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Friday’s NLCS opener offered most of the qualities we want in a playoff game. An impressive pitching performance. Three big plays by a perennial postseason hero. A play at the plate to preserve a tie. Extra innings. A walk-off win. Ernie Johnson summed up Game One well when he called it “a top-step night,” even if it was more of a “lying in bed with my laptop” night where I was.

Zack Greinke’s command was incredible. Aside from a little lapse in the third, when—following swinging strikeouts of David Freese and Pete Kozma and a weak groundball through the left side by Joe Kelly—he walked Matt Carpenter and left a 3-1 sinker up and over the plate to Carlos Beltran, Greinke consistently hit A.J. Ellis’ targets on both sides of the plate. His 10 strikeouts were a season high.

In particular, Greinke excelled at placing pitches in those few unhittable inches off the outside corner where strikes are called consistently against left-handed hitters. Check the region between the solid line and the one with the dashes: it’s full of red triangles, representing strikes thrown by Dodgers pitchers (primarily Greinke). Cardinals pitchers weren’t able to exploit the same area. (You can argue, of course, that umpires—in this case, Gerry Davis—should prevent any pitchers from exploiting that area, but that’s the way baseball go.)

In their first matchup, Greinke neutralized Beltran with two fastballs on the outside corner, followed by a slider off the edge.

It was unfair, and indicative of the way Greinke manhandled hitters all night. He gave lefties very little to hit:

Greinke combined that command with filthy stuff, collecting 15 swinging strikes on pitches all over (and outside of) the zone, ranging from 94-mph fastballs to 71-mph curves. Cal Ripken’s Mike Mussina comp made sense. Mussina’s combination of command, movement, multiple pitch types, and sneaky speed made him one of my favorite pitchers to watch, and Greinke has some of the same qualities.

Other than that, this was the Beltran show. You know all about Beltran’s playoff history. Put it this way: Beltran has had so much success in October that collecting two hits (including a double) and driving in all three of the Cardinals’ runs actually made his postseason rate stats worse. His double to center in an eventful third inning—after a trip to the video room to review how Greinke had gotten him out earlier—drove in the Cardinals’ first two runs, and his 13th-inning single gave them the game.

In between the two hits, he ended a Los Angeles rally in the 10th when he caught a shallow fly from Michael Young and delivered a one-hop strike to Yadier Molina to cut down Mark Ellis at home.

Replays suggested that Molina might not have applied the tag, but when a throw beats a runner by several feet and the catcher catches it cleanly, the out call is almost always a foregone conclusion. Even if tag plays were eligible for replay review, the evidence wouldn’t have been conclusive enough to overturn the call.

The more of these moments Beltran accrues, the more certain it seems that he’ll be headed for the Hall of Fame. His regular-season advanced-stat case is already strong, but you can see how he’d have a hard time swaying some voters; he has almost no black ink and only one top-five MVP finish, and aside from his stolen-base success rate, few of his traditional stats really pop off the page. The postseason success should go a long way toward mollifying the kind of writer who’s inclined to care about those things: by the end of this series, Beltran will be close to 200 postseason plate appearances, with numbers that give him a strong case as history’s best playoff hitter. What with the weather and the increased caliber of competition, offensive stats are supposed to get worse in October, but Beltran missed that memo. The one thing he hasn’t done, despite his heroics, is win a World Series, so a ring this season could seal the deal.

The Game One win must have led to some sighs of relief in St. Louis; as good as Greinke was, Clayton Kershaw gives the Cardinals an even tougher assignment today (3:00 PM CT).

  • Don Mattingly didn’t have a great day. First, he pinch ran for Adrian Gonzalez with Dee Gordon after Gonzalez walked to lead off the eighth. I’m not a fan of pinch running in a situation like this, where making the move means taking a significant offensive hit in any subsequent at-bats from that lineup spot (not to mention a defensive downgrade). My reasoning is the same as Bill James’ in a mailbag on his website this summer.

    I would be surprised if any pinch runner can increase the chance of scoring a run by more than 3%; that is, if a runner has a 30% chance of scoring anyway, using a fast runner won’t make it 33%. It might make it 32%. But let’s say you can gain 3% of a run by doing that—and, of course, gaining 3% of a run cannot be more than gaining a 1.5% chance of a win.

    But a good hitter creates maybe .18 runs per at bat, whereas an average hitter is more like .12. If that spot in the batting order comes around again, you’ve lot 6% of a run, and potentially much more than that. So. . .if you’re going to pinch run, you’ve got to be pretty certain that the big hitter’s spot isn’t going to come around again in the 10th inning or something.

    Gordon was forced out three pitches later, when Puig grounded to Pete Kozma at short. Gordon made it a closer call at second than Gonzalez would have, but that didn’t help the Dodgers. However, the Dodgers were hurt when Michael Young (who replaced Gordon and hit in Gonzalez’s spot) came up against righties in the 10th and 12th, both times with runners in scoring position. Both times, his plate appearance produced a double play.

    James mentions that Terry Francona was persuaded to stop pinch running for David Ortiz after being burned by the tactic in Boston, but Mattingly hasn’t learned the same lesson. “It’s one of those situations that you’ve got to shoot your bullet when you get a chance,” Mattingly said after the game. I’d argue that he was aiming at his own foot.

  • Mattingly’s other mistake—one that many managers make—was saving Kenley Jansen for a save situation. He did summon Jansen with one out in the 13th, but by then, Chris Withrow had gotten the Dodgers into a jam Jansen couldn’t escape. Russell Carleton recently wrote about why it doesn’t make sense to save the closer for a save situation in extras on the road, so I won’t rehash the argument here, save to say I endorse it. “That’s pretty much what happens with the closer,” Mattingly explained. To which I’d respond: only if you want it to be.
  • Beltran bailed out Jon Jay, who nearly lost the game for St. Louis when he misplayed Mark Ellis' liner into a triple in the top of the 10th. Jay also went 0-for 5 and left four runners on base.
  • Trevor Rosenthal pitched two innings, and the Earth didn’t fall off its axis. Rosenthal had six two-inning outings during the regular season; Edward Mujica had four. Kevin Siegrist had one two-inning outing, which I mention only because Kevin Siegrist is a fun story.
  • Imagine what life must be like for Randy Choate. Throw one pitch, record one out, receive backslaps. I was going to say “throw one pitch, record one out, hit the showers,” but I doubt he has to. Anyone in the market for an editor who gets called in to tighten one crucial sentence?
  • Yasiel Puig went 0-for-6 with a popup and two strikeouts. It’s pretty easy to see where the Cardinals believe he has some vulnerability to breaking balls, not that this pattern of pitching to Puig is anything new.


These two swings won’t change St. Louis’ strategy.

  • Say what you want about TBS’ camerawork, commentary, or failure to cite where they got certain stats—seriously, just scroll down to the comments section and let loose—but give them credit for passing on the story about Joe Kelly not wearing his glasses when he hits because he worries about seeing the ball too well. And all this time, I thought hitters who got LASIK were smart.
  • Speaking of broadcast commentary, Ripken’s assertion about Matt Carpenter going 1-for-19 after his 199th hit because he was pressing to get to 200 wins today’s worst narrative.


    Carpenter had an 0-for-23 streak from July 29 through August 4; at that point, was he pressing to get to 127?

  • A related PSA: Vin Scully is calling the first and last three innings of each game for AM 570 Fox Sports LA. You can’t stream it on the station’s website, but you can get it through Gameday Audio. Relocating to Los Angeles is also an option.
  • You can’t stop Juan Uribe; you can only hope to contain him.
  • Thank you for reading

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    Merlin90
    10/12
    I'm in the UK, so MLB.TV is available to me during the play-offs. I was looking forward to using the audio overlay function to have Vin Scully's commentary over the pictures last night, but Dodgers radio was was the one audio option not available in this mode. As disappointing as falling asleep before the end of the game!
    jashnew
    10/12
    Are you an English dude that likes baseball or an American living in England?
    Merlin90
    10/12
    The former. I started watching baseball with an American friend while at university a few years ago and never looked back!
    jjpzebra
    10/12
    Beltran may be headed to the HOF, and I would be happy with that. However, he won't get many votes out of the San Francisco Bay Area. That trade that sent Wheeler to New York for him in 2011 turned out to be the worst one in recent memory. Beltran slumped, the Giants faded out of the race, he sulked, and meanwhile, Pence, who the Phillies got Hunter Pence after they lost the Beltran sweepstakes.

    Oh, and the Phillies proceeded to make the playofffs on the strength of a Pence hot streak. And of course, last year Pence came (finally) to the Giants, juiced the team in a "don't let it stop" pep talk when they were down 2-0 to Cincinnati in the best of five, and the rest is history.

    I could never figure out why Beltran didn't fit in Frisco.

    jjpzebra
    10/12
    Whoops, meant to say . . . Meanwhile the Phillies got Pence after they lost out on the Beltran sweepstakes.
    juiced
    10/13
    I'm a Giants fan and you have this totally backwards. Beltran got hurt shortly after he arrived but when he returned he led all of MLB in batting average the final month of the season. It's not his fault the Giants didn't make the playoffs without Posey, and it's not his fault that Sabean gave up their top prospect in return for him. Not is it his fault that the Giants spent too much money on loogies Lopez and Affeldt to re-sign him in the offseason.

    Pence on the other hand was absolutely terrible after the Giants traded for him in 2012, barely playing at replacement level value. He gave a fired up speech after the Giants fell behind Cinci 2-0 in the LDS but I don't know any rational argument that attributes their subsequent championship on Pence getting revved up in the locker room. He didn't hit Posey's grand slam for him.

    Pence then had a great year in 2013 and the Giants were wise to re-sign him considering how lousy our minor league system is, but Pence was bloody awful on the field during SF's world series run.
    BillJohnson
    10/12
    The analysis of the Gordon substitution misses an important point, although the conclusion that Mattingly screwed up is sound. If Gordon then steals second, the odds of scoring (once) in that inning go up considerably, probably enough to offset the scoring-probability hit in later innings. For the move to make sense, Gordon MUST attempt a steal once he's in the game. That is of course risky with Yadier Molina behind the plate, but even Molina doesn't have a 50% kill rate, and Carlos Martinez isn't the best at holding runners on. Gordon may get thrown out, in which case the pundits will be yammering for Mattingly's head. He has to just let 'em yammer, and having said A, say B.
    SaxonB
    10/12
    It's not really missing anything because Mattingly didn't send Gordon. Thus, Lindbergh isn't addressing that issues because its not the decision Mattingly made.

    BillJohnson
    10/14
    The point is that the failure to send Gordon is also a managerial decision, and Mattingly got it wrong.
    mschieve
    10/12
    Paul and Doug from the TINSTAAP podcast recorded last night while watching the game. I wish I could have just listened to them talk while watching the game.
    Lagniappe
    10/12
    Molina was 43% CS in 2013. Gordon is only 77% successful lifetime. I would let ole Pizza Cutter combine those numbers, because I don't know how, but I can see the probabilities are not favorable. (The picture of Gerald Laird gunning him down in the previous series is still lucid in my mind).

    This argument may only be good for Billy Hamilton.
    jbriaz
    10/12
    Looking at Molina's CS numbers are not giving the full picture. Many runners don't even attempt to steal on him because of the fear of being thrown out. It may actually keep his CS numbers down. Just a thought.

    And Lindbergh, good takedown on the pinch runner. I wasn't sure how I felt about that, but after reading your take, I think Mattingly's decision was not sound.
    casejud
    10/12
    Pinch-running for Adrian Gonzalez is a bad move because it didn't TURN OUT WELL, isn't it? If any number of things go well for LA... Gordon comes around to score... Michael Young gets a hit, which he has done over 2000 times... or the Dodgers WIN, it's an great move, good move, or a forgotten one. Even Bill James doesn't know the true percentages in this situation, they are complex. It sure looks bad when it doesn't work though, I'll tell ya.
    jashnew
    10/12
    @casejud- I agree. You have to pinch run for AGON. You never think , "what if we go to extra innings and need so and so". Let's score now. Maybe he should have tried to steal 2nd. I know about Molina. But that should have been tried.
    BurrRutledge
    10/12
    If you sit Gonzalez for the ping runner, then you must do everything possible to win now. Send him. Send him again. You can be blamed for trying and failing in the post-game.

    In this case he made the choice to win now by pulling Gonzalez & then changed his mind when he didnt try to get him into scoring position for Puig. That's a managerial mistake in a tie game.
    jashnew
    10/12
    I have two questions for you. Wouldn't it be cool if the TBS team would do baseball at the time? Also were you guys disappointed with the way some of the Cardinals were jumping on the other players and throwing some sort of liquid at Beltran? I say this out of concern for health. If I was Matheny I would say no more jumping, punching, and throwing liquid at other teammates.