World Series Game 7 Preview
There’s no middle ground. Tonight will either be the best night of my life, or the absolute very worst. The Cubs will be the 2016 World Series Champions or they won’t. It’s your textbook feast or famine scenario, and there is literally nothing you or I can do to impact it.
In the same respect, you can at least prepare yourself for what promises to be one hell of an agonizing experience… at least have some baseline understanding of how this Game 7 is shaping up. Maybe even offer some insight to friends along the way? I don’t know. All I know is that I’m freaking out – legitimately freaking out – as I type this sentence so let’s cut the bullshit pleasantries and get down to fucking business. Here’s your official 2016 World Series Game 7 Preview.
(Again, I can’t believe I’m about to type this.)
Score Early
This is an obvious one, but not to be overlooked given its importance. And I want to be clear this isn’t about scoring first. It’s about scoring early. The winning team in every game… with the exception of Game 3 at 1-0… has held the lead after 4 innings. It’s about setting the tempo early and letting your pitching staff settle in. This is not the time of year you want to be chasing runs, obviously. And the fact that Andrew Miller creepily lurks in the background, waiting to throw 45 plus-plus-plus sliders is not something the Cubs need to explore any further. We know how filthy he is, and we know the best way to avoid him is to score a bunch in the first half of the game. So let’s do that.
Prevent The Big Inning
Like scoring early, this one is extremely obvious too. And again, it’s not to be overlooked given its importance. The Indians have scored more than 2 runs in an inning just once since Roberto Perez’s Game 1, 8th-inning 3-run homerun. That’s 45 innings worth of baseball, and only one those innings has seen the Indians score more than 2 runs. It came in top-7 of Game 4 when Kipnis stroked a 3-run job to right off Travis Wood with the Indians already leading at the time 4-1. Outside of that – two late game 3-run homers with Andrew Miller already nursing 3-run leads – the Indians haven’t put together a big, meaningful inning so far this series. Meaningful? Yes of course. But big AND meaningful? Not quite to say the least and there’s no reason to start now. So that’s obviously a major focal point for the staff to build on heading into tonight = mitigate the Indians’ scoring opportunities.
Get A Big Inning
Compare that to the Cubs who have 3 separate big innings of 3+ runs in the last two games. Here’s how those innings looked:
(1) Game 5, bottom-4 = homerun (rbi), double, single, single (rbi), strikeout (1 out), single, sac-fly (rbi, 2 out), strikeout (3 out)
(2) Game 6, top-1 = lineup (1 out), groundout (2 out), homerun (solo, rbi), single, single, double/Tyler Naquin and Lonnie Chisenhall suck (2 rbi’s), flyball (3 out)
(3) Game 6, top-3 = walk, flyball (1 out), single, single, GRAND SLAM (4 rbi’s), groundout (2 out), popfly (3 out)
Those are the innings that haunt pitchers’ dreams, and its representative of how the Cubs’ lineup scores runs. The plan is to get a pitch to drive early in the count. If you get your pitch, unload on it. If you don’t, be patient and don’t expand the strike zone for the pitcher. If the guy in front of you hits it hard, be a little more aggressive early in the count. If the guy in front of you gets out, be a little more patient. In Game 5, that meant Bryant taking a 1-1 dick-high fastball out to left center for a solo shot. Then Rizzo ripped a double on his 0-0 pitch. Then Zobrist hit a 3-0 missile into right center. Then Russell grinded out a 1-2 infield single. Then Baez bunt for a hit on 0-1. And then Ross battled off three foul balls to get a sac-fly into center.
In the top of the 1st of Game 6 it was Bryant taking 2 called strikes after Fowler and Schwarber (typing his name feels so good) got out on 5 pitches to start the game. Bryant was patient and Tomlin rewarded him with a cement-mixing curveball right down broadway that ended up in the left field bleachers. Then Rizzo and Zobrist smoked the 3rd and 2nd pitch from Bauer respectively for back-to-back singles, which then obviously led to Addison Russell’s ghost double in-between Tyler Naquin and Lonnie Chisenhall. Yes, the play should have been made. But the Cubs created the opportunity to capitalize on a Cleveland mistake and that’s exactly what happens when you string hits together in a pressure situation.
And then it happened again last night in the top of the 3rd starting with a 7-pitch walk from Schwarber. He got to 2-0, took a borderline strike to 2-1 (that’s what it means to be patient), then took a massive swing-and-miss at a 2-1 fastball to go to 2-2. Schwarber took another ball to get to 3-2 then fouled off a tough pitch only to draw a walk on the next. Tomlin rarely walks anyone so this is a huge, huge at-bat for the Cubs. Bryant then flies out to right on an 0-0 pitch (that’s what it means to be aggressive) but was then followed by back-to-back singles AGAIN from Rizzo and Zobrist except this time they both worked the count to 2 strikes. That ultimately loaded the bases for Addison Russell, which enabled him to do this to a 2-0 fastball from reliever Dan Otero:
And just like that, the Cubs have 7 runs on the board in the 3rd inning. Sure, you can isolate Russell’s grand slam and the Tyler Naquin/Lonnie Chisenhall debacle. You can say those were the 2 distinct Oh Fuck moments for the Indians. But the reality is that the Cubs’ lineup does so, so much to create those opportunities in the first place. Whether it’s feeding off the guy in front of you and building momentum with an aggressive at bat. Or it’s being patient to try and find a way on base so the next guy can do his job – whatever it may be. The lineup is built to put pressure on the opposing pitcher to open up the opportunity for the 3+ run inning. And the way you do that is consistently grinding through at-bats, getting on first, taking the extra base and hitting the living piss out of mistake pitches. Each and every one of those things will drive a pitcher mad, and the more you can get to the opposing pitcher, the more likely you’re going to see mistake pitches. And that’s when you really do your damage.
Kluber and Game 6 Adjustments
All this talk about Corey Kluber makes me thirsty for a glass of his tears.
“Drink up, carl” – Corey Kluber
I get it, you get it, we all get it (because we’ve seen it)… Corey Kluber is an outstanding MLB #1 starting pitcher. No two ways around it. But the narrative of him shutting down the Cubs in Game 7… not a story around whether or not he will shut down the Cubs in Game 7… but the already-accepted narrative that he’s shutting down the Cubs again on short rest is downright silly. It’s insane. It’s fucking preposterous.
Again, Kluber is very good. We’ve seen how dominant he can be when commanding a plus sinker, plus cutter and plus-plus slider. At the same time, the Cubs just unloaded a very routine 9 runs on his comrades. In the process, the entire lineup managed to lay off the down-and-away-soft-stuff that ate our lunch Games 1-5. That adjustment… that one, simple adjustment of laying off down-and-away when even or behind in the count… is worth more than I can possibly begin to explain because it’s at the center of the Indians’ gameplan. They’ve killed the Cubs by jumping ahead 0-1 by mixing get-me-over-breaking-balls with heavy fastballs (cutters and sinkers) down in the zone on 0-0. Then after getting ahead in the count, the Indians have expanded the strike zone by baiting the Cubs’ hitters into swinging at plain old shit. As a result, we’ve seen 0-1 and 1-1 counts turn into 0-2 and 1-2 counts at an alarming pace.
But then in Game 6, those 0-1 and 1-1 counts started turning into 1-1 and 2-1 counts because the lineup stopped aggressively chasing pitches outside the zone to drive. Simply put, the lineup was disciplined. So if the lineup maintains that discipline in Game 7 – as everyone should expect – then Kluber should be forced into far more 1-1, 2-1 and ultimately 3-1 counts. And when that happens, you can spare me the bullshit invincible-workhorse narrative that surrounds Corey Kluber. Anyone consistently pitching to this Cubs team in those counts is going to look like dogshit.
Will that be Kluber tonight? Obviously no one knows yet. But if you’re asking me to handicap tonight’s matchup, I have no choice but to read heavily into the lineup’s Game 6 adjustment. And let there be no doubt – it’s substantial enough to get to Kluber very early tonight.
Lester To Bullpen*
How about Jonny boy putting himself in the bullpen for Game 7? I love it, which leads me to the next question: How many guys with $180,000,000 worth of career contracts are wired like Jon Lester? This guy wants a ring so bad it’s almost impossible to think that a city like Cleveland is capable of denying him. He’s a cancer surviver, a 2-time World Series champion, 4-time all star, a multiple Cy Young Award finalist and the current owner of a 2.62 postseason career ERA over 21 postseason appearances spanning 130 postseason innings across 7 separate postseasons. That’s a lot of postseason, and a lot to be proud of.
But Lester’s not going out to bullpen tonight for pride. He’s going out to the bullpen because he knows he can keep Cleveland off the board when it matter’s most. He knows it will take more than Hendricks to bridge the gap to Chapman. He knows Chapman has extended himself this postseason well past the point Chapman ever exepcted. He knows Andrew Miller is waiting for the Indians the second they take a lead. And he knows that coming out of the bullpen in Game 7 of the World Series on 2 days rest gives the Cubs’ the best chance of winning, and WE KNOW that’s all this motherfucker cares about.
Finally, I hope Lester is out in the bullpen for the entire game. I don’t want him pulling the Mark-Buerhle-had-to-put-on-his-spikes-in-the-9th-inning bullshit from 2005. Instead, I hope he’s sitting there with CJ and Grimm and Wood and all the others keeping things calm and cool from pitch #1. In return, I hope the younger guys absorb every imaginable ounce of his demeanor and experience, and I hope they pick his brain inside and out on the Indians lineup. I imagine Lester gets to make the call on when he heads out to the bullpen. But I cannot imagine there’s a better starting pitcher in MLB suited for the job.
Intangibles
Theres’ no way I’m skipping a game 7 preview without closing on this. The Cubs have the momentum. The Cubs are in the driver seat. The Cubs are starting the front runner for the 2016 NL Cy Young, and sending the #2 choice to the bullpen to back him up. The Cubs are coming off their biggest win EVER. And the Cubs are favorites to win. On the road. Game 7. Against our opponents’ best pitcher. If you asked anyone at the start of the year, “Would you take the Cubs right now -120 favorites in a World Series Game 7 on the road against the Indians?” The answer would have been a resounding FUCK YES BRING ME THE TRIBE. So remember: this is where we want to be, this is where we deserve to be, and this is where we will be for a very, very long time.
The Dynasty begins tonight.
*Lester to bullpen footnote: Lester pitched Sunday, which means he’s on 2 days rest. Starting pitchers typically throw a practice bullpen the 3rd day after a start. It’s not a max effort bullpen. It’s more like a 40 pitches at about 60-70% effort of your normal stuff. You work on your delivery, location and whatever else you want to polish up before your next start. You prepare for this bullpen almost exactly how you’d prepare for a start. So even though Lester only has 2 days rest, he’s not going THAT far out of his way to be ready for Game 7.