence. And it went okay, you know, for Tyler Holt and at first because he threw an inside sinker

lefty lefty sinker. That's a good pitch got, I believe a foul. And then he threw an inside sweeper. So front door sweeper to to him. So that's a pitch that's going at Naylor and then came across the plate and got a called strike. Now I think it was a bad idea. I think he should go back to the fastball because he went to the sweeper again and it was more outside. And Naylor had just seen a pitch that came at him and came over the plate.

Now he sees a pitch that's on the same plane but just further out. I think he is prepared for that and some to some extent so he pulled that for a single and then that set up the big lane Thomas thing the other thing about. Lane Thomas is interesting is you know month to month splits not super interesting to me but in his case here's a guy who has been so hot and cold power wise I don't think I've seen splits like this on a lot of guys. So Lane Thomas had a 280 0.07 ISO in March a 287 in May a 250 in June a point 08 in July a point 05 in August and then a 0.297 ISO in September. That's Lane Thomas.

So, um, I don't know, you know, I think the thing that messes that up is like, maybe he just saw a lot of lefties in those months and saw a lot of righties in the other months or whatever it is. But, um, you know, it's just funny to have all this set up then go under and be like, okay, well now we're going to Reese Olson, right? You on right. That's what we want. And Lane Thomas is like, no, this is not what you want.

Well, Reese Olson threw a slider that was just middle to play. It just a, just a bad miss, right? And Thomas made him pay for it. That's what happens in the big leagues. But I think that's another instance of you had the matchup you wanted flipping that switch, even though there was traffic for his career, Lane Thomas has a 27.8% K rate against Wrighties, an 87 WRC+. He does a lot of his damage against lefties,

and he's a slightly below average hitter right on right, with a lot less power too. So for him to do what he did in that spot is really just a lack of execution. In a situation where Olson doesn't come out of the bullpen with guys on base very often. He usually used like a regular starter. Right, but you did, like those are kind of

two slightly improbable events. What you're talking about is, you know, Josh Naylor hitting a lefty on lefty sweeper, pulling it for a hit. And then Lane Thomas, who struggles against righties, getting a righty or righty slider and hitting it for power. So I guess you could say that the Tigers process wasn't terrible, but. Yeah.

And I wouldn't expect it to be, but the guardians just did what they had to do and executed. So you got to give them some credit for that. To some extent though, for the Guardians, you should have won their Tanner Bybee start. Yes. And the one thing that I thought was kind of interesting, and we know the Guardians have a great bullpen and with a big lead especially, and especially with an off day on Sunday, it really didn't matter. As soon as Parker Meadows reached the third time through the order when it flipped over, that was it for Bybee.

And it was Cade Smith, it was Tim Heron, it was Hunter Gaddis, it was Emmanuel Classe for those last 13 outs. It was the first time that Tanner Bybee didn't complete five innings in a start since July 5th. I mean, he's been consistently through five, often going six or seven. I don't think we're gonna see that script very often unless a game is even more out of hand than this one was.

And that was a spot where they knew, like, let's just let's just take it out of his hands because our bullpen is absolute nail. So I think you have to give Stephen vote credit for just saying, all right, good guy got on. That's it. Maybe that was the threshold as soon as a baserunner reached. That was it for Tanner by these day. Yeah. But when you have such an excellent bullpen like that, you're going to go to it earlier. So Kate Smith has the third best splitter by Stuff Plus this year behind Fernando Cruz and

John Duran. So it's like good, good pitch there. What he also does is he uses the fastball high and low in the zone with command. And it's a high stuff fastball that you can throw high in the zone or low in the zone. So that's already kind of two pitches out of one. And then he uses the sweeper mostly against righty and the splitter, mostly against lefties. Um, then didn't throw one same handed in this game, but he was also super efficient. Like just got, uh, four outs on like 18 pitches. So, you know, having a weapon like Kate Smith that, you know, not a lot of guys have a long mental

Rolodex against a rookie like that, who is efficient command stuff, stuff that works against both sides. Like that's, they're gonna lose, you're gonna use a lot of Kate Smith in this situation. I think that's gonna be their favorite use of him, his first guy out, to get third time through, top of the third time through the order, right? That's a really tough spot. You don't actually want to bring your fifth best reliever out into that situation.

No, ideally no. It would actually make more sense to bring your second or third best reliever out into that situation. But now you've got Scoob willal coming in this game. And this is this is where the Tigers need to punch back because you can say, OK, you won your baby game. Now give us our scubal game and then then we'll start the series again. And then we'll go back to Detroit and we'll have a ruckus crowd. It's been waiting a little while for some playoff baseball. That'll be happy to have us back.

But I think the question is always tough. Like at one of the weeks we did a breakdown of how I'd pitched this guy, it was Bobby Witt Jr. And you were gone. So I played the role of you, bad week to do that because Bobby Witt Jr. is only glaring weakness is the down and away slider. If, if he's not looking for it, it's like kind of like the way you get Bobby Witt Jr. out.

If you can dot the corner. You can dot that, sequence it right, or maybe he chases one outside the zone and then maybe get him looking at one later in the count. Maybe then you can get Bobby Witt Jr. out. But how do you approach Tarek Scoobel if you're the guardians? They only saw him once during the regular season, despite being in division.

So I think that actually makes this a little bit more difficult. The broader strategy I would have is try to spoil as many pitches as you can, because at least scubal is in the zone a lot. The problem is his stuff is so filthy. It's hard to hit it even when it's in the zone. But what's the best way to try and find something that works against this guy? I was a little surprised by this, but if you look at his heat maps for Tarek Skubul, he's on the left here. He's not great low and in against righties.

And I have two things to say to that. First, everything is relative. The red numbers there look red, and that's great, except that the best ISO for the hitter is a 129 ISO middle middle. And so, you know, you've got a little bit of a weakness there and on the right you'll see that John Kinski Noel, that's actually a spot that he hits well is lowing in. And so I think, I think this is slightly because Scoobal has a great riding force team and a great change up.

So he's really used to like, I can dot the top of the zone with my fastball and play off that low and away. And I don't know, maybe his slider is not actually his very best pitch. And if he, maybe if he gets it low and in, in the zone, it's not the back foot that he wants, right? Maybe that's the kind of hanging slider a little bit if it's like low and in and in the zone. And so the other thing that I like about this matchup, you know, and sort of circling Noel against scubal is I kind of like the idea of having a hacker against a guy with great command. You know,

if you have a guy that goes up to the plate has, it is really disciplined like a Juan Soto and you have them go up against a guy who has great command. I have a feeling you could see some called strikes because the hitter is gonna be like, no, no, no, no. And then the pitcher's gonna be like, no, I'm actually really good at this. Yeah, battles in the shadow zone, like extreme shadow zone battles.

Right, and then also you're seeding a lot of the power in the battle between you and the pitcher to the umpire. You know, like the two or third person that's not involved. So not, not playing between the two of you. So, so, you know, I think a hacker gets up there and, you know, has a pitch type they're looking for. And if the, and the command guy is normally closer to the zone, um, you know, so if they're closer to the zone,

you got a hacker and he sees a good pitch, then he, you know, home runs, I think. So you, you looked at some of the guys who face Kirby and, and it, I don't know, you were just sort of eyeballing this, but. Right. So we use George Kirby as an extreme example of probably the guy that has the best command in the game right now.

And we're like, well, who, who hits George Kirby? Carrie Carpenter's got four homers against him in eight plate appearances. Anthony Santander has faced them a lot. 15 plate appearances, two homers, six hits. Carrie Carpenter is a little bit more of a, of a disciplined guy, but he's a four seam hitter, you know, so, you know, Kirby loves his four seam. But yeah, Santander sort of fits that little more of a aggressive hack sort of approach. And there you go, multiple home runs and overall success in a, again, limited sample.

So it's one of those things you look up and down, you're like, okay, yeah, maybe that approach works. Zach Galoff, a little bit more of a free swinger. He's gotten pretty good numbers against George Kirby so far as well. So that's the kind of mindset you have. I think it makes sense, at least as a theory, where it's just like you're looking high, you're looking low, you're looking away, you're looking in, you have a general plan, a pitch type you're looking for, and you're just letting it rip. And there's a better chance it's in the zone because someone with really good command can be really close to the zone.

So yeah, John Kenzie Noel may be a bit of a potential unsung hero coming in game to like how much is a 47 percent chase rate matter on Noel if school is not really throwing it that much out of school knows that, though, I guess, you know. So I just want to see how that match up plays out just because it's also just love scubals energy. He's just, he's the most roaring as picture out there. Right. What do you think about Matthew Boyd getting the call on game two for the guardians instead of Gavin Williams?

I mean, he's the opposite of scubal in terms of demeanor. And he's just going to kind of soft toss you to death. I think that maybe some of it has to do with the schedule. If you've got a rest day afterwards, I think you can go to Boyd and just empty the bullpen and everyone gets a day off afterwards. So I do think that's actually part of some of the decision making. We've seen Christopher Sanchez in over Aaron Nola. I think the Christopher Sanchez in the Phillies series for game two, people talked a lot about his home splits and maybe that was part of it.

Maybe he's a young pitcher who's more comfortable at home. But I think part of it also was that they get a day off now and they were going to go to the bullpen at some point. It didn't work out and we'll talk about that at another point. But I think that has to do with the decision to go with Boyd. Boyd is going to go three innings or something. Yeah. One time to the order for Matthew Boyd is probably what you're hoping for. If you get more great, but you're not really expecting that if you're Steven Vogt and the Guardians on Monday. Hockey is back on ice in the Athletic Hockey Show as the game covered four days a week all season long. Hear from the Athletics, NHL writers and insiders Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. Plus keep up with the game's future stars on the Friday Prospect series.

Whether we're diving deep on one topic, discussing the latest news, or breaking down last night's OT winner, you can't miss a single episode. Listen to the Athletic Hockey Show wherever you get your podcasts. Let's take a look at the other ALDS series that will resume in the Bronx on Monday night, the Yankees took game one over the Royals in a game that featured five lead changes, the most in postseason history. This was a great back and forth battle with a few of the, let's say lowercase G goats from the regular season coming through and playing a significant role. Alex Verdugo, both sides of the ball played well. Gordy Torres, homered. Yeah, it was a huge catch that was a near like highlight reel for the

wrong reasons, but he pulled it in. MJ Melendez, homered in this one. There were a lot of things that were intriguing to me throughout this game. The Royals were really testing Juan Soto. They had an early second inning send of Sal Perez, where Sal was pretty clearly out by a lot, where I just thought, oh, wow, interesting send, like not a lot of respect for Juan Soto, I think kind of built into that. And the other thing that I noticed in the middle of this game, the Royals could have been underbellied a lot worse by the worst part of their bullpen. I think John Schreiber actually did a pretty good job of getting out of a jam that Angel

Zerpa had created and that kept the Royals alive in a game where one swing could have put this one out of reach. So it feels like one that really got away in a few ways for the Royals because Garrett Cole started and because they had a few leads and playoff baseball's tough like this, you've got that back and forth happening where you had to rely too much on some relievers that you probably don't want to rely on if you're the Royals. The big takeaway for me, too many free passes, right?

They walked eight hitters in the history of baseball's playoffs. Teams that walk eight or more guys in a nine inning game are twenty three and seventy three. So, yeah, you hit that threshold of too many walks and you paid for it. It was an exciting game. I think was Jason Stark that pointed out that this had five lead changes. Yep. And that was tied to the record the most in the playoff game. And it is really back and forth. I do like what you're pointing out about the the the the the people

who hadn't had great seasons, you know, coming through with Melendez with Glaver Torres as well. Alex Verdugo, Clay Holmes, you know, with five clean outs. Garrett Cole, on the other hand, it was a little bit worrisome for me because he gave up three, six, nine, 11 hard hit balls, I believe. Uh, in five innings and he did get his strikeouts, four strikeouts. It wasn't the greatest appearance. And this is a lineup that has struggled to score all year and you know you think of vintage coal would come out there and do a little better against this lineup in particular so.

that leaves the Yankees, you know, for the full year. We had been taking some bets. There's a postseason VELO bump this year, as in every year. And someone asked me, what would Garrett Cole average on the fastball? And I said, at least 96.5. He averaged 96.6. One of the, I think that's like, would be the second best game of the season

for Garrett Cole this year. So good news ish on the VELO. That's about an average postseason VELO bump right there. And good news that he was healthy and he pitched through the game and the Yankees won. But a little bit of bad news in there by not being able to go deep and giving up so many hard hit balls. But I think you saw some of the depth that the Yankees have struggled to put together over the course of the season. But, you know, Stanton taking a walk, Chisholm getting a hit, Alex Verdugo getting two hits.

Like Soto and Judge, I mean, Judge in particular went 0 for 4 with three strikeouts. You know, this game story, if they lost, might've been written about Aaron Judge. Very, very true. Very much could have been. I was surprised that here I didn't look at the batter versus pitcher splits before the game, but Michael Wacha has actually had a lot of success

against Aaron Judge in his career. Wacha didn't stay in the game real long, but that was one of those matchups that I just didn't think would be as extreme in Waka's favor as it has been, at least historically. There was one really interesting play in this game that I don't know if people outside of Yankees and Royals fans really paid that much attention to it,

but there were two outs in the sixth. Bobby Witt Jr. was up, hit ground ball to the left side. Jazz Chisholm with momentum cut in front of Anthony Volpe. I mean, I know Bob Costas saw it because he pointed it out, but Jazz makes the play, gets whipped by a step, half step. And I'm thinking to myself, OK, this ends the inning. But the way Volpe was fielding that ball and with wit speed, there's a chance Witt beats that out and it completely changes the game.

If Jazz doesn't make a pretty pretty good aggressive play cutting in front of a shortstop in that situation you think about how little jazz chism has played third base i thought that was a really important play and specifically with anthony volpe so like good communication good you know good work they didn't run into each other and you know start make, making a bigger deal. So, and with a bad elbow, I mean, he needs, is it the other elbow? It's the non-throwing elbow?

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it's just non-throwing. I mean, just, just for, for a guy who's hasn't been playing that long to have chemistry like that, that's good. The other thing that I watched with a Royals fan at Stein's beer garden.

And he had circled a couple bad calls, honestly, that went against the Royals and had kind of been yelling about them. I think if I'm right it's Michael Wacha throws a 2-2 pitch to Gleyber Torres and the strike is called a ball and I think that Torres, I don't know what he did after that I think he walked or maybe he got a hit after that maybe he's it before his homer. When did he? No he hit his homer early in the game. Yeah homer was a little earlier. But yeah, there were, so this was one of those games I looked, you and I looked at ump scorecards afterwards to see Adam Hamari was behind the plate.

And it was kind of a typical game in terms of how it graded out. I mean, he got 94% correct. Yeah. Quarter of a run in favor of the Yankees in terms of the overall calls. I thought the weirdest call in this game, and maybe I'm just out of my mind, but Jazz Chisholm had stolen base challenged at second.

And I thought when they kept showing the replays in super slow mo that you could see the tag on him just before he got to the bag. I thought they were going to overturn that and they didn't. So that was a pretty, pretty big call that had a massive impact on this one. So if you're a Royals fan, you're probably a little salty about that, too. Yeah, but at least it was a close game, at least the Royals fan, the Royal scored and hit some balls hard. And at least you got Cole Regans going in game two. Take Cole Regans over Carlos Hedona,

though this is a good pitching matchup and maybe a low scoring game. Famous last words. There were even, was it Glaver's Homer? Like, were there two Homers in this game that were to the short part of? Even the Melendez one, it was like1 feet. And it's like, Oh, that those weren't all homers in all parks. Right. Well, yeah,

at least that cut both ways, right. But that makes from a neutral perspective. Anyway, that makes you feel a little bit better, but yeah, Reagan's versus Rodin, uh, obviously a big spot for the Royals to try and draw this one. Even, I think the key thing for me it's about Carlos Rodin too, is like when he was trying to pitch last year, he clearly wasn't healthy, right? And I think that's just most of the explanation for how he's been so much better in year two with the Yankees.

He's just not dealing with stuff. 175 innings in the regular season, ERA just below four. I think the one thing that's the problem, if I'm looking at the skills flaw that you can take advantage of, is homers. The Royals aren't necessarily a team built to hit a lot of homers, but you take the Royals out of Kansas City, put them into Yankee Stadium in this matchup. That's where I think there could be a little more of a problem just because of the circumstances. Like if you're the Yankees, you're happy to have Rodin because he's good.

But I think Rodin matches up better with the Royals in Kansas City than he actually does in his home ballpark. Yeah. And I think that the Homers has been a reason that this year has seen Rodin really reduce his four seam usage the most he almost ever has in his career is been sort of adding for singers as he's added below and add nastiness that pitch and also because he doesn't have great command of his change up so he kind of went to. More forcing slider situation you know for some of his best years but the change of coming back i think because those homers so this year we're done gave up 21 homers on the four seamer and one on the change up. But it isn't a pitch that he has great natural command of so you know there's going to be.

Some push and pull between what the count situation is and if he stays in good counts Can he you know get into places where the fact that he's a 92 location plus on the change-up? This year can you know can he get into good enough counts where he can still throw the change-up? Even if he does it can't really command it well Yeah, it's gonna be interesting to see how this one plays out. But I think as we look back at this series, we're going to look at game one as one that got away from the Royals if they were going to pull off and upset. Let's shift our focus over to the NLDS matchups.

Those series are actually off on Monday. So we got game threes coming from both of those series on Tuesday, but the Phillies and Mets head to New York tied at one. A little bit of a how we got here. Zach Wheeler pitched about as well as you can in the opener and the Phillies lost anyway. How about 30 swinging strikes over seven scoreless with just one hit and nine Ks? It was Jeff Hoffman and Matt Strom who got met in the eighth inning. And this is this script is becoming all too familiar.

Yeah, and some of them are just singles. When Mark Viantos hits a homer, I get it. That's what he does. That's his best thing. But when Jose Iglesias gets a little seeing eye single, um, or, or, you know, Harrison Bader or, you know, JD Martinez hits a million hopper to the, to the right, to, to, you know, through the middle or whatever, right past a, uh, uh, uh, an infielder. That's when I'm like,

is this magic? It was the count too. They were down in the count in a lot of these, right? Vientos took a one, two slider against Hoffman, got to hit off that. Nimmo took an O2 fastball against Strom. There was a sack fly from Alonso in between that. And then I think Jose Iglesias was down O2, but punched one through on the 11th pitch. Like just gritty, frustratingly difficult plate appearances where

they're just finding space and I don't know if that's all approach. Maybe it's a good two strike approach, you know? Like it's having a plan for sure and just putting pressure on the defense by putting a ball in play, but it is, it has to be so frustrating to be in that situation as the Phillies to get the ace performance from your ace, to go to your A relievers and have it break down like that when you had opportunities ahead in the count to put those guys away. And you and you put together one of the best bullpens of this stretch of Phillies.

I mean, Jeff Hoffman, I know I'm just playing around with the game log and I you know, this is a little bit meaningless you know because I'm about to be like between April, you know 10th and August 27th Love arbitrary endpoints. They're the best why I picked those days. But anyway, I mean This is a really dominant stretcher Jeff Hoffman 37 innings with 52 strikeouts and a point seven to ERA 37 innings with 52 strikeouts and a 0.72 ERA. Nine saves, 12 holds. I mean, he was dominant this season. And then, you know, and you look at the box score, they pitched Hoffman, Strom and Kirkring

against Peterson, Garrett and Matone. Like, okay, so Peterson, Garrett and Matone gave up the five runs, right? Yeah, six scoreless from Peterson, Garrett, Maton gave up the five runs, right? Yeah, six scoreless from Peterson, Garrett, and Maton. Or Maiton, that's great. I mean, that's just like... Maiton. That's exactly what you want. On a day where we got surprised.

So you and I were talking about the possibility of Kodai Singa maybe working out of the bullpen. They basically used him in a relief role. He just started the game. He pitched two in this one. I thought maybe four innings for the series That's the five game series. That's probably like as much as you could expect Maybe they'll push them three later on in the series when he comes back, but he give a lead off Homer

Not great fastball Vila. So he's not he's not all the way back. He's Codice I go through 94. He was you know in the other start they had this year. He threw 95 8 So yeah, I mean, it was not quite. He wasn't, you know, super comfortable, but he was better than other options. I think Schwab got him for a lead off Homer, but he finished those two innings with three strikeouts. That was the only run that he gave up. So I think you can, you can live with that, but you got to give Peterson Garrett and Maitan a lot of credit for keeping the Phillies off the board for

six innings, cause that left the door open for that late rally to do what it did. Yeah and you know that eighth inning for you just like oh my gosh. Another OMG moment huh? Weird. It's just an amazing inning for them. I mean Just an amazing inning for them. I mean, Francisco Alvarez hits a single, you know, 102 mile an hour single. You know, that's that's just good hitting. Lindor has a seven pitch at bat against Hoffman and works a walk after going down O2 with two swing strikes in the first two pitches on sliders and then

Vientos goes down 0-2 takes a slider for a ball and then hits a single that he hits 87 miles an hour but still had a 990 expected batting average so not it's not luck the way we sometimes talk about luck where it's like oh a million hopper or whatever but you know when you when you go down, Oh, two Matt strong gets Brandon. Oh, yeah. Went down. Oh, two gets a fast ball, uh, hits a single again, 5 30 XPA. So not luck that way, but just, you know, you re rack this and give a bunch of people Oh, two counts and they don't do this usually. Um, you know,

Pete Alonzo hits a sack fly. then Jose Iglesias, yeah, 10 pitch at bat with an 84 mile an hour single at the end off of a cutter. So you make Matt Strom throw 10 pitches, he throws, you know, he goes away from his strengths a little bit because you had this with Trevor May talking about this where it's like the longer the thing goes, the more you'd be like, okay, well, I can't keep throwing him the same stuff. It's not working. So I'm going to now I'm going to throw this third best pitch, you know. Yeah. Yeah.

Just another amazing sequence from the Mets to get that game one win. You mentioned this earlier, Christopher Sanchez ended up starting game two. I think you're right. That goes beyond the home road splits. Then it comes down to off days and how you expect things to line up for the course of the series. So it worked fine. Sanchez pitched really well in game two, just two earned runs over five innings, five Ks. The decision I think I would be second guessing from the Phillies was the decision to start

Edmundo Sosa over Alec Bohm. We've talked about Bohm much like Lane Thomas being a player that has has some long term splits against righties that leave a lot to be desired. It's a 93 WRC plus since 2022. Sosa is not better than that and Sosa strikes out more in that split. So you get less power, more swing and miss. I just I couldn't quite wrap my head around what really transpired to lead to that decision, but it's being second guessed a lot less because of what transpired in game two, just getting that win, getting that rally to come back.

I think the decision people are thinking a lot about today from this game. If you gave Carlos Mendoza a chance to do it all again, would he have pulled Luis Severino and not let Severino face Bryce Harper a third time Harper of course hit that homer that really Elevated everything and got the Phillies running again, right? So it was a two-hour situation where yeah, you don't really have a lefty you can go to but maybe just avoiding Severino a third time against the heart of the order is the thing you would want to have back if you're Mendoza yeah, I mean we pointed that out before the game and back if you're Mendoza.

Yeah. I mean, we pointed that out before the game and, um, it really, you know, and just in terms of how the game unfolded, it was really that stark where Severino was great, um, you know, second time through the order. And then as soon as it's flipped over, Trey Turner gets a single, he had the ball 102 miles an hour, Bryce Harbor hits the Homer 102 miles an hour. Bryce Harbor hits the homer 112 miles an hour. You know, Nick Castellanos hits his homer 107 miles an hour. And, you know, to some extent, the game is lost. I mean, it didn't work out that way.

They battled back and it wasn't just that. But in the moment, it felt like, wow, that just was a huge turnaround. And that could be that could be all she wrote. Now, they did end up getting, you know, you know, some runs back. And it was a it was a kind of a cool seesaw game where, you know, the Mets are up three, nothing. Then the Phillies in that office of Reno tied three each Mets go up three nothing then the Phillies in that office of Reno tied it three each Mets go up four three then the Phillies go off in the eighth and it's against Edwin Diaz and it once again he's walking guys the command isn't great. re earned he's has not been you know vintage Edwin Diaz really all year and especially this playoffs and I know it's just a small sample with the reliever and he could maybe turn around tomorrow but. If Edwin Diaz isn't going to be Edwin Diaz they're gonna have a really hard time in this in this in this matchup because you know Jose Budo is fine and they use Tyler McGill and he was all right, but you know they don't have a great bullpen if Edwin Diaz isn't giving them four outs in wins.

You know I think that's that was the thing that worried me the most about this game because you know they do come away from going to Philadelphia with a split you know and that's okay and they show the same stick-to-it-a-ness that they've had all year where they you know, and that's okay. Um, and they show the same stick to it in us that they've had all year where they, you know, they were in both games and they, and it was back and forth and they were big hits and it was, it was doors of great games. But the biggest worry for me is that, you know, they threw Edwin Diaz in a game that they could have won and they lost it, maybe on some level because of his pitching. Yeah, I mean, I think as far as the decision to bring him in a little early when they did,

I'm on board with that. It just didn't work in this instance. There's not much you can do about that. Like the plan was good. The result was not in this case. But the series has been great so far. You get the sense there's a good chance it's going five. That's probably going to find its way back to Philadelphia.

Game three is Aaron Nola against Sean Manaya. I do think the decision to flip Sanchez and Nola could pay off given some of the struggles of the Phillies bullpen, because not only do you have the off day today for the travel day, but then you get the guy that should be able to give you five or six innings to be taking a little pressure off that relief unit in game three. And you could have a shot at being a little more fresh going into game four as a result.

Yeah. And for the Mets, you're hoping, you know, give it a new Diaz some rest and may hopefully his knee feels a little better if that's, you know, part of the situation or whatever it is. And maybe the command comes back on some level because the command has been awful. I was just looking through the pitch maps of what he did. And there was a lot of not even, there were just waste pitches that just easy, easy takes. Yeah. Non-competitive pitches, absolutely brutal this time of year puts you in a

bad spot and definitely makes you wonder if health is a factor for Edwin Diaz. Let's move on to what's been the nightcap of the weekend so far, the Padres Dodgers series which is delivering all of the drama we expect. These two NL series in particular have been great but I think there's a chance we'll get some pretty good mileage out of at least one of those AL series, if not both.

Let's go back to game one though. The first inning struggles of Yoshinobu Yamamoto have continued and I never know what to make of that. I mean, that's just one of those, one of those random things that can happen where someone's not settling in quickly. Couple of big innings is all it takes to really blow up those numbers. There are some questions about the

possibility of Yamamoto maybe tipping pitches in this outing. What did you make of this performance? It seems like it's part of the bigger picture of questions about the Dodgers rotation, not because we don't think Yamamoto is good, but because he missed a lot of time with injury and was still just kind of working his way back during the final weeks of the regular season. You know, when I think of first things foibles, I kind of wonder about, you know,

what the underlying natural command is. And I don't, I think Yamamoto gets more credit for having sort of elite command when it's actually just sort of just it's fine, you know? And then the other part of it is just finding a feel for your pitches. Like how quickly can you find what pitches are working for you that day and what's going on with them? Because when I look at Yamamoto, his fastball was only up 0.3 miles an hour. So he's not getting the same postseason below bump as other people except the splitter was up 2.3 miles an hour. Um, so he's not getting the same postseason below bump as other people,

except the splitter was up 2.3 miles an hour and the curve ball was up 1.4. Um, so, you know, finding the feel for those pitches at this new velocity. I know he's a big game pitcher. I'm not saying he's never been in a big game and this is, uh, nerves or, you know, whatever he's, he played pitching plenty of big games in Japan. I'm just saying that on this day, given his injury history this season and given the stuff he had on this day, he had a little hard time sort of, you know, corralling it and doing the right things with it.

I know on the other side of the the coin, like Dylan Seese also gave up five earned runs and three and a third as As Yamamoto gave up five runs and three except that Yamamoto had one strikeouts in two walks whereas Dylan Cease had five strikeouts in two walks and I'd be I'd be more worried about the Yamamoto outing than I would be Cease Cease is like, okay Well, he's a slightly wild pitcher going up against a really disciplined team that also hits the ball really hard and he's still got a strikeout. So you know, that wasn't so worrisome for me.

I think on a pitching side worrisome for me on the Padres side was that Adrian Morahone came in and did not help the situation. I don't think it was all his doing. Cease left some guys on a strata allowed the sort of final hit that made it all sort of unravel. But more home did not do anything good with his outing and he's going to be important when it comes to the game that martin perez starts or when it comes to just being the bridge to, I don't know, the fabulous four. I want to kind of call them the Jason, Adam Tanner, Scott, uh, Jeremiah Estrada and Robert Suarez, but maybe it's really the terrible three because Adam Scott

and Suarez seem maybe a step above, but in any case, more on Estrada have to be good against this Dodgers team, which is going to take their walks, grind it Um, seem maybe a step above, but in any case, more on a strata have to be good, uh, against this Dodgers team, which is going to take their walks, grind it through, not really, um, you know, have any holes. Another thing that you could say if you're worried about it, if the Padres is the bottom of the order here, you got Will Smith with two walks, Gavin Lux with two hits, Tommy Edmond with two hits, Miguel Rojas even got a hit. So that's going to make it so hard for you because you've got to get some outs

there before you flip the lineup back to Shohei Otani, who, by the way, hit a mammoth three run homer with the biggest bat flip and the just the most roaring as crowd and just a huge moment for the, for the Dodgers that Dodgers that just really swung the energy a little bit. And I think was was maybe the key offensively for the Dodgers in winning this game. I think there was a point during the season we were talking to Trevor about when you're pitching to someone like Otani, maybe Otani specifically, and you beat him one way. Otani specifically and you beat him one way. And in this case, I'm referring to the first play at appearance when Dylan Seese got Otani to fly out on a 99 mile an hour

fastball up above the top of the zone. And the homer was on a fastball up above the top zone at 97. And I think it's one of those things where it's like you can get him once with something like that. It's hard to get him twice. And I think people were really surprised. How did he hit that pitch out? Like, well, he he he flew out a 99 up there last time.

So maybe he was looking for it. And that's a big part of how he crushed that homer. But I think it just as I kind of let that one sink in a little bit, it was only an inning later to look fly out was in the first. The homer was in the second. So I think that was maybe something that worked in Otani's favor a little bit too. Ideal for the hitter, right?

Oh, I got practice against it and I didn't have to sit that long and I got back up there and I got to see it again. Yeah. I would, I would have tried to maybe just fill them up with back foot sliders or something. I don't know, but you are screwed because, you people do say you try to you know, pitch him inside Otani try to pit him pitch him high and tight and when I see a guy step to the plate with his hands really long Levers and his hands in that kind of a stance. I think I want to throw this high and tight except Otani knows

Everybody all year has been trying to throw me high and tight except Otani knows everybody all year has been trying to throw me high and tight so when he cheats he can do something there and if you're high and tight is more high middle which is where Cease's 97 mile an hour fastball that we hit for a homer was more high middle than than high and in then Otani's little bit of cheating can really get out in front of that pitch and take it yards so I was also saying to my kid, I think to some extent, some of the mechanics of Otani swing that don't make it that interested, like don't make it that beautiful to me. They kind of, he almost like, it's like a stepping in the bucket kind of, you know, he's,

his hips like kind of go through fast, right? Because he kind of creates a lot of an opposite field path, right? Where it almost looks like he's stepping in the bucket. But that also helps him kind of get into a situation where he can step in the bucket and whip the hands through and hit something inside too. So, I mean, he pulls pitches, you know, on the inner half and he does damage with them.

So you're kind of screwed trying to find a place that you can live against the Ohio Tone. You don't hit 300 with 56 homers with like a glaring hole that everybody can hit. No, you do not do that. No, but I think there's a little bit of an unsung hero for the Dodgers, just their bullpen like in a game where the Padres hang five on Yamamoto. They didn't give up anything else with Brazier, Vestia, Evan Phillips, Michael Copac, Blake Trine and got the

final five outs, had a couple of walks, but his sweeper to end the game had Manny Machado flailing, right? So if you can win games this way, you're in every game. And that's something about having the best lineup in the league. That's something that Dodgers do bring to the table. And it's so strange. Like the vibes around this series, even when we've talked about it, have been almost like the Dodgers are somehow an underdog. It's like, no, this is an even matchup. They're definitely not an underdog. I mean, they should be favored.

They should even be mathematically favored. Although now that two of the three are in San Diego, maybe that shifted. But it's still like it's one of those things where I think if you go back, if this series ends up being one of the Dodgers win, the game one bullpen performance of those five relievers is a big part of how they were able to do it. Yeah, I mean, it speaks really well to their coaching and player development because Ryan Brazier comes like on a on a waiver claim. Evan Phillips is a waiver claim.

Alex Bestio is a really small deal with the Marlins and they, they identified something in his fastball. Michael Copac was, I don't know, was he like a throw in, in that deal? I mean, no, he was part of the Tommy Edwin deal. Obviously they wanted him, but it was such a weird deal. And I don't think that people understood that Michael Copac was maybe the best arm, at least in terms of stuff that was traded at the deadline, you know, as among the relievers.

So, you know, that's a really great group and they all pitched pretty well. Kopeck was wild. But I did want to point out Evan Phillips, a little bit of Evan Phillips love. I know that with that sweeper, he's a little bit better righty on righty but over the last three seasons so this is 22, 23 and 24. These are the best relievers in baseball by Fangrass War. Emmanuel Closet, Ryan Helsley, Tanner Scott, Devin Williams, Griffin Jacks, Evan Phillips. And over that time frame at 221 ERA with just insane strike out to walk ratio. Just a really great picture. And I think now in kind of a better spot, I think you do want Copac and maybe training.

But I think Copac was the plan for the, you know, to close it out. And so I think you you close things out with Copac because he has that big fastball. And I think that's what I want out of my clothes. There is also a big fastball that works lefty or righty and then phillips is a little bit you know we here gets lefties. You put phillips in against a chunk of the order that's bunch of righties boom boom boom three outs is how i feel about so that was that was the good news for the dodgers out of that game for sure. That was the good news for the Dodgers out of that game for sure. The bad news for the Dodgers, I think, as you look at the rest of the series is, you know, one, they're a pretty big underdog pitching wise game three with Bueller going up against Michael King. Bueller just hasn't been himself. If you give me previous pre second TJ Bueller, sure. Then of course, this is even maybe favoring the Dodgers, but he just hasn't been that guy There's also concern about Freddie Freeman though, right? He has bad ankle started game one Actually stole a base and I wondered about that decision. It's like on the one hand

They're probably not expecting him to run on the other hand It looked like he maybe hurt himself a little bit more Sliding into the bag and then he had an early exit from game two. That game was only three one when Freddie Freeman left in the sixth inning on Sunday night, so his status is very much up in the air heading into game three. So a couple of warts for sure. And this game came to on Sunday featured a lot. The Padres got on the board early jerks

in profile tricked pretty much everyone in the ballpark and everyone watching by pretending like he didn't catch a Mookie Betts would-be homer, only to show everybody a few seconds later that he had it. He did do that to some extent, but I think what he actually was doing was taunting the fans.

Because if you watch it, he goes into the fans, he catches the ball, and he turns around, and instead of displaying that he's caught the fans, he catches the ball and he turns around and instead of displaying that he's caught the ball. So that's the part where people think, oh, he was, he was pretending not to have caught the ball. Instead of doing that, he's hopping up and down and yelling at the, at the, at the fans, which I think is fair because he went, they went toe to toe. Like he was in their space and he brought the ball back.

But it was a little bit mean as like they're adults. I know I'm not, I'm not the, Oh, you're being mean. Yeah. It wasn't like a bunch of third graders were sitting in the left field bleachers last night. But there's also, no, I mean, it was a little bit mean to Mookie Betts cause like they, they're flashing home run, like the, the TV has home run. He's like doing the home run trot.

He's like all the way, almost a third base before he realized it's not Homer. I mean, it was, it was a pretty fun moment. I thought it was great. And, and Profar has this like bone in his body where he loves to, he loves to make people mad. I mean, it is part of who Profar is. And so, uh, it did turn on him a little bit where, you know, the, the fans threw two or three balls onto the field. Yeah.

And they threw something into the bullpen at Jeremiah Estrada too. So, you know, they had to actually stop the game and make announcements about how you, you know, you'll be ejected from the game. You throw something on the field. And there was a weird sort of moment, I think, in the seventh or eighth, where everyone just had to wait around to wait for some people to be ejected. Yeah. And that was that was while you Darvish was working on a playoff gem. Really? Like that was a kind of a critical moment in the game

where that was going on. And I Darvishish seven innings, one run, three hits, only three K's, but 82 pitches. And that's incredibly efficient. Like that is not necessarily like beyond expectations based on who you Darvish is, but probably beyond expectations that I had for him based on him being away for so long with a personal matter in the second half, it's kind of like the Yamamoto because of the shape of his season. I've sort of removed some of the ceiling outcomes from Darvish and other than it being

only a three strikeout performance, this was phenomenal from you, Darvish. I didn't have a seven inning one run start from Darvish this early in the playoffs especially as something I expected. Yeah and he did something weird which is so great. I love him. So all his pitches are up in Velo like mostly like we've been talking about and then the curveball is down 1.7 miles an hour so he's throwing it's not the EFIS, but he's throwing the slow curve ball and he's played around where he's had the Pierce Johnson knuckle curve and he's also had a slower curve. And so I'm,

I'm guessing that he threw the curve ball that wasn't Pierce Johnson's knuckle curve in that game. And that he threw it on purpose because it was also the second most he'd thrown the curveball all season. So he throws a ton of curveballs and they just aren't hitting them. The average exit velocity on the curveball is 70.9 and he got a 46.9 mile an hour exit velocity on one of the balls in play. I just remember, I think I remember that one. I forget who it was, but someone just like took a full swing at that curveball

and hit it like a foot in front of the plate. And, you know, so I think he also when you also look at this five pitches that he used between 13 and 20 percent of the time. So slider sweeper, curveball splitter forcing like he was really using all of them and he de-emphasized the cutter, which sometimes he throws as his basic fastball. So he, I think was, um, weird. Like he just was like, uh, you think, you know, you're Darvish, but I also have like, I have eight pitches,

so I can just be a totally different pitcher tonight. So I'm going to be a guy who's going to throw a bunch of slow ass curveballs when you expect the cutter or when you expect the slider. Yeah, that was phenomenal from you, Darvish in that spot. And the Dodgers had kind of one really good chance that they didn't make a whole lot out of it. Bases loaded, nobody out. That was the second inning. Got a sack fly to bring in one, but a line out double play ended it. And actually Luis Arias had a couple of nice defensive plays early in this one too,

but all around great outing from you, Darvish. There was jarring between Jack Flaherty and Manny Machado, even though at the time the Padres were up 3-1. So that was a little bit of a surprise. This is one of those rivalries. They talked about it during the game. It continues to increase in intensity in recent years. And I think meeting in the postseason on a regular basis will only continue to add

fuel to that fire. If there was something worrisome about for the Padres, it was Xander Bogarts leaving with a hamstring injury or just leaving with hamstring tightness or something. He did hit a Homer. He kind of did this thing where he was like, you know, fiddling around this hamstring and didn't look good. And then he hit a Homer and was wincing. But at least he didn't have to run the bases.

He got to jog home, but I'm, I'll be looking forward to a news update from Dennis Lynn about what's going on with his hamstring, because as much as this is a good team, um, and still has some depth to it, you know, they, they're getting closer to the backend of their, you know, like they lost house young Kim and they lost Joe Musgrove. And if they want to make a deep run, they, they kind of, this is where the, the injuries have to stop a little bit. I mean, if you're putting Tyler Wade in there every day, like you're, you're taking a step back in the lineup.

Yeah. You don't want to get too far down that bench if you can help it. Also, I bet you feel really smart if you're Mike Schilt and the Padres when David Peralta Homer's in the second inning, right? When you're mixing and matching in the bottom of the order and you're pressing the right buttons, that has to feel really good. It's also a good story in the sense that David Peralta, people probably remember this from a few years ago, before he was a position player, he was a pitcher, had a lot of injuries,

kind of came back around to the Cardinals system and he's just carved out such an amazing long career as a very solid outfielder, right? If you had told me at the time when David Peralta was first breaking back in as a position player that he would be Playing in playoff games this far into the future I don't think I would have believed you so tip of the cap to him coming up with a big moment 37 years old I mean And was 15% been the average to stick this here. So keeps on doing it for the Dodgers in Going forward in the next game. We'll have some more time to talk about them, I guess, but

Walker Bueller's curveball command is everything for me. I was looking at his game log and the stuff is going in the right direction for Bueller where the cutter and the curve, the stuff is going is just generally going in the right direction, but the locations on the curve ball go from he literally in the last five games went from 102 location plus to 91. That's really bad 108 to 84. That's even worse 104 to 87. That's Walker Bueller's command on the curve ball and that's lined up exactly with what happens when I watch it. I'm like, is this a game where he can land the curve ball?

Is this a game where he keeps dropping the curve ball five feet short of the plate? And, uh, you may know that early, so they may have landed a knack on the ready, you know, in the first inning. Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see how that one plays out. Probably. Yeah, we'll get a little more detailed about Bueller versus King on the Tuesday show since we got an extra day before that one gets underway. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels.

On our way out the door, a reminder, you can get a subscription to The Athletic at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. Read all the great playoff coverage we have. You've got football, basketball, hockey, soccer, everything you could want all for one low price. Theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. Find Eno on Twitter at EnoSaris. Find me at Derek VanRiper. Find the pod at rates and barrels.

We are back with you on Tuesday. Thanks for watching!