Corey Kluber Dominates Again, As The Indians Shutout The Blue Jays In Game 1 Of The ALCS
So much for that quad injury. There are only three starting pitchers with a 0.00 ERA in the postseason this year — Noah Syndergaard, who will watch the remainder of the playoffs from his couch, Jon Lester of the Cubs, and Corey Kluber, who is the only one out of these three to make more than one start.
In Game 1 of the American League Championship Series, the Cleveland Indians got to set their rotation the way that they actually wanted to. Well, sort of. Trevor Bauer’s Game 2 start was moved to Game 3, because he sliced his finger open while repairing one of his drones. But unlike in the ALDS, the Indians were able to set the tone by starting their ace, Kluber, in Game 1. As was the case for Kluber against the Red Sox in Game 2 of the Division Series, the results were the same against the Blue Jays in Game 1 of the League Championship Series — dominance.
Kluber, who had no prior postseason experience, pitched into the seventh inning for his second consecutive postseason start on Friday night. The right-hander allowed six hits over 6.1 shutout innings, walked a pair and struck out six. Despite pitching in a losing effort, you could argue that Toronto’s Marco Estrada actually had the better outing. Estrada tossed an 8-inning complete game, allowing six hits, one of which was a two-run home run to Francisco Lindor, while striking out six and walking one. If you go by game score, Kluber’s outing was a 65, and Estrada’s was a 67.
But nobody cares about which outing was “technically” better. It’s about getting the win, and that’s what Kluber did for his team in Game 1. He was at 99 pitches after 6 innings, and the question became, does Indians manager Terry Francona bring Kluber back out for the seventh? My response to that was, an ace comes back out in that situation, and Kluber is an ace. He came back out for the seventh, got Kevin Pillar to ground out on one pitch, and then it was Andrew Miller time.
This fucking guy is out of his mind. I mean, he has been for the last three years or so, but now he’s finally getting the chance to show the world what he’s capable of on a national scale. So far this postseason, Miller has appeared in three games, faced 22 batters and struck out 12 of them, without allowing a run. If you wanna go back to 2014 when he made his postseason debut with the Baltimore Orioles, Miller has appeared in nine postseason games in his career, pitched 14 innings, has 22 strikeouts, and an ERA of 0.00. Opponents are hitting .091 with a .300 OPS against Miller in the postseason. Yeah.
Mix in the fact that Miller isn’t even the Tribe’s closer, and that you still have to go through Cody Allen in the late innings after Miller, and I’d say that Cleveland is in a real good position to do some damage in this series if they can get their starters to go deep into games. This postseason, Miller and Allen have combined for a 16.76 K/9, 1.14 WHIP, and a pristine 0.00 ERA in 9.2 innings.
Looking ahead here, we’ve got JA Happ and Josh Tomlin in Game 2 tonight, Trevor Bauer and Marcus Stroman in Game 3, and Mike Clevinger against Aaron Sanchez in Game 4. By the looks of it, the only matchup that heavily favors Toronto is Game 4. The Blue Jays still have the edge in Game 2, but Tomlin has flown under the radar because he was the Tribe’s fifth starter. This was a guy who had a 1.69 ERA in the month of September to finish the season, and got the win against Boston to close out the Division Series.
The Game 3 matchup features a couple of guys who could either shut a lineup down, or totally implode, so that’ll be interesting. And Game 4 is basically a “Yeah, we didn’t really have anybody else to start this game” situation for Cleveland. But who knows? Maybe Clevinger surprises us, and it turns into a decent pitching matchup. All things considered, this should be a really fun series.
Final score: Indians 2, Blue Jays 0 — CLE leads 1-0