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Rock and Roll Roadtrip: Cleveland Indians Series Preview

Toronto Blue Jays @ Cleveland Indians

August 19-21 2016

Written by Kyle Matte and Greg Wisniewski

It’s time for the Blue Jays to make their yearly trip to America’s Most Scenic City, Cleveland Ohio. Just… Wow. The Jays head in for a weekend series with the Clevelands, who are gradually trying to wean themselves off their racially charged logo and nickname. Cleveland is in the middle of a stretch of schedule that may test their resolve as they lead the AL Central. Due to having to play a single make-up game against Boston (that was postponed from April), their first game against the Jays will be the 11th of 23 days in a row where Cleveland will play a baseball game. Can Toronto pounce on a tired lineup and sub-optimal bullpen situation? Time will tell.

Pitching Matchups:

Friday, August 19th (7:10 pm ET)

LHP Francisco Liriano vs RHP Trevor Bauer

It’s been something of a weird start in blue for the big left hander, Francisco Liriano. He pitched well overall in his debut against the Kansas City Royals, with the one real mistake being a hanging 2-0 slider which the light hitting Paulo Orlando drove 405 feet to left center field. Things went considerably less smoothly against Houston a week later, with the Astros tallying five runs via eleven base runners before manager John Gibbons gave Liriano the heave-ho with two outs in the sixth. Talk of the Russell Martin influence was rampant in the hours and days following the trade with the Pirates, and after two starts, we’re already seeing minor tweaks to Liriano’s approach. The catcher has called for the changeup more frequently (22.34%), which is in line with its usage rate in 2013 (22.39%) and 2014 (25.52%) when the duo paired up and found success in Pittsburgh. It also represents a step away from 2015 (19.77%) after Martin’s departure, and the first half of 2016 (17.81%) when Liriano struggled considerably in the steel city. Cleveland features a balanced starting lineup that includes at least a couple switch hitters, lefties, and righties on any given day, so Liriano will need both his slider and his changeup working if he wants to shut down the American League’s number two offense and extend the Blue Jays’ win streak to three.

Back on Canada Day, the Blue Jays and Indians played a marathon 19-inning affair that ended with Cleveland on top after manager Terry Francona turned to his next scheduled starter, Trevor Bauer, and Gibby turned to a pair of middle infielders in an effort to save the arms of his pitching staff. At the time, Bauer was finally living up to his third-overall selection pedigree and was pitching like one of the elite starters in baseball. Over his previous 10 starts, the right hander had racked up 62 strikeouts over 69.1 innings, allowing just 20 earned runs for a 2.60 ERA. Francona was lauded whereas Gibbons was jeered, but this may be an instance where the critics couldn’t see the forest for the trees. Bauer has struggled badly since his unconventional extended relief outing, pitching to a 6.50 ERA over his last seven starts. He’s been unable to find his command (5.00 BB/9) or keep the ball within the confines of the stadium (1.75 HR/9), despite facing largely flaccid offenses in Minnesota (twice!), the Yankees, Oakland, and the Angels. The Blue Jays, meanwhile, have gone 26-13 since Canada Day with a team ERA of 3.39 and 349 strikeouts in 356 innings. Causation doesn’t equal correlation, but it’s maybe something to consider for a moment the next time you’re thinking about screaming at Gibby through your television for not laying everything on the line to win a single game in the middle of the season.

Saturday, August 20th (7:10 pm ET)

RHP Aaron Sanchez vs RHP Josh Tomlin

From May 15th through July 25th, Aaron Sanchez made 14 consecutive starts in which his fastball averaged 95 miles per hour or better. In the three starts since, it’s averaged below 95 twice. Is this the first chink in the armor? It’s impossible to say, but it’s something that the training staff is most certainly monitoring as Sanchez pushes further and further past his previous career high in innings. Any minor – and they are extremely minor – fluctuations in fastball velocity aside, there certainly haven’t been many ebbs in the overall performance. Sanchez has been dominant by every measure of value on every baseball website out there. According to Baseball Prospectus’ DRA-based WARP, he’s 14th in the American League with 3.2 wins produced. Over at Fangraphs, he’s 5th (3.6) in the AL by FIP-based WAR, and 2nd (4.8) by run suppression-based WAR. Baseball Reference ranks him as the 9th (3.7) best starter in the AL. Regardless of your favorite way to cut the cake he’s been one of the league’s premier pitchers, and is in the middle of the Cy Young conversation with six weeks left in the regular season. With their stables of switch hitters and a few left handed batters, Cleveland is poised to toss as many as six or seven hitters at Sanchez from the opposite side of the plate. If he wants to neutralize their offense and push the Cy Young narrative even harder, on Saturday, the key may be his curveball, which has been one of the American League’s most productive breaking balls.

Since debuting back in 2010, Josh Tomlin has made 102 starts (and 15 relief appearances) in his Major League career. Over that time, he has allowed 112 home runs. That computes to a rate of 1.55 home runs allowed per nine innings – enough to make ol’ R.A. Dickey blush from the opposing dugout. Looking back as far as 2010 and setting an extremely low bar of 600 total innings across the seven seasons, that dinger rate is the worst in baseball. Not only is it the worst, it’s the worst by a considerable margin, and looking at the names on the leaderboard – with all due respect to Marco Estrada – It’s not exactly the kind of company a pitcher wants to keep. Less than half of the top twenty are still holding down starting jobs, and a good chunk of those are struggling just to hang on. Twenty four of his league-leading 29 jacks allowed this season have come against his four seam fastball or cutter, so if the Blue Jays batters can hold off on the curveball and changeup and work themselves into favorable counts, there’s a very good chance they’ll be building on their season total of 174 home runs.

Sunday, August 21st (1:10 pm ET)

RHP Marcus Stroman vs RHP Corey Kluber

The reinvention of Marcus Stroman continues. It’s been a common theme across the Blue Jays blogosphere, and here at BP Toronto alone, issues have been highlighted and solutions proposed on what feels like a bi-monthly basis. Throw fewer sinkers, elevate the four seam fastball, differentiate the breaking balls, focus on fewer pitches; all have been suggested, and if the PitchFX data is any indication, either Stroman or the coaching staff has recognized the same potential problems and have already made strides to rectify the issues. Through three starts in August, his sinker usage is at a season low (42%; well down from 58% in April) and the average location on his four seam fastball is 0.50 feet above the center of the zone (up from an average of 0.09 feet above center in April through July). Fewer sinkers, more four seam fastballs, and instead of 0.70 feet of average vertical separation between the two, he’s up to a whole foot. That’s some serious mid-season progress with the hard stuff – how about the breaking balls?

The slider is back up over 88 miles per hour, which is where it was during his dominant 2014 rookie season. Stroman is also throwing it a whole lot more often; in the first half he threw it roughly 12% of the time (the same rate as his curveball), but that climbed to over 25% in July and up over 28% in August. This late summer increase has come at the expense of his curveball and changeup, the two of which have totaled a usage rate of just 9% this month. The relationship between Stroman’s slider and cutter is still a little hazy, but for the most part, the right hander has turned to his best pitches more often, and it’s resulted in a whole lot more success. Over his last eight starts, Stroman has struck out 55 batters and allowed just seven walks. The incredible thing is that despite shifting to more of a strikeout-based approach, he’s lost nothing in efficiency or groundball rate – the two reasons a pitcher tends to adopt the pitch-to-contact attitude in the first place. Over those eight starts Stroman has averaged over six and a half innings per game, and his groundball rate has actually increased from 58.8% to 62.8%. Extrapolated over 32 starts, second-half Marcus Stroman would have 209 innings pitched, 220 strikeouts, and a 3.27 ERA. I like second-half Marcus Stroman.

By a lot of measures Corey Kluber has been one of the best starting pitchers in the American League this year, standing alongside Sanchez in the very early Cy Young discussion. Where opinions on the two begin to differ is with how much weight you should apply to what happens outside the 60 feet, 6 inches between the mound and home plate. Kluber has thrown over 800 innings in his career, and has a career ERA 37 points worse than his career FIP. Sanchez, meanwhile, has a career ERA 91 points better than his FIP. Many are quick to point to these statistics as representations of good or bad luck, but the underlying issue is that Corey Kluber simply gets much, much worse when forced to pitch with runners on base. With the bases empty, hitters have slashed .230/.274/.350 for his career. With men on base, that line improves to .255/.317/.419. With runners in scoring position, it’s a better-yet .262/.339/.438. You can cry about defense until you’re blue in the face, but the data suggests that with Kluber, it’s simply the case of a lack of comfort – be it physical or mental – pitching from the stretch.

To defeat Kluber one must have a lot of discipline in laying off that slider/curveball hybrid breaking ball which he loves to feature with two strikes. For the season he’s running a whiff per swing rate over 45% with it, which he throws in the mid-80s while generating a ton of horizontal run away from right handed batters. If Josh, Eddie, Tulo and friends can keep the front shoulder closed, work the count, get some fastballs, and get on base, the Blue Jays have a good chance of exploiting Kluber’s weaknesses. If they get overly aggressive and start swinging for the fences, they might find themselves eating out of Kluber’s hand, and not in the good stirring-the-pot sort of way.

Additions and Subtractions

Danny Salazar rejoined the Cleveland staff on August 18th after suffering from elbow inflammation… and he ins’t scheduled to start in the series. Jeff Manship and his 3.23 ERA rejoined the bullpen August 11th after wrist tendinitis sent him to the DL.

The Blue Jays are still without Jose Bautista and Kevin Pillar. There is no timetable for Bautista’s return from a knee injury. Kevin Pillar isn’t eligible to come off the DL until next week, and although he’s hanging around with the team, it’s hard to say when he will be capable of gripping the bat well enough to hit. Ezequiel Carrera returned to the big club in New York on the 16th, and figures to see plenty of time in the outfield rotation of Saunders, Upton, Ceciliani and himself. To bring back Carrera, the Jays have banished Juior Lake to DFA purgatory.

Keep an Eye On

Melvin Upton is Kind Of Good

I feel like I need to assure the casual fan that Melvin Upton Jr. is not, in fact, an absolute offensive black hole. Sure, he strikes out a whole lot, and yes, he’s been really slow to show any aptitude for hitting since he returned to the AL in a trade with the Padres. I give you all that. As a guy with a career OPS around .750, who can capably play all three outfield positions, he isn’t going to remain a drag on the ballclub forever. He was slumping, but now he has racked up six hits in his last four games. He’s worked a couple of walks in there, too. If he can just hold that steady, he’ll be exactly what the Jays need to fill the gap while missing two regular outfielders. The Jays traded for Upton for two reasons. The first was for next year. The second was ‘just in case’. This is why you make depth moves that might seem redundant at the deadline.

Napoli Dynamite

In a lineup with noted walk specialist Carlos Santana, and rookie sensation Tyler Naquin, Cleveland’s best August offensive performance has come from…. 34 year old Mike Napoli. Napoli is on a one year, 7 million dollar deal with Cleveland, and they’ve already gotten their money’s worth. His .382/.477./.727 line in August is only draggin his numbers upwards on the year. He’s hitting like 2012/2013 Napoli, and the Jays will have to be very careful to not be the team that gives up his 30th home run this weekend.

Trevor Bauer Vs. Canada… Round 2?

So, Trevor Bauer caused a Twitter stir by firing up the American flags after a Canada Day victory in extra innings. Like so. And then he double down in the responses to the tweet, for reasons only clear to him, being generally unsympathetic to those Canadians who thought he might be too nationalistic for his own good. On the Fourth of July, he appeared to have a change of heart. However, if you click that link, you might find his sudden interest in a Blue Jays victory may have had ulterior motives. Will Bauer have something to say on social media after his start?  Will the trolls try and get something juicy out of him anyway? Stay tuned.

Probable Lineup

Toronto

Cleveland

Devon Travis 2B Carlos Santana DH
Josh Donaldson 3B Jason Kipnis 2B
Edwin Encarnacion DH Fransisco Lindor SS
Michael Saunders LF Mike Napoli 1B
Troy Tulowitzki SS Jose Ramirez 3B
Russell Martin C Lonnie Chisenhall RF
Justin Smoak 1B Rajai Davis LF
Ezequiel Carrera RF Tyler Naquin CF
Melvin Upton Jr. CF Roberto Perez C

via Roster Resource

Final Thoughts

The Blue Jays are going in to play a first place team in their home park. It doesn’t get more difficult than that. They are a little bit short handed, but that’s to be expected at this time of year. We have seen these teams locked down in a 19 inning battle that destroyed two bullpens. We’ve also seen the Jays pile on 17 runs against a staff that really shouldn’t have been that hittable. The Jays ERA is 5th lowest in baseball. Cleveland’s is 7th lowest. Cleveland has scored the 4th most runs in baseball, Toronto the 6th most. If Toronto gets two of three and wins the series (something they’ve done in four out of the last five series) they should consider the weekend a success, and just keep on marching in to September.

Lead Photo:  Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports

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