{"id":7821,"date":"2013-10-02T16:21:23","date_gmt":"2013-10-02T20:21:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=7821"},"modified":"2013-10-02T16:21:23","modified_gmt":"2013-10-02T20:21:23","slug":"tampa-cleveland-wc-game-pitching-matchup-thoughts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=7821","title":{"rendered":"Tampa @ Cleveland WC game Pitching matchup thoughts"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Can<\/a>

Can the effusive Swisher lead his rag-tag team to victory? Photo via wikipedia.<\/p><\/div>\n

At first glance, knowing that the Rays have been travling around the country for the last two weeks like an indie band chasing side gigs, you would think the Indians would be favored in this matchup.<\/p>\n

But look closer and you’ll see an Indians team that has a lot of heart but may not really be as good as their record indicates. \u00a0They readily beat up<\/a> on the two weak teams in their division (going 17-2 versus the White Sox and 13-6 versus Minnesota). \u00a0They went 6-1 against the hapless Astros. \u00a0That’s a combined 36-9 against these three awful teams. \u00a0 Against the rest of the league, just 54-51. \u00a0They lost the season series to Tampa, winning just 2 of 6 games. \u00a0They lost 15 of 19 against Detroit on the season. \u00a0They lost 6 of 7 to both Boston and New York. \u00a0So I think this is a weaker team than its 90-72 record; in fact I feel like in a different division they’d probably be just a .500 team.<\/p>\n

You can only play who they put in front of you though. \u00a0They still had 90 wins and a fantastic 10 game winning streak to end the season \u00a0… but those 10 games were all against the 3 worst teams in the league. \u00a0What will happen when they play a battle tested, playoff-veteran AL East team like Tampa?<\/p>\n

Tampa earned its way into a game 163 with tough road series victories at the end of the season, and earned its win over Texas in its first do-or-die game. \u00a0Unfortunately they burned their ace\u00a0in the process and now will go with #3 starter\u00a0Alex Cobb<\/strong>. \u00a0Not that Cobb doesn’t give them a great chance at winning: he’s 11-3 on the season<\/a>, has pitched to a 138 ERA+. \u00a0His away splits are *better* than his home splits. \u00a0He’s been very solid since returning from the D\/L and I would expect a solid outing tonight. \u00a0Perhaps 7 innings, 2 earned runs with 6 strikeouts.<\/p>\n

Cleveland had to play it “straight” all they way til the end to guarantee a playoff spot and thus finds itself depending on 23-yr old\u00a0Danny Salazar<\/strong>, he of exactly 10 major league starts, in this coin-flip game. \u00a0Salazar’s numbers in short sample sizes are good<\/a>; 2-3, 3.12 era, 1.13 whip, 65\/15 k\/bb in 52 innings and a 121 ERA+. \u00a0The blogs rave about his heat and his change-up. \u00a0He gets a ton of Ks. \u00a0But he’s young, he throws too many pitches, and he’s likely only going to be able to give his team 5-6 innings in a best case tonight. \u00a0 The Rays see a lot of pitches and are a patient team (2nd in the league in BBs); they and manager\u00a0Joe Madden<\/strong> knows they can wait out Salazar, get into the Indians bullpen and take their chances. \u00a0The Indians pen is a mess, closer\u00a0Chris Perez<\/strong> is lost, and they’re in the bottom third of the league in most macro categories (bullpen ERA, FIP, fWAR). \u00a0 Their bullpen is righty heavy, so they can’t play matchups very well. \u00a0 And the Rays are one of the better RH hitting teams in the league (top 10 in wOBA, top 5 in wRC+).<\/p>\n

The Indians are at home (where they’re good), and they’re incredibly hot right now (21-8 in September). \u00a0They hit righties at about the league average and have a ton of left-handed\/switch hitters at their disposal. \u00a0 But I somehow see the Rays asserting their dominance, getting into the Cleveland bullpen and eking out a win. \u00a0I’m thinking perhaps a 4-3 victory for Tampa. \u00a0I’m not as confident here as I was in my first two predictions for the 2013 post-season … but have faith that Tampa will take the next step over the surprising Indians.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At first glance, knowing that the Rays have been travling around the country for the last two weeks like an indie band chasing side gigs, you would think the Indians would be favored in this matchup. But look closer and you’ll see an Indians team that has a lot of heart but may not really […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3],"tags":[1262,1670,2025,1685],"class_list":["post-7821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonnatsbaseball","category-mlbpitching","tag-alex-cobb","tag-chris-perez","tag-danny-salazar","tag-joe-madden"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7821"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7837,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7821\/revisions\/7837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}