Baseball Musings: Playoffs Today

October 27, 2006

Playoffs Today

It's do or die time for the Detroit Tigers as they send Justin Verlander to the mound to face Jeff Weaver of the Cardinals. The radar doesn't look good right now. The weather report is iffy for tonight but pretty good for tomorrow. In fact, it should be better in St. Louis tomorrow than in Detroit.

Leyland stuck with Verlander instead of moving up Rogers. Part of that is Kenny's success in Comerica Park. But the Tigers need to get their first. Verlander brings one positive with him this post season, the ability to strike out batters. He's taken out 19 batters in 15 2/3 innings with the K. But balance that against the negatives:

A home run every three innings.
A walk every other inning.
A defense unable to turn balls into play into outs. The Tigers DER behind Verlander in the playoffs is .643. It was .706 during the regular season.

It's been either "swing and a miss" or "swing and a drive" for Verlander. To make matters worse, the Tigers only scored one run while Justin's been in the game. So Leyland is not going with his best option to stay alive. On the other hand, he's going to need to pitch Verlander sometime, so why not show confidence in the young man? It will probably help in the future.

La Russa went the other route. After Reyes' superb game 1 performance, Tony decided he was better off with Weaver in game 5. Weaver hasn't wowed anyone with strikeouts, but he's kept his walks and home runs low. Weaver's defense kept the hits low, as they've put up a .740 DER behind him.

The signs point to a Cardinals victory tonight. A mistake free game by Detroit might provide them with a ticket back to Motown, but right now the Tigers are looking more like Leyland's Pirates teams, superior to their opponents but unable to finish the job.

Enjoy!

Posted by David Pinto at 11:41 AM | World Series | TrackBack (0)

Comments

What do you make of the fact that Verlander's K rate is up during the post-season, but he's getting hit a lot harder?

Posted by: Jurgen at October 27, 2006 12:18 PM

The Tiger blogosphere is profoundly split on the game 5 starter: some say you've got to win with Verlander sooner or later, some say Leyland is nuts to start him tonight. I think it's a close call, and the deciding factor is how Rogers might be treated in Busch Stadium after the blotch incident. Rogers has a history of being rattled at times, so it's probably wise to save him for Detroit.

To me, the Tigers have returned to their true nature after excelling in the AL playoffs. Their pitching is strong, their offense is overly dependent on the longball and hamstrung by low OBAs, and their defense is often excellent but occasionally frightful. Flaws tend to be magnified in the postseason; the Tigers' flaws have suddenly manifested themselves all at once.

Posted by: johnw at October 27, 2006 12:31 PM

He's facing better hitters on average than he did in the regular season.

Posted by: David Pinto at October 27, 2006 12:34 PM

Jeff Weaver -- the guy the Yankees no longer wanted, the Dodgers didn't want, the guy the Angels released earlier this year -- he's starting the potentially clinching game & last home game for the Cardinals? Somehow, that just doesn't seem right.

Posted by: rbj at October 27, 2006 02:23 PM

The Tigers have to win 3 games in a row - so might as well let Rogers start where he has the most chance of success, which would be in game 6.

Posted by: JeremyR at October 27, 2006 04:10 PM

It's a little worse to lose in 5 games than 6 (extra home playoff game with attendant revenue), but not that much.

I would also quibble with the assessment of the Tigers as markedly superior to the Cardinals. The Cardinals regular season record was a product of mediocre talent at the back-end of the rotation, lineup and bullpen, plus injuries to the Big Three. Neither of those is as big a factor as it was then, and it's not like the Tigers aren't playing Neifi Perez!

The Tigers have one position player in the same class as a healthy Edmonds or Rolen (Guillen), no one in the same class as Pujols, and no pitcher in the same class with Carpenter. It's tough to be the worse team with that kind of top-end talent superiority!

(And I say this as a Tigers fan, who recognizes that if the pitchers could field their position this could be a very different Series.)

Posted by: Subrata Sircar at October 27, 2006 05:25 PM