Props to the Tampa Bay Rays for putting a legitimate scare into the Houston Astros by forcing a decisive fifth game in their American League Division Series, capping an impressive 96-win season. They’re a fun group on the upswing, punching way above their weight class, and won’t be going away any time soon. Their competitive window is still just opening.
But, if we’re being honest, the Astros versus the New York Yankees is the right matchup for the American League Championship Series. The AL West champions won a major-league best 107 games. The AL East champions, overcoming injury after injury this season, won 103.
In the bigger picture, the concentration of talent within a small handful of super-teams is troubling for the industry, especially during the regular season. In a high stakes seven-game series, however, it’s hard to get a more compelling pairing than this one.
Theoretically, the Yankees should have the upper-hand with a relatively low-stress sweep of the Minnesota Twins wrapped up Monday allowing them to be set-up exactly how they’d like for the ALCS.
"I think a lot of people would look at them going into this post-season as kind of the odds-on favourite, really kind of a complete team with elite starting pitching and a good bullpen and star players," said Yankees manager Aaron Boone. "We know they’re a load, so we’re really excited, and we know we’ll have our work cut out for us, but I think our guys relish that opportunity."
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The Astros, meanwhile, won’t have the other-worldly Gerrit Cole until Game 3 at the earliest after riding him for 107 pitches over eight dominant innings in Thursday night’s 6-1, series-clinching win over the Rays.
Justin Verlander, the loser in Game 4 on Tuesday, would have to go on short rest to start Saturday’s Game 1 against the Yankees. Zack Greinke is a pretty nice backup plan, but the Astros clearly aren’t lined up the way they’d ideally want for a potentially epic series.
"They’ve got a great team," said Astros third baseman Alex Bregman. "They hit the ball out of the ballpark. They’ve got good pitching. It’s very similar to our team. Both teams were a little banged up during the year and persevered until we got to the ALCS, and we get to match up with them again. It was an unbelievable series we had with them during the regular season (won 4-3 by the Astros). It’s going to be fun, man. It’s going to be a blast."
Pay the man
Perhaps you’ve heard this already, but Gerrit Cole is a pending free agent. And while baseball executives are largely beyond the point of being swayed by a small sample size of performance, the 29-year-old right-hander continues to offer justification for the massive contract that looms.
Having already overmatched the Rays during a Game 2 gem, in which he struck out 15 batters while allowing only four hits and a walk over 7.2 innings, Cole delivered the goods again in the clincher, allowing only a run on two hits and two walks with 10 strikeouts in eight innings.
To so dominate a team twice in such a short span, with all the opportunities to scout and game-plan, underscores just how untouchable Cole is right now. His regular season numbers were gaudy enough – a 2.50 ERA over 212.1 innings with a WHIP of 0.895 and league-leading 326 strikeouts – yet against a pesky lineup that tends to handle velocity well, he stepped it up a notch.
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Seeing through Glass?
The St. Louis Cardinals certainly set an impossible new standard for fast starts with their 10-run first Wednesday in Game 5 against the Atlanta Braves, but the Astros did pretty well themselves against Tyler Glasnow on Thursday.
They went George Springer single, Michael Brantley single and Jose Altuve single to open the scoring, and after a mound visit, Alex Bregman followed with a two-run double. After a Yordan Alvarez groundout, Yuli Gurriel followed with an RBI single that made it 4-0. Only one ball exited the bat at less than 90.8 m.p.h. – Brantley’s single at 80.7 – while Altuve and Bregman both lined balls into the outfield at more than 104 m.p.h., swinging like they knew what was coming.
Did they?
"No, no, no," replied Bregman. "He’s as tough to face as anybody, I think, if you went around and asked everybody on our team. It was just a team approach. It was just one at-bat after another. Springer’s at-bat to lead off the game to give us that first guy on was one of the biggest hits of our season. Then you see Brantley do it, and Springer go first to third, and use our athleticism. And then Altuve gets a big hit to drive in the first run, break the ice. And then Brantley went first to third and that made my job easy hitting a fly ball, and was fortunate it stayed on a line and found some grass."
Maybe, or, as one knowledgeable observer suggested, hitters could see Glasnow’s glove move more on his curveball, and he was higher set on the fastball. Bregman is among the best at spotting such subtleties, the observer added, and if so, he certainly took full advantage.
"I’m aware that there is speculation about pitch tipping," said Rays manager Kevin Cash. "It’s something that we have discussed. It’s a little tough to do that, make an adjustment in Game 5 of a Division Series. But at the end of the day, give the guys the credit that went up to the plate and put the ball in play and hit line drives. That’s what did us in."
Nerd Power strikes
The Rays put only five balls into play at more than 95 m.p.h., one of them a Ji-Man Choi single at 100.4 m.p.h., another Eric Sogard’s solo shot at 98 m.p.h.
Sogard’s drive came in the second inning, immediately after Houston’s four-run outburst, and showed that the Rays were intent on grinding things out. But they never managed more than one baserunner in an inning, while back-to-back homers by Brantley and Altuve to open the eighth ensured a drama-free ninth inning.
The home run capped the best statistical season of Sogard’s career, as he delivered career bests with 13 homers, a .290 batting average, .353 on-base percentage, .457 slugging percentage and 2.6 WAR over 110 games with the Toronto Blue Jays and Rays.
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