Astros Will Rock-and-Roll Their Way to NLDS Sweep in Cleveland
Cleveland hosts Houston on Monday at 1:30 ET on TBS. The Indians are desperate to avoid the sweep, but they are clearly overmatched in this series.
Game 3: Houston at Cleveland
MLB Pick: Astros ML
Houston’s Dallas Keuchel (12-11, 3.74 ERA) has positive experience in the playoffs. He’s pitched 41.2 postseason innings, yielding a 3.24 ERA. Keuchel is yielding +4.9 units away and the Astros are 10-3 in his daytime starts, yielding +6 units.
The southpaw Keuchel relies primarily on his sinker. He’s throwing it with 41 percent frequency but he threw it more than half the time in September. His sinker is effective because it shares similar horizontal and vertical release points with his slider and change-up, so that batters don’t know which pitch is leaving his hand and struggle to react well. Keuchel’s deception is effective because these three pitches differ significantly in velocity, movement, and location, meaning that his deception robs the batter of the extra reaction time that he needs in order to adjust his swing to the specific pitch. For example, Keuchel’s sinker averages 10 mph more than his slider and has strong glove-side movement, slight dip, and concentrated location in the lower-right spots in the zone. Conversely, he throws his slider much slower, so that batters freeze if they are expecting a sinker. HIs slider has negative vertical movement and strong arm-side movement and is concentrated with 42 percent frequency in the lowest-left spots in the zone.
Keuchel is already familiar with Cleveland’s ballpark. He yielded two runs in six innings when he pitched there on May 25. Cleveland ranks dead-last in slugging against his favorite pitch, the sinker. Keuchel succeeded in Cleveland even though, in May, he was generally less comfortable with his favorite pitch. He threw it less frequently than he is currently doing. He’ll be all the more effective on Monday when he can lean more heavily on his sinker. Cleveland batters generally don’t make good contact against Keuchel’s stuff. They’re slugging .381 against him with only three home runs in 194 at-bats. Francisco Lindor is 2-for-12 against him with two singles
Houston’s bullpen continues to prove itself as baseball’s best. It ranks first in FIP (like ERA, but factors out luck). In this series, Astros relievers have pitched 5.2 innings and allowed one hit, zero runs.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="de"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The passion. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NeverSettle?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc^tfw">#NeverSettle</a> <a href="https://t.co/NEb5hAsEhN">pic.twitter.com/NEb5hAsEhN</a></p>— Houston Astros (@astros) <a href=" ">7. Oktober 2018</a></blockquote>
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Cleveland’s Mike Clevinger (13-8, 3.02 ERA) has yielded an FIP over 5.00 against four of the last five winning teams that he faced. He hasn’t shown success in the playoffs, either, conceding a 6.43 ERA in seven innings.
Clevinger is notorious for being a plate-nibbler. He tries to be precise and command the borders of the strike zone in order to minimize opposing contact. Four of his five most frequent pitch locations are on one of the borders of the strike zone. When he faces winning teams, he usually tries to be too precise. His stuff lacks quality by itself, so he tries to make up for it with good location. For example, he walked five batters in his last start against Boston. An important reason why Clevinger likes to nibble the plate is that he lacks confidence in his ability to put away the batter. For example, he had a strong first-strike rate against Boston, but still yielded a heavy combo of line drives, homers and medium and hard contact. Four of his last five winning teams faced achieved a hard contact rate above his season average allowed.
Houston batters couldn’t hit Clevinger when they first saw him because Clevinger was new and carried an element of surprise. Nevertheless, they still own a .299 career BA and .448 career slugging against him. He yielded eight runs in 11.2 innings against Houston this season. Yuli Gurriel is 4-for-9 and with a double against him.
The Astros play much better on the road, yielding +24.6 units away compared to -25.3 units at home.
Cleveland hosts Houston on Monday at 1:30 ET on TBS. The Indians are desperate to avoid the sweep, but they are clearly overmatched in this series.
Game 3: Houston at Cleveland
MLB Pick: Astros ML
Houston’s Dallas Keuchel (12-11, 3.74 ERA) has positive experience in the playoffs. He’s pitched 41.2 postseason innings, yielding a 3.24 ERA. Keuchel is yielding +4.9 units away and the Astros are 10-3 in his daytime starts, yielding +6 units.
The southpaw Keuchel relies primarily on his sinker. He’s throwing it with 41 percent frequency but he threw it more than half the time in September. His sinker is effective because it shares similar horizontal and vertical release points with his slider and change-up, so that batters don’t know which pitch is leaving his hand and struggle to react well. Keuchel’s deception is effective because these three pitches differ significantly in velocity, movement, and location, meaning that his deception robs the batter of the extra reaction time that he needs in order to adjust his swing to the specific pitch. For example, Keuchel’s sinker averages 10 mph more than his slider and has strong glove-side movement, slight dip, and concentrated location in the lower-right spots in the zone. Conversely, he throws his slider much slower, so that batters freeze if they are expecting a sinker. HIs slider has negative vertical movement and strong arm-side movement and is concentrated with 42 percent frequency in the lowest-left spots in the zone.
Keuchel is already familiar with Cleveland’s ballpark. He yielded two runs in six innings when he pitched there on May 25. Cleveland ranks dead-last in slugging against his favorite pitch, the sinker. Keuchel succeeded in Cleveland even though, in May, he was generally less comfortable with his favorite pitch. He threw it less frequently than he is currently doing. He’ll be all the more effective on Monday when he can lean more heavily on his sinker. Cleveland batters generally don’t make good contact against Keuchel’s stuff. They’re slugging .381 against him with only three home runs in 194 at-bats. Francisco Lindor is 2-for-12 against him with two singles
Houston’s bullpen continues to prove itself as baseball’s best. It ranks first in FIP (like ERA, but factors out luck). In this series, Astros relievers have pitched 5.2 innings and allowed one hit, zero runs.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="de"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The passion. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NeverSettle?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc^tfw">#NeverSettle</a> <a href="https://t.co/NEb5hAsEhN">pic.twitter.com/NEb5hAsEhN</a></p>— Houston Astros (@astros) <a href=" ">7. Oktober 2018</a></blockquote>
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Cleveland’s Mike Clevinger (13-8, 3.02 ERA) has yielded an FIP over 5.00 against four of the last five winning teams that he faced. He hasn’t shown success in the playoffs, either, conceding a 6.43 ERA in seven innings.
Clevinger is notorious for being a plate-nibbler. He tries to be precise and command the borders of the strike zone in order to minimize opposing contact. Four of his five most frequent pitch locations are on one of the borders of the strike zone. When he faces winning teams, he usually tries to be too precise. His stuff lacks quality by itself, so he tries to make up for it with good location. For example, he walked five batters in his last start against Boston. An important reason why Clevinger likes to nibble the plate is that he lacks confidence in his ability to put away the batter. For example, he had a strong first-strike rate against Boston, but still yielded a heavy combo of line drives, homers and medium and hard contact. Four of his last five winning teams faced achieved a hard contact rate above his season average allowed.
Houston batters couldn’t hit Clevinger when they first saw him because Clevinger was new and carried an element of surprise. Nevertheless, they still own a .299 career BA and .448 career slugging against him. He yielded eight runs in 11.2 innings against Houston this season. Yuli Gurriel is 4-for-9 and with a double against him.
The Astros play much better on the road, yielding +24.6 units away compared to -25.3 units at home.
