Job's Not Done

Heavyweight Bout In Its Final Rounds

Baseball has a way of making you question whether you understand all the forces at work in our universe. Game 2 of the NLDS featured this first inning home run robbery:

This angle captures it even better:

Courtesy: @Padres

Profar fooled most of the stadium, the broadcast, and Mookie Betts. Xander Bogaerts seemed to know. Or he just had faith.

It was near deja vu when the first inning of game 3 saw Mookie Betts lob one towards the short porch again, this time in Petco:

Profar couldn’t quite bring it back. The similarity was uncanny. Right down to Betts getting fooled again:

The Dodgers led 1-0 after the first, but the avant-garde base running foreshadowed what was to come.

Baseball IQ

The Padres had gone down in order in the top of the first, but Manny Machado led off the second inning with a single. Jackson Merrill followed and hit it sharply to Freddie Freeman who made a good stop:

In full speed it appears to be an errant throw from Freeman, but it wasn’t. It was something more sinister. We didn't notice it at the time. But when we saw the replay of Freeman’s throw, it was unsettling... there was intent behind it:

No, just kidding. It was actually just a super high baseball IQ play from Manny Machado. Machado executed perfect situational baserunning. When the ball is hit to Freeman you can see Machado run to the inside of the basepath to occupy the throwing lane between Freeman and shortstop Miguel Rojas. Base coaches drill this. It’s sometimes referred to as ‘running to the glove’. In fact Freeman would say after the game he would have done exactly what Machado did. Here’s the whole replay with all the angles that show Machado’s recognition and execution:

Amazingly that play might have been the second best base running display of the game as on the very next play Jackson Merrill sowed chaos through the Dodgers defense:

As Machado demonstrated, runners can position themselves to disrupt throwing lanes, and indeed many runners from first slow up on double play balls like this and make themselves an obstacle the fielder has to throw around. Merrill’s internal clock told him he had a chance to beat Rojas. So Merrill instead sprinted right to the bag and slid in to beat the play at second by a millisecond.

Baseball IQ isn’t one of the classic five tools of baseball scouting. It falls into the ‘intangibles’ category. This is the stuff that gives spreadsheet enthusiasts nightmares. It’s extraordinarily hard to quantify these traits because there are no common conventions to document the frequency or magnitude of high IQ plays. But without exception veterans of the game believe there is a skill gap between players’ baseball IQ’s. And it’s very hard to watch players like Manny Machado and Jackson Merrill and believe that these intangible qualities aren’t real.

Merrill’s hustle was matched by Xander Bogaerts who also beat Rojas’ throw to first. Machado scored to tie the game 1-1.

David Peralta followed. Peralta was instrumental in helping the Padres weather the absence of Fernando Tatis Jr for much of the season. He was instrumental in game 2 when he gave the Padres an early lead with a 2nd inning home run off Jack Flaherty. On Tuesday he was instrumental once again:

On the broadcast Joe Davis and John Smoltz noted they’d seen Peralta putting on a show before the game in batting practice, at one point hitting five straight home runs. Peralta can still hit. His two run double put the Padres up 3-1.

Jake Cronenworth would follow Peralta with an infield single to put runners on first and third, and Kyle Higashioka would hit a deep sac fly to give the Padres a 4-1 lead.

After a Luis Arraez pop out Fernando Tatis would come to bat with two outs and Cronenworth still on first:

Fox Sports has been trying to find the proper role for the umpire camera angle in its broadcasts, including sometimes inexplicably using it for live game coverage where it is very miscast. The best role for the Ump Cam is probably those rare plays where the umpire is steady enough to give a good look at a titanic home run in slow motion:

The Padres led 6-1 after two innings.

Cement Mixer

Michael King flashed several very sharp pitches early on including a devastating sweeper to strike out Shohei Ohtani to start the game:

That sweeper was thrown with 2917 RPM yielding 36 inches of drop and 19 inches of horizontal break. An absurdly good pitch shape. King’s sequence was 4-seam fastball, sinker, changeup, sinker, then the sweeper for the strikeout.

In the 2nd inning he would throw the same sweeper to Will Smith, this time with a more human 2816 RPM with 35 inches of drop and 13 inches of horizontal break.

It was still effective. King sequenced Smith 4-seam fastball, sinker, 4-seam fastball, sweeper for the strikeout.

After the Padres scored six runs in the second King would take the hill in the 3rd inning but run into trouble when Miguel Rojas hit a seeing-eye ground ball for a single, followed by a shattered bat bloop single from Ohtani, and a single from Mookie Betts to right field to load the bases for Freddie Freeman. Freeman would line out sharply to left field and a quick throw from Jurickson Profar kept the runner from third (Andy Pages pinch running for Rojas) from scoring.

Teoscar Hernandez would come up with the bases still loaded and one out.

King would get ahead of Hernandez after sequencing sinker, 4-seam fastball, sinker, sinker running the count to 1-2. On the fifth pitch of the at bat, after a steady diet of fastballs, King attempted to break off the same elite sweeper he’d used to get Ohtani and Smith earlier in the game:

That was a cement mixer, a slider that spun (2751 RPM) but didn’t break sharply. The pitch shape was similar to that of the sweeper to Will Smith, but the sweeper thrown to Hernandez was much higher in the zone with the steeper trajectory neutralizing the effectiveness of the pitch’s drop. Your classic hanging slider. If King had instead located the pitch where he’d intended to, starting around the middle of the zone and diving towards the outer half, there would have been a much better chance at a swing through or a ground ball. King would escape without further damage but the game was 6-5.

Both Walker Buehler and Michael King would recover from their bad innings to pitch through the 5th without allowing anymore scoring.

Relief

The Padres would give the 6th inning to Jeremiah Estrada. Estrada was electric. He started Teoscar Hernandez with a slider for a called strike, then a 98.1 MPH 4-seam fastball with a ludicrous 23 inches of induced vertical break that Hernandez swung under and fouled off. After another 4-seamer out of the zone Estrada finished the at bat with this pitch:

That it the “chitter”, the split-fingered changeup, executed to perfection. Estrada is a future closer if he can execute like this. The velocity on the 4-seam fastball appears to be all the way back to where it was before Estrada’s bizarre midseason illness which caused him to lose 15 pounds. What’s more impressive is that every 4-seam fastball Estrada threw Tuesday had at least 20 inches of induced vertical break (rightmost column below):

The induced vertical break (iVB) causes the fastball to look like it is rising as it heads to the plate, and hitters have a very hard time adjusting to this. Estrada would finish off the next hitter, Max Muncy, with back to back 98 MPH 4-seam fastballs with 20 and 22 inches of iVB which Muncy swung under both times:

Estrada would get Will Smith to roll over a slider to end the inning.

This was Estrada’s best outing in some time. He looked nervous in his first playoff action against the Braves in the Wild Card round, leaving several pitches over the middle of the plate. Against the Dodgers in game 1 of the NLDS none of his 4-seamers reached an iVB better than 19 inches. He put everything together Tuesday night, elite stuff and location. When he does that he can be another lockdown bullpen arm. Amassing relievers who can do that shortens games…

Jason Adam took the 7th inning and faced the Dodgers 7-8-9, the crucial part of the lineup that sets the table for Shohei Ohtani. Adam pitched a clean inning setting up Ohtani to come to the plate to start the 8th with the bases empty.

Tanner Scott was brought in to face Ohtani to start the 8th. This was the third time Ohtani had seen Scott in the series, but interestingly Scott has been showing Ohtani different looks. It would seem this is not a strategy directed towards Ohtani, but the result of adjustments to the game situations in each outing. Watch Scott’s delivery mechanics in game 1, note the high leg kick:

During Ohtani’s at bat game one Tommy Edman was repeatedly trying to steal second, finally successfully doing so the pitch before Scott struck Ohtani out. Scott never went away from the high leg kick and Edman stole second easily.

In game 2 Scott’s outing started with his normal high leg kick, but when Tommy Edman reached on an infield single he went with a slide step the rest of the inning:

This was pretty clearly a change meant to make it harder for Edman to steal, but it gave Ohtani a different look.

In game 3 Scott faced Ohtani with no runners on and was back to his usual high leg kick. He struck Ohtani out in games 1 and 2 by inducing Ohtani to go up the ladder chasing high fastballs. In game 3 Scott froze him with a painted slider on the outside corner.

In playoff series hitters often get several looks at the same reliever in close proximity, something that is very rare during the regular season. This can have the effect of neutralizing some of the reliever’s effectiveness as the hitter becomes more comfortable in successive at bats. It’s hard to say if Scott changing his mechanics will have any incidental effect on Ohtani’s comfort level against him. There isn’t any data to help inform this. But it’s interesting to consider. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the Padres got Tanner Scott specifically for the purpose of getting out Ohtani and similar left handed sluggers in the playoffs. Scott has been effective against Ohtani over his career and through the playoffs so far.

Scott would retire Mookie Betts to get the second out of the 8th before giving up a single to a hobbled Freddie Freeman who would immediately leave the game for a pinch runner.

Mucho Stress

What follow was for many the highest stress decision of the game. Mike Shildt called on Robert Suarez to face Teoscar Hernandez and try for the 4-out save. Hernandez has very heavy career platoon splits with a near .900 OPS off left handers and a .778 OPS off right handers. This certainly factored in to Shildt’s decision.

Suarez’ September struggles have been well chronicled. He’s gotten into to trouble when certain hitters have been able to foul off numerous fastballs and hone in on perfectly timing up the pitch. And that’s why it was a little nerve wracking when Hernandez saw five straight fastballs to start the at bat. But he popped out on a 100.1 MPH 4-seam fastball to end the 8th.

Suarez was given the 9th as well and started Max Muncy with a 4-seam fastball that was fouled off. He missed the zone with his second 4-seamer. For the third pitch in the at bat Suarez executed one of the most effective changeups in his career, a 90.8 MPH offering with 28 inches of drop and 19 inches of arm side run that fooled Muncy badly:

Suarez would follow up with a 99.9 MPH 4-seamer that Muncy couldn’t catch up with for strike three:

Will Smith would ground to Xander Bogaerts on a first pitch sinker for the second out of the inning.

Gavin Lux came up representing the Dodgers final chance. Suarez’ sequence to Lux was a baseball classic:

• 4-seam fastball (ball)

• Changeup (foul)

• 4-seam fastball (swing and miss)

• Changeup (ball)

• 4-seam fastball (foul)

• Changeup (ball)

• 4-seam fastball (swinging strike three)

He alternated the 4-seam fastball with the changeup seven times in a row. That meant that by the seventh pitch, even though Lux had seen four 4-seam fastballs, he hadn’t been able to time it up the way Parker Meadows, Heliot Ramos, and Lenyn Sosa had been able to in September. Here was Lux trying to catch up to Suarez’ final 4-seam fastball:

Suarez is the team’s closer. And his outing Tuesday revealed that his stuff is still elite:

More importantly his outing Tuesday showed he wasn’t trying to get by on stuff alone. He was showing craft. He was pitching.

Job’s Not Done

The Padres have the Dodgers on the ropes. Wednesday they’ll get a chance to knock them out of the playoffs altogether. Through three NLDS games it is clear that the Dodgers are a very good team. And the Padres might be even better. But that’s not a guarantee of victory in a short series.

The NLDS has been a heavyweight bout that has exceeded expectations. Dylan Cease will take the mound game four to attempt to put the Padres back in the NLCS. We’ll see you there.