Things went pretty well yesterday. The main thing I was hoping for was to get at least two game three’s being played today. And we got three of them! So we have
Tigers / Guardians at 3
Padres / Cubs at 6
Red Sox / Yankees at 8
Beautiful stuff!
Tigers vs. Guardians
I’m sure this is exactly what the Tigers wanted. Their season is on the line and it’s Jack Flaherty on the hill. I wonder if the Tigers brass started questioning where this idea that pitchers need at least four days rest between starts comes from! Who says Skubal can’t pitch with one day’s rest!
Flaherty was another one of these guys with nice underlying numbers:
→ 27.6% K%
→ 8.7% BB%
→ 19% K-BB%
→ 3.01 JA ERA
But bad results:
→ 4.64 ERA
→ 1.28 WHIP
He gave up 23 homers in 161 innings (1.29 HR/9). He got hit moderately hard with a .406 SLG and .320 xwOBA allowed. And he really struggled with lefties with just a 3.64 JA ERA and a .343 xwOBA allowed against them.
So his problem is hard contact. But that’s not a specialty of the Guardians. He’s faced them three times:
→ 5/22: 6.2 IP, 3 H, 3 ER, 8 SO, 3 BB, 1 HR
→ 9/17: 5 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 4 SO, 4 BB, 0 HR
→ 9/24: 4.1 IP, 5 H, 3 ER, 6 SO, 0 BB, 1 HR
As with any game three, it’s likely that we see the quick hook. Personally, if I’m the Tigers manager, I probably wouldn’t want Flaherty facing Kyle Manzardo more than twice. The way that Flaherty typically gets beat is by left-handed power. And again, there isn’t a ton of that in the Cleveland lineup, but if there’s a matchup where this start ends for matchup purposes it’s probably that one.
On the other side is Slade Cecconi. And apparently those C’s are pronounced with the hard-c sound. SECK-KONY (#KONY2012).
The real ones who have been reading me all year know that I had a bit of a summer fling with Cecconi. I picked him up at the all star break, and we had some good times with him.
My wife went out of town at some point in August or something. It was one of the rare times in my life where I was home without her. So after I got the kids to bed I smoked a cigar on the back patio and watched Cecconi have a really nice outing against the Athletics. I believe it was the one where it didn’t actually end up that great because they let him go out for the ninth inning and he got blown up.
Looks like that was July 18th. He gave up six earned runs. I swear he was through seven scoreless in that one with like no hits or walks allowed. Ridiculous stuff. For the year, though:
145 IP, 4.34 ERA, 1.18 WHIP, 20% K%, 5.7% BB%, 3.68 JA ERA, 2.02 WHIP+
None of that is very good. He did have a better time in September:
5 GS, 23% K%, 5% BB%, 3.27 JA ERA, 1.58 WHIP+
The pitch mix:
His fastball is nothing special. And he doesn’t seem to have a signature pitch. But he has a lot of pitches. And that is another way to get it done in baseball. You can get by without a great pitch as long as you have 4-5 decent ones.
The splitties:
Not much of a difference. Both sides have hit him pretty hard. He strikes out lefties at a higher rate than righties. He’ll use that curveball and changeup more against lefties.
So he’s a different guy depending on who he’s facing.