Transmogrified Tiger

To be clear, my post wasn't at all directed at you(I hadn't even scrolled down that far), mostly at Dave Cameron, who has whiffed on pretty much every article on the Cubs this postseason(micro-analysis really isn't his forte). But since you brought it up, I'm not saying that the Cubs haven't been missing at breaking pitches, I'm lashing out at the 'continuing curveball crisis' or the incredulity that Trevor Bauer has enough command and confidence in his curve to use it at will. The Cubs lineup has always been spearheaded by the top half, Fowler, Bryant, Rizzo, and Zobrist. Those guys are incredibly patient, do not often chase, and have no holes exploited as simply as 'throw an off speed pitch!'. Really good pitchers get those guys out more often, because they're really good pitchers. Kluber, Shaw, Allen, and Miller have thrown 25 of the 44 innings in this series, so that's going to bring the number of chases up by default. Speaking of which, the other part of this is the back half of the Cubs lineup, which has largely featured Baez, Russell, Contreras, and Heyward. Heyward has been broken the entire playoffs, so the pitches used to get him out are largely irrelevant(and ironically enough, not curveballs/breaking pitches). The other 3 are high K right handed hitters facing an inordinate amount of talented right handed pitchers, beating them with breaking pitches is not a novel concept. The key, at least for Russell and Contreras, is that you have to get ahead of them and/or make really good breaking pitches, because those guys are patient enough to take their walks and have power to punish fastballs if you have to catch up in the count. If you have one bad at bat to the back half and succumb to the top half a couple times, all of a sudden you're giving up about a run each time through the order and you lose 5-2. Since I'm rambling, this is also the time to point out that the Cubs have a 3.04 ERA in the playoffs(3.40 in this series, 3 games of which were <= 2 runs), so the Cubs don't need to put up 7 to have a very high chance of winning. So yes, the Cubs are swinging at more breaking balls out of the zone, this is a function mostly of facing really good pitchers/pitches, and the back half of their lineup being RH hitters that strike out a fair bit. I cannot express enough how much this is not new or novel information though. You have to make good enough pitches to get those hitters out, those same pitches might not be good enough to get the top half of the order out(which now also includes Schwarber), and we're talking about a series that has been 5 games and has 2 to go. It's small sample size navel-gazing to make this out to be some secret sauce to exploiting the Cubs offense, it is baseball as usual.

*ahem* THAT IS NOT HOW PITCHING WORKS, YOU DOLTS YOU KNOW WHY TREVOR BAUER STOPPED THROWING CURVES THE SECOND TIME THROUGH THE HEART OF THE ORDER? BECAUSE THOSE HITTERS ARE OFFENSIVE MONSTERS THAT YOU CAN'T JUST PUSH THE CURVEBALL BUTTON TO GET OUT, MOST ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU ARE TREVOR ANDREW BAUER YOU KNOW WHAT RIZZO DID TO A BAUER CURVE BALL IN THE FIRST INNING? HE PUT IT ACROSS THE GOT DANG STREET YOU KNOW WHY HE DIDN'T THROW A CURVEBALL TO BRYANT? BECAUSE IN THE FIRST AT BAT BRYANT SPAT ON TWO OF THEM AND GOT LUCKY ENOUGH THAT THE SECOND GOT CALLED FOR STRIKE THREE EVEN THOUGH IT WAS LOW YOU KNOW WHY HE DIDN'T THROW A CURVEBALL TO ZOBRIST? HE DID, IT WAS BALL ONE, THEN HE TRIED TWO OTHER PITCHES THAT MISSED BEFORE HE HAD TO COME AT ZOBRIST WITH A 3-0 FASTBALL THE CUBS HAVE THE MOST PATIENT OFFENSE IN THE GAME, SO YOU HAVE TO GET AHEAD IN THE COUNT AND THEN THROW THEM VERY GOOD BREAKING PITCHES TO GET THEM OUT, BECAUSE THEY AREN'T GOING TO CHASE. MOST PITCHERS CAN'T THROW CURVEBALLS IN THE EXACT SPOT WHERE THEY WANT IT FOR 5-7 INNINGS, AND THE CUBS KNOW THIS. THEY'VE CHASED MORE IN THIS SERIES BECAUSE OF KLUBER, ALLEN, SHAW, AND MILLER, WITH AN ASSIST FROM BAEZ. IT IS NOT A MYSTERY THAT TREVOR BAUER'S MOUTH-BREATHING SELF COULDN'T PUNISH THEM WITH CURVEBALLS. THERE'S A REASON HE IS TREVOR BAUER AND NOT JUSTIN VERLANDER.

Does that fact that he only threw around 60 pitches or so negate the short rest thing or no? 60 pitches is better than 100, but it doesn't negate the effect of short rest. You still have to exert a lot of energy to warm up and throw 60 pitches, to come back and throw another 60-80 after 3 days when you've been doing so on 4 or more days your entire career means you aren't going to be quite as sharp. It also helps to understand the razor's edge that pitchers have to walk, especially pitchers with Tomlin's stuff/profile. You can be the same guy for 75 of the 80 pitches but one curve that doesn't bite and one fastball that catches too much plate can be the difference in 0 runs and 4, especially against an offense with the Cubs' capabilities.

Fangraphs doesn't seem to have postseason stats, but for the September starts that Tomlin made, there wasn't an appreciable change in the frequency, velocity, or pitch value of his curve. I'm not going to rule out that he made some adjustment, but considering 4 of those starts were against the White Sox and Royals offenses, I'm skeptical that Tomlin is a different pitcher than he was before. Is he in good form? Clearly. But I don't yet see a compelling reason that we should throw out his past. And he's going on short rest.

The other side is that neither Coghlan or Soler are inspiring a ton of confidence that they're going to knock the ball around, and they're not good defenders. I can see the argument, but considering that it only takes one pitch for Javy to run into one to justify his inclusion twice over, I bet he'll stick around. Plus, Tomlin is as okay a RHP matchup as he'll get, low velocity fastball and a curve instead of a slider.

Ross: "I've never been so happy to go to Cleveland in my life"

Maddon elects to let the best defensive outfielder in the world stay in the game to protect a 1 run lead in the 9th, people paid to write about baseball baffled

I feel like this is Champman's game the rest of the way. He either saves it or blows it. Or no? Certainly possible, my point is more that I'm not worried about the 9th whether it's Chapman or Edwards here in the 7th.

Edwards is just as likely to get the K you need here, why bring in Chapman that said, Strop in the 9th is just as fine as Strop in the 8th, so Chapman coming in early doesn't bother me

this is your reminder that Carl Edwards had a 2.87 FIP this year and strikes out 13 guys per 9 innings

ugh, Davis on first against Lester get Kipnis out before Davis gets to 3rd

why don't they make the whole plane out of Schwarbers

have the Indians had any of those screamers right at an outfielder? that feels like 10 on the Cubs end

admit it, you banned that red guy last inning despite temptation I did not

who the hell said that? Cameron is carrying on about it, and some Cubs writers are at least pondering the question

I can't believe how many people are freaking out that Schwarber didn't hit for a position player in the 4th inning. Can we use our heads for like a third of a second please

imagine choosing to die on the "John Smoltz is good at color commentary" hill what a way to go

This is my least favorite of all the nonsense reasons trying to explain the Cubs offense being inconsistent. You know what makes you really inconsistent? When half your games have Kershaw/Hill/Jansen or Kluber/Miller/Allen throwing 99% of the innings. Even if you want to misuse pitch value stuff from Fangraphs the Cubs were middle of the road against curveballs. Also, the Indians starter who throws the most curves? Bauer, the starter the Cubs knocked around. So please, spare me the theories that teams unlocked the secret sauce to stopping the Cubs offense. The answer is be really good and/or make really good pitches, and that answers the question for every baseball team ever. EDIT: This is not directed at you, Cubfanintheknow, I know you're just a messenger here. It's just been several weeks of various folks trying to find a reason in pitch values and you don't need to go that deep.

If you come back the pitcher's spot has to reach.

Very much so. Kluber's stuff wasn't nearly as good and the Cubs hit him far better. Making a 3rd start in 9 days would amplify both of those things, I'd expect 3 runs in 5-6 innings.

Careful.

Miller has that 'give up a frozen rope to an outfielder' thing down pat, I'll give him that

I really wouldn't let Heyward hit against Miller.

I think it's a Harry quote, someone put a green apple in his statue's hand before the WS started.