MLB playoffs 2016: Indians' bullish bullpen strategy pays off, but barely

Jesse Spector

MLB playoffs 2016: Indians' bullish bullpen strategy pays off, but barely image

BOSTON — As the champagne and beer flowed in the visitors’ clubhouse at Fenway Park, the emotions were what you would expect; a mix of joy for having advanced to the next round of the playoffs and excitement for the opportunity ahead.

There also was relief. As much praise as Terry Francona has gotten for his work to undo decades of bullpen strategy geared toward using the best relievers only for the final three outs of games, rather than in the most important situations, Cleveland’s manager got away with one on Monday night as his team squeaked by the Red Sox, 4-3, to complete a sweep in the American League division series and advance to an AL Championship Series matchup with the Blue Jays.

It took 35 pitches from Andrew Miller in the sixth and seventh innings and 40 from Cody Allen to get the final two outs, sandwiched around an 11-pitch appearance by Bryan Shaw, for Cleveland to survive Boston’s attempt to rally from a three-run deficit. Had Travis Shaw not popped up to end the series, Cleveland suddenly would have been in a world of trouble.

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“We don’t want to play them where they can pick up any momentum,” Miller told Sporting News. “It doesn’t mean that I doubt that we still would’ve won the series, but the ideal way to do that is to put them down, as soon as you can, and we did it, did a great job. That’s a really, really good team, and to play the way we did, I think, showed the kind of team we are.”

Momentum is a tricky thing to assess in baseball, but the Red Sox were clearly building it in the ninth inning. As Shaw came to bat, Allen’s pitch count was at 34, and nobody was warming up in the Cleveland bullpen. The count went full and MVP candidate Mookie Betts loomed on deck if Shaw could work his way on base.

Game 4 never was likely after Cleveland took its 4-1 lead, but Boston’s win expectancy had jumped from 4.9% to 17.6% after Jackie Bradley Jr.’s two-out single and the walk that followed to Dustin Pedroia. That’s a statistical probability. The feeling  at Fenway Park was very different. Allen had a devil of a time trying to find the strike zone even early in his outing, and certainly wasn’t getting any better as he ran out of gas.

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“If we have a lead, we’ll certainly try to win the game any way we can,” Francona had said before the game. “And then if by chance we don’t win, we’ll start to think about tomorrow.”

It’s a philosophy that’s easy to get on board with, but it is not without risk. Miller might have been able to pitch in Game 4, at least a little bit, but it’s hard to see how Allen would have been available on Tuesday had Game 3 gone past Shaw – and if it had, Allen was staying in.

“He was going to finish one way or another,” Francona said. “You kind of throw pitch counts out the window in a game like this. I know where it was, but he was going to finish, like I said, one way or another.”

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It’s not to say that Trevor Bauer would have failed to rise to the occasion and deliver depth in Game 4 the way that Corey Kluber did after a taxing Game 1 for the Cleveland bullpen, but Francona’s risk exposure was clear. If the Red Sox won Game 3, Boston was going to go into Game 4 knowing that it was facing a depleted Cleveland bullpen.

When you’re tearing down the existing system in the sport and building a new one, you’re a genius until your moves come back to bite you in the ass. Francona pulled his pants down on Monday night, daring the baseball gods, and got away with it. The good thing, in addition to winning, is that his players love him for it and believe in everything he’s doing.
 
“(Francona is) the best,” said Miller, who this season has been a closer for the Yankees, then a setup man after Aroldis Chapman returned from his suspension, and now a 1970s-style fireman for Cleveland. “It’s a pleasure to play for him, and a special experience to come in and do this, and I’m happy to be here."

Jesse Spector