Batter's Box Interactive Magazine - A Trio of Deciding Games

For the first time since 2001, there will be three Game 5’s in the LDS round of the MLB playoffs.

Tonight, the Detroit Tigers travel to New York to face the Yankees. The Tigers will turn to in-season acquisition Doug Fister, while the Yankees have tabbed shiny rookie Ivan Nova for the start. One interesting factor could be unusual options of the bullpen, as New York has stated that C.C. Sabathia will be available in relief. The Tigers have said Justin Verlander will not pitch in Game 5.

Tomorrow, Ian Kennedy and the Diamondbacks try to complete their comeback against the Milwaukee Brewers. Milwaukee fought hard until the end of the season to try to secure home-field advantage for this round, given they have the largest discrepancy in home and away record among the playoff teams. This may prove to be an important decision, as the Brewers won both games in Milwaukee earlier in the series and a raucous Miller Field Crowd could help them to victory. Former Jays Aaron Hill and Ryan Roberts hit homers in Wednesday’s victory and will try to duplicate the feat against Gallardo. The Diamondbacks handed Lyle Overbay the start against Gallardo in the first game, but Goldschmidt has been hitting well for them this series (5-for-11 with 2 home runs) and Overbay will likely stay with John McDonald on the bench.

Finally, the late game Friday sees two former Blue Jays pitchers face off against one another in an elimination battle. Philadelphia turns to the incomparable Roy Halladay to stave off the Cardinals. After allowing a three-run homer in the first inning in Game 1, Halladay allowed a leadoff single in the second inning and then retired 21 straight batters. He’ll look to continue that success against a St. Louis lineup that will include Matt Holliday, as he got his first start in Game 4 yesterday. Doc faces off against friend and former teammate Chris Carpenter. Carpenter was ineffective in Game 2, pitching on three days rest for the first time in his career, and will be back on regular rest for Game 5. St. Louis refuses to quit and came back after falling behind yesterday in the first inning. Mid-season acquisition Edwin Jackson turned in a solid start and Octavio Dotel pitched well in middle relief. Up by two and with one on and two out, LaRussa turned to Marc Rzepczynski in the 8th inning and he struck out Ryan Howard on three straight breaking balls. Scrabble gave a small fist pump as he walked off the mound.

With a chance to see the Yankees eliminated tonight and former Jays players all over the Friday contests, it should be a fun couple of days of baseball. Here’s a place for all the news and notes on the Game 5’s.

Posted by Thomas on Thursday, October 06 2011 @ 06:00 AM EDT.

A Trio of Deciding Games | 24 comments | Create New Account

The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.

lexomatic - Thursday, October 06 2011 @ 08:49 AM EDT (#245443) #

The Diamondbacks handed Lyle Overbay the start against Gallardo in the first game, but Goldschmidt has been hitting well for them and he’ll likely stay with John McDonald on the bench.

Who are you calling to start, Overbay or Goldschmidt? The antecedent isn't clear.

Thomas - Thursday, October 06 2011 @ 08:50 AM EDT (#245444) #

Good spot. Goldschmidt. I'll go fix the wording.

MatO - Thursday, October 06 2011 @ 09:29 AM EDT (#245445) #

I haven't seen Fielder play much in his career. Last night he hits an "impossible to hit" high and inside fastball into the right field corner and slides head first into 2nd base unnecessarily. You know, he looked a heck of a lot faster than his dad. He'd easily blow all the Molinas away in a foot race. Fielder looked like the the Travis Snider of 1st basemen. An athlete in an unathletic looking body. I say 7 years and $200M. Get it done Rogers!

Mick Doherty - Thursday, October 06 2011 @ 09:29 AM EDT (#245446) #

On Mike & Mike this morning on the radio, they discussed the friendship of Carpenter and Halladay and closed with this zinger:

GOLIC: "I imagine that must be pretty common in Toromto, two guys getting togther and talking about what teams they'll play for next."

greenfrog - Thursday, October 06 2011 @ 10:06 AM EDT (#245447) #

Last night was a good night for ex-Jays:

Hill: 2-5, HR, R, RBI
Roberts: 1-5, HR, R, 4 RBI (game-changing grand slam)
Rzepczynski: 0.1 IP, K (Ryan Howard in key situation)
Dotel: 0.2 IP, 0 H, 0 BB, 0 R
Jackson (we hardly knew ya): W (1-0), 6 5 2 2 1 4

And how about Aaron Hill since the late-season trade with the D-Backs?

Regular season: 315/386/492
Post-season: 357/500/571

Gold star for Kevin Towers.

Mike Green - Thursday, October 06 2011 @ 10:11 AM EDT (#245448) #

It's glib, but kind of ridiculous in the context of Halladay, who pretty clearly wanted to stay in Toronto and could have left long before if he so desired. I still hope that Doc will be back for a second go-round here in his twilight years (beginning in about 2018 or so).

Mat's comment about Prince's baserunning was interesting. He is definitely a below-average defensive first baseman though.

Anders - Thursday, October 06 2011 @ 11:18 AM EDT (#245454) #

The way the Brewers have handled their starting rotation has been kind of criminal. First there was starting Grienke on 3 days rest instead of Marcum on regular rest. It wasn't the wrong decision per se, but it was likely mostly a wash, if you assume pitchers going on slight rest perform slightly worse than they regularly do.

The real travesty (I said this before, you know, last night) was starting Randy Wolf, who is okay but not in the class of their others pitchers at this point. The team could have started Yovani Gallardo on 3 days rest, then Grienke on full rest on Friday - this is a scenario in which it would have made sense to push Grienke forward, as he is their best pitcher (let's also not ignore that they pitched Grienke for 6 innings on the final day of the season when they knew he was coming back on Sunday; 2 of the innings were with a six run lead.) Instead they started Wolf, and he got hammered, and now Gallardo is going in game 5. I'm gonna guess that the decision lowers the odds the Brewers win the series by somewhere between 3-5%, which is not insignificant.

Arizona also outmanaged Milwaukee in game, pinch hitting for their inefficient pitcher in the bottom of the third, while Milwaukee left a getting shelled Wolf in there.

bpoz - Thursday, October 06 2011 @ 12:16 PM EDT (#245456) #

After tonight 5 of the 6 remaining teams have traded with AA. Gm John Mozeliak is getting some praise for the 11 player deal involving the Jays & White Sox. Well I guess he deserves it. The pitching got better with E Jackson in the rotation and Dotel, Zep & K McClellan strengthening the pen.

uglyone - Thursday, October 06 2011 @ 01:02 PM EDT (#245460) #

SP Halladay
SP Marcum
SP Carpenter
SP Jackson*

RP Burnett
RP Rzepczynski
RP Dotel

DH Young
C Napoli*
1B Overbay
2B Hill
SS McDonald
3B Roberts
LF
RF
CF Patterson

all in the playoffs.

chips - Thursday, October 06 2011 @ 01:08 PM EDT (#245462) #

None of the above help put the Jays in the playoffs. Therefore, it doesn't mean anything except trivial.

Jonny German - Thursday, October 06 2011 @ 01:39 PM EDT (#245464) #

Thank you Captain Obvious.

The above do have connections to d'Arnaud, Gose, Drabek, Lawire, Rasmus, Francisco, Syndergaard, and Johnson. All of whom could conceivably be part of the next Blue Jay playoff team.

chips - Thursday, October 06 2011 @ 01:44 PM EDT (#245465) #

I agree. Here's to hoping that it comes to fruition.

Lugnut Fan - Thursday, October 06 2011 @ 01:53 PM EDT (#245467) #

It is going to be interesting to watch the AL East transform in the next few years. I expect the Jays will be at the top of the class as the Yankee's nucleus is nearing retirement (Posada, Jeter, Rivera, etc.), Epstein is apparently in line to talk with the Cubs about their open position. I don't know if he can turn down an opportunity to get another cursed team a world championship.

I like what I saw in the Jays system this year especially the younger guys. There are some outstanding prospects and some outstanding arms that are going to be pushing through the system.

Chuck - Thursday, October 06 2011 @ 02:22 PM EDT (#245470) #

It's too bad, but it doesn't look like we're going to see an infield of Overbay, Hill, McDonald and Roberts. Perhaps if Arizona moves on to the next round, such a permutation might result late in a game. Halladay facing that lot would be a riot.

The ex-BJ infield certainly doesn't scream out "playoff caliber", does it? Okay, Aaron Lazarus Hill v.2011.02 does.

How about Halladay versus Holliday on Friday? It'll be like George Costanza riffing on seltzer and salsa.

Glevin - Thursday, October 06 2011 @ 05:53 PM EDT (#245493) #

Once again the Tigers are going with a baffling lineup.
By OPS
1-.690
2-.672
3-.756
4-1.033
5-.850
6-.634
7-.895
8-.824
9-.695

The top three in the lineup have OBPs of .317, .291, and .298. In order of best to worst OPS by lineup position, it is 4, 7, 5, 8, 3, 9, 1, 2, 6. The Yankees, in contrast, will be 2,3,5,4,6,1,8,7,9. I am not a huge believer in lineups (don't think whether a guy hits second or third makes much of a difference) but surely you'd want to have your better hitters higher in the order and your bad OBP guys down in the lineup. Leyland has done this all year which is the main reason Cabrera only had 105 RBI.

Magpie - Thursday, October 06 2011 @ 06:20 PM EDT (#245496) #

surely you'd want to have your better hitters higher in the order

How would you do it?

Magpie - Thursday, October 06 2011 @ 06:34 PM EDT (#245498) #

Cabrera only had 105 RBI.

Only? It's not 1998 anymore. That's a lot of RBIs. The man who led the league, Granderson, had a mere 119 RBIs. More important is the fact that Cabrera actually had more plate appearances with men on base than Granderson (344 to 322) and more plate appearances with runners in scoring position (197 to 188.) Cabrera drove in "only" 105 runs because the other teams were extremely reluctant to pitch to him in those situations - he was walked 60 times, 22 times intentionally (Granderson was walked 34 times, none of them intentionally.)

smcs - Friday, October 07 2011 @ 01:07 AM EDT (#245511) #

Here are the number of former players who are (or were) on playoff rosters this year by former team:

Boston 11           Yankees 10    Toronto 10    Baltimore 7       Tampa Bay 6
Kansas City 14 White Sox 13   Detroit 10     Cleveland 9      Minnesota 7
Seattle 15           Oakland 12     Angels 8       Texas 8
Atlanta 14           Florida 11     Mets 11        Washington 7   Philadelphia 6
Houston 10        Cubs 8             Cincinnati 7 Milwaukee 6     Pittsburgh 4         St. Louis 4
Dodgers 14       San Diego 11 Colorado 9   Arizona 5 San Francisco 3
Montreal 4

I didn't double-count players who played for the same team twice, but I did differentiate between Washington and Montreal (Luis Ayala, Endy Chavez and Brian Schneider played for both) and only counts players who played at the major league level, so Atlanta doesn't get 'penalized' for trading Elvis Andrus or Neftali Feliz.

scottt - Friday, October 07 2011 @ 05:57 AM EDT (#245516) #

That Tigers baffling lineup ends winning the game before Nova has a chance to get confortable.

Now they have a good chance of winning 2 behind Verlander.

greenfrog - Friday, October 07 2011 @ 09:28 AM EDT (#245518) #

Should be an interesting off-season after the early exits of NY and Boston. My concern as a Jays fan is that both teams may attempt to massively reload by adding pitching, meaning huge bids for Darvish, Wilson and others. Oh well, 'twas ever thus (or at least seems that way).

John Northey - Friday, October 07 2011 @ 09:31 AM EDT (#245519) #

Funny that a team that hasn't been in the playoffs since the first time a Jays team made it to the playoffs (1985) has the 2nd most players in the playoffs. Good ol' Kansas City.

Quite sad really - that team used to be a model for how to build a team on a budget, much like Tampa Bay is now. Then they started blowing money on relievers (Mark Davis) and others and found themselves sub-500 in all but 7 of the following 26 seasons, sub 500 in all but one season from 1995 to today. From 1975 to 1985 though, when only 2 teams made the playoffs, they reached 7 of 11 times, finishing 2nd in the division every year they didn't make the playoffs.

bpoz - Friday, October 07 2011 @ 10:01 AM EDT (#245523) #

John N, you are right about KC. The Twins are now the model for getting the most from little.

I cannot remember the KC manager, Whitey Herzog? G Brett give him an opportunity and he killed you, W Wilson robbed you blind, and their rotation was solid & deep but I don't know if they won Cy Youngs. They probably only had a decent pen but I don't know, Dan Quisenbery is all I can remember.

Throw in some luck, Bret Saberhagen and you have a champ.

Lugnut Fan - Friday, October 07 2011 @ 11:00 AM EDT (#245531) #

KC is going to be a dangerous team to watch over the next few years. They have had some young talent that is just starting to develop and could find themselves in the post season in the next few years.

92-93 - Friday, October 07 2011 @ 12:26 PM EDT (#245538) #

The Royals don't have any young pitching ready to excel at the big league level. They aren't nearly as close as people suggest. People should remember the preseason expectations for the 2011 Orioles before they get all excited about the future Royals.

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