Six players who could have significant impact on ALCS

Watch as Sportsnet's Ben Nicholson-Smith and Arden Zwelling preview the highly anticipated ALCS matchup between the Tampa Bay Rays and Houston Astros.

Ok, I’m torn as hell. The part of me that believes sports is better with a bit of chaos can’t help but wonder what would happen if the sign-stealing, soul-destroying, cheatin’ Houston Astros managed to win the Pandemic World Series and become the team that put the ‘f’ and ‘u’ in schadenfreude. How fun would that be for baseball fans?

Just imagine … the empty ballparks resulting from the pandemic have robbed all of us of being able to take our shots personally at the Astros. But if the Astros win and we’re allowed back in in 2021? Woof! Who knew hatred had coat-tails that long.

The other thing, of course, is that this edition of the Astros is managed by Dusty Baker and if you have a problem with Johnnie B. Baker, Jr.? There is a line of folks a couple thousand deep ready to kick your butt. Seriously: if you have a problem with Dusty there is, simply, no hope for you as a human being. Just go. Find another planet.

But at the same time … well, I did pick the Tampa Bay Rays to go to the World Series and it’s been fun watching teams try to out-Ray the Rays. I’ll admit I came out of the games pandemic pause a little disappointed in the Rays. After all, I figured Kevin Cash and his geniuses would have developed a vaccine for Covid-19 in their spare time. Instead, we’ve had to settle for them continuing to do what they do best: find some quirky, nuanced, things to do around the game's margins then sit back and snicker at the rest of us. Rays love has always been a cult kind of thing but against the Astros?

Hell, it’s going to be full-blown. Perhaps no team has been The Good Guys in any series the way the Rays will be in this American League Championship Series.

With the ALCS set to begin Sunday, these six players could have a significant impact on the outcome of the series…

BLAIR’S PICk: Rays in six games.

1. Carlos Correa, SS, Astros

If George Springer comes across as the nice kid who caught up running with a bad crowd, it is Correa who comes across as the wise-ass, leather-jacketed, chain-smoking ring-leader. Few of the cheating Astros play the chip-on-the-shoulder game better than Correa. You know how players nowadays are always reaching into their back pockets for those index cards to help them with positioning? Correa has another card in the other pocket: the victim card. But let’s give the devil his due: after the type of regular season that makes you wonder how much of what you think about a guy is legitimate, he has crushed it during the post-season.

The same holds true for the Astros as a team, following a regular season in which their collective average fell 45 points, their walk-rate diminished by 20 per-cent, their wRC+ went from 153-110 and the team OPS crumbled from a Majors-leading .848 to .720. Correa couldn’t even manage a team-level OPS; he had a career-worst .709. But he’s had four home runs, six walks and 12 runs batted in and is 10-for-20 in these playoffs and is walking the walk.

2. Pete Fairbanks, RHP, Rays

As solid as the Astros have been offensively in the playoffs, theirs is a righthand-heavy lineup with just three left-handed bats in Josh Reddick, Michael Brantley and Kyle Tucker and, well, we all know how the Rays love to play the matchup game. Blake Snell and Ryan Yarbrough are lefties – as is rookie Josh Fleming if Cash decides to start him – but the Rays bullpen is all manner of arm angles and velocity and quirkiness. Fairbanks is another Rays pitcher with velocity and an extreme sense of comfort in attacking the top of the zone and he’ll see some serious high-leverage given Cash’s aggressiveness, perhaps even closing out a game. One thing Fairbanks and any Rays pitcher will surely be aware of: even when the Astros were scuffling miserably this season they still didn’t strikeout. You still had to work against them.

3. Tyler Glasnow, RHP, Rays

Your eyes weren’t deceiving you. As Rays TV analyst Doug Waechter told Kevin Barker and myself on Baseball Central, Glasnow’s 101 miles per hour pitches he threw at the Yankees in the ALDS were three to five miles per hour more than where his fastball sat during the regular season, and given the attention this series is going to garner because of the universal dislike of the Astros, this could be the big right-handers shining moment.

It ought to scare the bejeezus out of everybody that on the eve of the ALCS Cash told reporters that he and his coaches “learned a lot” about managing a pitching staff in a playoff format with no off-days, promising to be “creative” and “efficient” with his starters. Where Glasnow fits in after 2 1/3 innings on Friday on short rest is intriguing. Could they go with an opener after Charlie Morton in Game 2, leaving Glasnow for Game 4? Or go with Glasnow on three days rest in Game 3, which would mean he could get the ball on short rest in Game 7 if necessary. Glasnow pitched 2 1/3 innings on two days rest in the clincher against the Yankees and, well, I can’t see Cash hanging on to Glasnow until a fourth game, can you? Especially if the Astros hitting really has awakened. Snell’s start in Game 1 probably sets up or messes everything up for Cash, but seeing where Glasnow slots in might be the most intriguing aspect of this series. He was one of the pitchers victimized in the 2019 post-season by the Astros. My guess is he’d like a piece of them.

4. Lance McCullers, Jr., RHP, Astros

He isn’t getting the Game 1 start. That will go to Framber Valdez. But McCullers is getting Game 2 as the Astros continue the post-season tight-rope walk necessitated by Justin Verlander’s absence and Zack Greinke’s ineffectiveness. At some point in this series, somebody will need to give Dusty Baker some length and McCullers post-season pedigree and the highest ground-ball rate in MLB over the regular-season could be just the ticket. McCullers, who missed all of last season after undergoing Tommy John surgery, was wobbly against the Oakland Athletics in the AL Division Series giving up three home runs in four innings which was a stark contrast to his 1.00 WHIP and .176 batting average against in 11 previous post-season appearances. A caveat: the bulk of his post-season work has been done out of the bullpen, where his signature curveball has at times played up better. Plus, McCullers is just a little more than a month removed from an injection in his neck for nerve irritation.

5. Austin Meadows, RF, Rays

It’s been a whole lot of Randy Arozarena for the Rays this post-season which is good because Brandon Lowe, among other Rays hitters, has had a miserable playoffs. Meadows returned to the Rays lineup for the AL Division Series against the New York Yankees after recovering from a Grade 2 oblique strain and went 2-for-13 – both home runs – with six strikeouts. He’ll see a parade of right-handers once Game 1 starter Framber Valdez is out of the way. Cash has Manuel Margot and Hunter Renfroe as other right-field candidates but Meadows will find himself at the plate in the clutch a great deal in this series. The Rays won’t get much farther without him contributing, is my guess. When healthy he is their best hitter not named You Know Who.

6.Enoli Paredes, RHP, Astros

Remember how we picked Cristian Javier and Valdez as a pair to watch in the ALDS? The possibility of seven games in seven days is certainly going to create some issues for Baker and pitching coach Brent Strom, especially if McCullers and Greinke can’t give them something, because Cash’s deep Rays lineup will give him the platoon advantage more often than not. So middle relief is going to be important in this series – I mean, let’s be honest, what is middle relief these days anyhow? – and ‘Paredes found’ was one of the good things to happen to the Astros in the ALDS win over the Athletics. A prototypical fastball/slider pitcher who keeps the ball in the yard, Paredes is one of nine rookie pitchers who has seen time in the Astros bullpen and gave Baker some nice work in the ALDS. The Astros bullpen had the second-highest walk percentage in the Majors in the regular season and only the Blue Jays lost more games in relief. Yet at one point in this post-season it was riding an 18 1/3-inning scoreless streak. That transformation must continue for the Astros to keep making us all miserable.

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