Where Donnie DID Go Wrong in the 7th

Don’t count me among those who think Don Mattingly rode too long with Clayton Kershaw in this NLDS opener. If there’s a career split that shows Kershaw vulnerable in that 7th-inning situation, I can’t find it:

 

  • vs. LHBs: .187 BA, .559 OPS, 37% Ks
  • Pitch 101+: .213 BA, .609 OPS, 29% Ks
  • 4th PA for batter: .217 BA, .531 OPS
  • Innings 7-9: .201 BA, .541 OPS
  • 2 outs and RISP: .155 BA, .492 OPS, 32% Ks
  • Bases loaded and 2 outs: 5 for 32, 15 Ks, 2 walks

Those mind-boggling numbers are all among the best ever logged by starters. You can still argue that no starter should be left in for that situation — go-ahead runs aboard, 21 pitches in the inning, to face a good hitter who homered in his last trip. But if there’s anyone you’re leaving in, it’s Kershaw.

This wasn’t Grady Little going down with the ship of 31-year-old Pedro Martinez, in the 8th inning of 2003 ALCS game seven. As great as Pedro was that year, he’d lasted past the 7th just five times in 29 starts, showing a marked decline after the middle innings. That fateful night, he reached 115 pitches after two straight two-strike hits made it 5-3 Boston, and 118 after an 0-2 double put the tying runs aboard with one out. And he’d made 21 pitches in the 7th, to strand the tying runs. Grady ignored a lot of alarm bells.

This was 26-year-old Clayton Kershaw, in the 7th inning. He’d gone at least seven in all but five games this year, and eight or more in 15 of 27. He’d shown no tendency to weaken late. Those 21 pitches in the 7th before Carpenter, with no prior stressful innings, and 102 for the game — those doesn’t frighten me. And though he’d made some bad ones in the inning, he looked sharp whiffing Oscar Taveras for the second out. I would have left him in.

Kershaw got 0-and-2 on Carpenter, but the leadoff man put up a great fight, spoiling three before he won the battle. It happens, even to the best.

But here’s where I do fault Mattingly, big-time: Carpenter’s double only put the Cards ahead by one, with two out and a man on second for rookie Randal Grichuk, and Matt Holliday on deck. The Dodgers still had three innings left to bat, and a generic 29% Win Expectancy. The whole lineup would get another chance; they’d gone 12 for 27 already, and there’s Justin Turner on the bench (12 for 30 in the pinch this year). It’s still a huge moment in the game: Strand that runner, and you’re right back in it.

So Donnie turns to … rookie Pedro Baez?

The Dodgers don’t have a deep set-up corps, but I’m still surprised that Baez is even on the roster. Yeah, he had a 2.63 ERA in 24 innings — but with a sub-par 20% K rate and 3 HRs allowed. He’s a converted infielder, with 100 mediocre innings in the minors. Granting that no skipper alive would use his closer in this spot — never mind Kenley Jansen’s career 45% K rate against righties — that still leaves veterans J.P. Howell and Brandon League. Howell’s a southpaw, but very good vs. RHBs the last two years, and a strong postseason record. And he was already warmed up.

But Baez came in, and walked Grichuk. Now the moment’s even bigger: Two on for Holliday, an extra-base-hit machine. A long hit makes the deficit three runs or more. With all that’s happened in the inning, the emotional calculus of the raw rookie against the seasoned star feels like a massive mismatch. After a walk, Baez is bound to feel he has to get ahead. But Holliday lives for first-pitch fastballs; 24% of his career homers were on the first pitch, the second-highest rate of 37 actives with 200+ HRs. A first-pitch fastball here just has to be on target. And for this, you still trust the guy who only turned to pitching last year, and logged a a 1.45 WHIP in the minors, with 10 HRs in 100 IP? Wow.

The Dodgers would score three more runs, and not because Mike Matheny let up with a 10-6 lead; he played his LOOGY on Adrian Gonzalez at the first whisper of a threat, but that one went against form. (Lefties were 7 for 75 off Randy Choate this year, and Gonzalez hit just .201 off southpaws.) They got one off closer Trevor Rosenthal, but the extra cushion proved vital. If Mattingly had played the post-Kershaw 7th like the crucial spot it still was, it might have been a different ballgame.

What do you think — about this game, or any of the thrillers we’ve already seen in just October’s first week?

__________

(All stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.)

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birtelcom
Editor
9 years ago

Well, to play devil’s advocate (or donald’s advocate), Baez’s WHIP in the regular season was a sparkling 0.875, about the same as Kershaw’s. Yes, it’s a very small sample, and Baez’s strikeout numbers were low, but you just need an out in that situation, not necessarily a K. Righty batters had a .240 OBP/.267 SLG/.507 OPS vs. Baez this season. I think Don was legitimately looking for his best chance to get out of the inning there, and was not conceding anything or using any arm less than what he thought was his best shot to get an out there.

pcg
pcg
9 years ago

I think Donnie DID leave Kershaw in for too long, and not based solely on the results or Kershaw’s splits. As per http://dodgersdigest.com/2014/10/04/so-about-clayton-kershaw-and-tipping-pitches/ there were plenty of pitch-based metrics that he was in trouble; with a devastating curve and slider, he was throwing nothing but cheese. And missing his spots, sometimes badly. That’s not the end of the world in the early innings, as good pitchers can work it out. But in high leverage situations, it can go very wrong, very quickly. And as for high leverage, why DON’T managers use their closer there? Short of that, I agree: you… Read more »

pcg
pcg
9 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

Thanks for the followup, John. Being in GMT+2 right now, I didn’t see *any* of it, so I’ll have to defer to accounts and the aforementioned metrics. Those can be deceiving, though; seeing four straight hits and Carpenter at-bat (who, granted, has hit the ENTIRE Dodgers staff hard), my immediate thought was that Kershaw had lost it and Howell might’ve been better there. Of course, that wasn’t the point of your article, and I also thought Baez was an extremely risky move. Your lament that “the reason managers don’t use their closer there is that managers don’t use their closer… Read more »

pcg
pcg
9 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

Just to beat the dead horse a bit more, and at the 11th hour of his next start, here’s Kershaw’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad Game 1 7th inning, in pitch-by-pitch picture form. 🙂

http://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2014/10/7/6938685/clayton-kershaw-nlds-cardinals-tipping-pitches

bstar
9 years ago

I don’t know, John, this seems sort of harsh. Is Brandon League noticeably better than Baez? And J.P. Howell is a lefty, so he can’t be a better choice to face Holliday. Maybe I’m just not the armchair-manager type (probably for sanity-preservation purposes), but to me this was a great, thrilling game. It’s just doesn’t seem necessary to point the finger of blame at anyone specifically. Both teams gave up tons of hits and runs. Combined, two of the game’s greatest pitchers gave up 19 hits and 14 runs. It just strikes me as odd that we would single out… Read more »

bstar
9 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

Ok, it just seemed like a minor thing to me considering everything that happened in the game. And adding to what birtelcom said, Brandon League’s WHIP was over 1.400 for the year and his K rate was actually worse than Baez’s.

I do agree that Kershaw’s brilliant season and overall rep made him basically “un-take-out-able” before Carp’s double, especially after recovering for two K’s that inning with the bags full.

Voomo Zanzibar
Voomo Zanzibar
9 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

It seems to be increasingly common to plop a rookie into that situation.
Giants did it with Hunter Strickland.

I think Scioscia started the trend with Francisco Rodriguez.

The Cards had never seen Baez. Advantage, pitcher.
And he was hot.
Maybe Mattingly looked at his stats this way:

His first appearance was in May.
Gave up a two run homer.

From the time he stuck with the club in August, and discounting a meaningless Game 162 in which he gave up two runs, this is what he did in 17 games:

21.1 IP
12 H
3 R
1.27 era

Voomo Zanzibar
Voomo Zanzibar
9 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

_____________________________________

Micro-parse?
hrmph, yeah, I think you might be crabby.

I’m not defending the move, just trying to figure out what Mattingly was thinking.

You know, I once bought a Mattingly minor league card at a shop on my way home from school. Two jerks jumped me, and I took a punch to the face without retaliation, because I didn’t want the Mattingly card to get bent.

That being said, I dont have a huckuva lot of faith in his managerial pedigree. He was trained by Torre, after Torre had started phoning it in. That is, of course, conjecture.

Voomo Zanzibar
Voomo Zanzibar
9 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

Bad night for pitchers with fancy beards.
And Puig might have concussed Kemp with the gatorade barrel.

pcg
pcg
9 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

If you’re referring to the HR Howell gave up to Carpenter in game 2, maybe Howell had lost his confidence when Mattingly hadn’t called on him to pitch to Carpenter in game 1. 😛

I’m mostly kidding, if only to show the sillier aspect of the “what if?” game. What if Kershaw had retired Carpenter? We likely would be talking about a LAD juggernaut steamrolling their way to a WS victory… instead, here we are in another LAD-STL dogfight…

Darien
9 years ago

I’m curious: who has the *highest* rate of first-pitch homers among actives with 200+ HR?

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
9 years ago
Reply to  Darien

Here are the top 5.
Justin Morneau….25.6%
Matt Hplliday….24.0%
Carlos Pena….23.8%
Miguel Cabrera….23.3%
Robinson Cano….22.9%

Steve
Steve
9 years ago

Donnie was a great hitter and fielder but in 1981 Yankees are in World Series – 1982 Donnie joins the Yankees. 1995 he leaves and in 1996 Yanks win WS. Mattingly short stint as a bench coach -leaves in 2007 – Yanks win WS in ’09…. Donnie Baseball just ain’t lucky?

Voomo Zanzibar
Voomo Zanzibar
9 years ago

This thread is about relief pitching, so I’ll post this here… ___________________ Frankie Rodriguez pitched 68 innings last year. Gave up 14 home runs. That’s bad, but far from record-breaking bad. Glendon Rusch gave up 21 in 66 innings. But looking a little closer… Frankie gave up only 49 hits. That is a home run every 3.5 hits. With a minimum of 50 IP, that has been done by: 68/20 … Doug Waechter (70.1 IP) 49/14 … Francisco Rodriguez (68) 38/11 … Koji Uehara (65) 48/14 … Juan Guzman (60) 38/11 … Bruce Chen (51) 40/12 … Jeff Brantley (50.2)… Read more »

RJ
RJ
9 years ago
Reply to  Voomo Zanzibar

Voomo: You and I had a brief back-and-forth about the unusualness of Sergio Romo’s season not long ago, specifically that he and Yusmeiro Petit were on course to become the first pitchers with 40 IP to have a WHIP less than 1.000 and an ERA+ less than 100. Here’s how they ended up:

Romo: 0.948 WHIP, 94 ERA+ (58 IP)
Petit: 1.017 WHIP, 95 ERA+ (117 IP)

Out of nowhere contender Nick Vincent: 1.000 WHIP, 93 ERA+ (55 IP)

So Romo is the first to “achieve” this, going by a strictly ‘less than’ definition.

Voomo Zanzibar
Voomo Zanzibar
9 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

It was fun to watch him give up Mariano Rivera’s lone career RBI:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN200906280.shtml

Voomo Zanzibar
Voomo Zanzibar
9 years ago

Dammit, I’ll say who DID go wrong…

Whoever on the Giants’ staff thought it would be a good idea to get Bryan Danielson to pump up the crowd. Total jinx right there.

Pence referenced his chant, and did a fine job of it.
No need to go get the the man himself.
Besides which, Bryan is from Aberdeen, Washington. Doubt he’s a real fan.

They are down 4-0 in the 9th as I write this.

Voomo Zanzibar
Voomo Zanzibar
9 years ago

Scott Elbert?

Since this thing wont let me post a two-word post, Ill just ask the question again:

Scott Elbert?

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