Putting McCullers back in rotation isn’t a bad idea for ALCS
Since the calendar turned to August, Lance McCullers Jr. has pitched only 16 meaningful innings of baseball. A back issue followed by a bout of arm fatigue cost him almost all of the season’s second half, fogging our memory of his first-half success.
But behind veteran aces Justin Verlander and Dallas Keuchel, the Astros still have a young starter who pitched his way to July’s MLB All-Star Game. When he’s right, McCullers has shown the ability to shut down most any lineup. And as the Astros contemplate their plan against the New York Yankees in the American League Championship Series, which begins Friday night at Minute Maid Park, McCullers has a case for inclusion in their rotation.
In his lone outing in the AL Division Series, McCullers pitched in relief. It was a role he had never before occupied, yet in
his first three innings, he looked much closer to the All-Star pitcher of the first half than the one who struggled with fastball control after the break.
His appearance against the Red Sox came in Game 3, the Astros’ lone loss of the series, and in his first three innings, he struck out four and worked around two singles and a walk. The 24-year-old righthander got seven swings and misses on his signature power curveball and another on his fastball, which he ran up to 97 mph.
Early in his fourth inning, McCullers’ command faltered. A fourpitch walk to Boston’s Andrew Benintendi and a single by Mookie Betts spelled the end of his outing. But with his threeplus innings, McCullers recorded more outs than any other Astros pitcher in Game 3, including starter Brad Peacock, who completed only 22⁄3 innings.
Peacock, it should be noted, earned the Game 3 start over Charlie Morton, who started Game 4, and McCullers via his breakout regular season. Peacock had a 3.00 ERA in 132 innings, which was superior to Morton’s 3.62 in 1462⁄3 innings and McCullers’ 4.25 in 1182⁄3 innings.
But Peacock has also excelled in relief, an area where the Astros arguably need more help. With his ability to go multiple innings, Peacock would seem the ideal alternative for the type of situation in which Astros manager A.J. Hinch used Verlander to get eight important outs in Monday’s Game 4 win at Boston.
Put simply, Peacock is a more experienced (and thus more reliable) reliever than McCullers, and McCullers has a higher upside as a starter than Peacock.
McCullers feels he’s almost back to where he was in the first half, when he displayed improved fastball control and his changeup emerged as another weapon. In his last regular-season start and his postseason relief outing, he ran out of gas in the fourth or fifth inning. In a playoff start, when relievers are used liberally, he could be pulled at the first sign of trouble.
But if Hinch has a role in mind for McCullers in the ALCS, he’s not yet saying.
“We’ll see,” the manager said coyly on Wednesday at Minute Maid before the Astros’ first post-ALDS workout. “Either a starter or a reliever. But he’ll be on the roster.” Gee, thanks. McCullers certainly would love to start. It’s what the former firstround draft pick has done dating to high school and the role in which he experienced his first exposure to the postseason in Game 4 of the 2015 ALDS against the Kansas City Royals, when he pitched 61⁄3 innings of two-run ball.
But he also understands the situation, and as he said he told his manager after his last regular-season start in Boston, he’s ready for whatever role the Astros want him to fill.
“Whether moving forward I start, whether moving forward I continue to come out of the pen in more of a long role, it doesn’t matter to me,” McCullers said amid the Astros’ clubhouse celebration Monday at Boston’s Fenway Park. “I want this team to win a World Series, and I want to be a part of it. And whatever capacity I have to do it, I have to do it.
“But I’m confident in myself. I’m not going to beat around the bush: I think I have great stuff. And I’m very confident in my preparation. I’m very confident in the stuff that I possess. And I know that in the last couple outings, I’ve kind of run out of gas toward the fourth, fifth inning that I’ve been out there. But I think like I’m almost back to where I was in the first half.
“I’m commanding my fastball. I’m commanding my breaking ball. I’m going to get my changeup going again. … So whatever they ask me to do, I’m going to do it.”