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3 Things to Watch for in the Blue Jays Series vs Cleveland

Written by Rachael McDaniel, Richard Lee-Sam, and Joshua Howsam

Trevor Bauer can’t pitch with runners on

Trevor Bauer’s propensity to view his outings solely from the basis of achieving his own mission in the game (trying a new variation on a pitch, for example) is well-known, and it is rare that he will describe himself as having pitched poorly, even if he ends the day with an unpleasant line.

But so far in 2017, Bauer has been so bad that even he can’t sugarcoat it. After his last start on May 1st where he pitched four innings and allowed seven hits, five walks and seven earned runs, pushing his ERA up to 7.67 on the season, he actually admitted that this start was “a bad one.” Cleveland pushed his next start back, meaning that the Jays will get the immense pleasure of facing him in the series opener today.

So how can the Jays best exploit the struggling Bauer? By getting on base.

This season, Bauer has only stranded 57.8 percent of baserunners, compared to the league average of 72.9 percent. Normally that screams for regression, but when pitching with runners on, Bauer has induced fewer strikeouts and fewer ground balls, and his rate of hard contact jumps from 36.2 percent with the bases empty to 48.4 percent with men aboard. He has given up one home run with the bases empty; he has given up five home runs with runners on. All of this has resulted in opposing teams putting up a 1.392 OPS against Bauer with runners on, which is not ideal for run prevention.

The Jays as a team are currently batting under .200 with runners in scoring position, good for 29th in baseball. Given Bauer’s acute struggles with runners on base, though, facing him in this series might be just what the Jays need to get their RISP mojo back.

Cleveland’s Knockout Bullpen

In the American League Championship Series last year, the Cleveland bullpen took over. Manager Terry Francona put on a clinic in aggressive bullpen management and it clearly paid off. Cleveland went into the series missing starters Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar, and then in the first inning of game three, lost Trevor Bauer after umpires decided that bleeding all over the ball wasn’t allowed. The ‘pen managed to silence the Blue Jays bats over the five game series and even won two bullpen games.

In the end, Andrew Miller won ALCS MVP after he struck out a whopping 14 batters over 7.2 innings. He and closer Cody Allen combined to pitch 12.1 scoreless innings – more than Corey Kluber, who started two games in the series – striking out 21 and allowing just three hits and one walk.

Now, Francona won’t be as aggressive with his relievers as he was last fall, but it’s worth noting two things: Monday’s and Wednesday’s starters Trevor Bauer and Danny Salazar have struggled to pitch deep into games so far this year and the one-two punch of Miller and Allen to has been on fire to close out games.

The key for the Blue Jays this series will be to get to Bauer and Salazar (and hopefully Carrasco) early and try to avoid the impending heartbreak that comes with Andrew Miller and Cody Allen. Unfortunately, the rest of the Cleveland bullpen have been pretty good to start the year as well.

Cleveland RP

It will be a rough three days for Jays hitters if they fall behind early and have to mount a comeback against an a relief corps that ranks second in the league with 10.76 K/9 and first with a 1.90 earned run average. As such, early leads are going to be paramount, and they can’t count on regaining blown leads the way they did against Tampa. So not only is the lineup going to need to be better to handle the Cleveland bullpen, the Jays‘ bullpen will have to be at its best. 

The Struggling, Returning Edwin Encarnacion

At around 7:10 pm ET on Monday, fans will get to welcome back playoff hero and long time superstar, Edwin Encarnacion as he walks to the plate for his first plate appearance of the season. It will probably be a nice moment, with a large ovation (though those who choose not to cheer can be forgiven). Once that touching moment is over though, it’ll be time to work on keeping the Cleveland slugger off the bases and in the ballpark for the next three games.

Thus far, things haven’t been going so smoothly for Encarnacion while playing for the defending AL champs. As of game time Monday, he is hitting just .217/.349/.377 with five home runs and 39 strikeouts in 130 plate appearances (30 percent). That last number has to be particularly worrying to Cleveland fans and their brass as while it is WELL beyond Encarnacion’s career high, it could be a continuation of a trend that began last year: Despite finishing with his normal 40+ HR and 100+ RBI, Edwin posted his lowest TAv (.291) since his pre-breakout 2011 (.271) and struck out at the highest rate of his career (19.7 percent).

EE Whiff 16

As you can see from the charts above (2016 left, 2017 right), there’s no specific location that is giving Encarnacion trouble. He is simply struggling to hit the ball. The biggest issue is actually the type of pitch. Edwin is struggling with fastballs, but he is struggling with sliders. Last year, Encarnacion hit .290 with a .500 slugging percentage on sliders. This year, Encarnacion has seen 100 sliders and has just two hits (both home runs) and has swung and missed 14 times on 42 swings (1/3 of the time).

Those numbers against the slider actually nicely demonstrate the issue facing both Encarnacion and the Blue Jays. While the slugging DH/1B is swinging and missing at astronomical rates (his 68.8 percent contact rate is 9.1 percentage points below last year’s career low 77.9 percent), he is still crushing it when he does make contact:

EE 2016 velo

So Stroman, Bolsinger (?), and Liriano will have to be very careful and hope that Edwin continues to have problems for at least three more days.

Lead Photo: © Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

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