Differing strategies
Familiar by now with Rays’ army of arms, Astros pin hopes on Game 2 hero Cole
The Astros will lean on Gerrit Cole, above. The Rays like multiple pitchers.
Whoever pitches for Tampa Bay on Thursday in the decisive Game 5 of the American League Division Series, he will be familiar, if not very familiar, to Astros hitters. Houston will get its second look in seven days at towering starter Tyler Glasnow, its third at any of eight other arms that could be deployed, and probably a fifth against big lefty Colin Poche.
On the other side, the Rays will take on Astros starter Gerrit Cole for a fourth time this year and play their fourth elimination game in nine days.
“The way we got here is nerveracking just because you don't want to get to a Game 5,” Astros manager A.J. Hinch said. “We fought all year for have a better record and to win our division to get this particular game at home. And they've got to come into our house and beat us again.”
Since he last lost on May 22, Cole has gone undefeated (17-0) with a 1.69 ERA in 154 1⁄3 innings. On Saturday, he set an Astros postseason record by striking out 15 Rays in Houston’s 3-1 Game 2 win.
As a Pirates rookie, Cole started an elimination game in the 2013 National League Division Series against the Cardinals. He also started Pittsburgh’s 2015 Wild Card Game against the Cubs. He lost both.
But that was before he’d become arguably the best pitcher on the planet for a team regarded by many as the majors’ best. With the Astros’ 107-win season on the line Thursday, Cole is being counted on in the highest-stakes contest of his life.
“With Cole on the mound, I don’t know who could be more confident than us,” Hinch said.
Glasnow, who missed nearly three months because of injury, could get up to 90 pitches, but Tampa Bay’s entire carousel of arms will be available. Rays manager Kevin Cash said starters Blake Snell and Charlie Morton, who threw five strong innings to win Game 3 on Monday, will be in the bullpen.
The front-office dogma that insists managers avoid exposing their pitchers more than twice to the same batter in a single game is why the sport radically has shifted in favor of using more relievers.
“If you really want to be the most effective, that’s the approach to go with,” Hinch said. “It’s hard to do that over 162, but in a five-game set, you’re seeing them play out their script about as well as they possibly could.”
Said Astros second baseman Jose Altuve: “It's really hard to not know who you’re going to face next at-bat.”
In the fresh new hell of the allhands-on-deck urgency shown in every game across the playoffs, where the arms are so powerful, so sharp, so specialized to deaden bats, the players say it does not matter much if the batter saw the pitcher recently.
“I think I faced four different guys yesterday,” Altuve said of the Astros’ 4-1 loss in Game 4, which featured six Rays pitchers. “They’re all different. They have something really special.”
Cash opened Game 4 with Diego Castillo, whose 99 mph sinking fastball and 90 mph slider would make him the closer on most teams. Wednesday’s day off is all the rest Castillo needs.
“If Castillo throws the 99-milean-hour turbo sinker, it doesn’t get more comfortable the more you see him ,” Hinch said.
After Castillo, the Rays softened the Astros with finesse lefthander Ryan Yarbrough and froze them with sniper Nick Anderson, who buckled batters with his curveball and painted the corners with tailing heaters.
“Their stuff is really, really good,” Cash said. “Yesterday’s game, probably that’s where the contrast really played a role. And you’ve probably got to have a little bit of that contrast to be fortunate enough to do what they did against as good as the Astros lineup is.”
Said Hinch: “If Anderson is going to dot 98 down and away, it’s not going to get a lot easier.”
Tampa Bay had the majors’ best bullpen in the regular season. It
has looked more monstrous in October, pitching to a 1.71 ERA in its last 21 innings.
The Astros expect to see the same faces and face the same challenges Thursday at Minute Maid Park. But familiarity can cut both ways.
“You’re facing him, but he’s facing you, too,” Altuve said. “So you know what he’s doing. But he also knows what youre doing.”
Echoed Hinch: “The advantages or disadvantages are on both sides. I don’t think there’s a lot of secrets this deep into the series, just because you have to play somebody back-to-back and face them two times in a row. That’s the nature of playoff baseball.”
Glasnow will be making his third start against Houston. He opened his season with a win over the Astros and held them to two runs in 4 1⁄3 innings of a losing effort in Game 1 of the Division Series. The righthander needed only two types of pitches — a fastball that topped out at 100.2 mph and a curveball that allowed only one instance of hard contact — in his introduction to the playoffs. His average spin rates of 2,638 rpm and 3,068 rpm were season highs.
“Analytically, it seems like he’s getting better,” Cash said.
Cash, as mathematically minded as any manager in baseball, is not so convinced that the excellence of pitching in the series overcomes the larger sample size of empirical data that favors batters the more they see a pitcher.
“I generally think that it goes that way. But certainly, both pitchers that are going to be pitching (Thursday) night are totally capable of making that comment not make sense,” Cash said.
Despite an offensive malaise since Game 1, Houston’s hitters have good-to-great batting averages against the majority of Tampa Bay’s relievers this year, which suggests Game 5 could offer the extra looks they need to break through in the most crucial situations.
“The familiarity, that plays a part,” Snell said. “But in the postseason … I just think if you’re hot, you’re hot; if you’re not, you’re not.”
Snell, a southpaw, added that Tampa Bay’s bullpen is “probably the hottest in the game.”
No matter how many more looks at the Rays the Astros will get Thursday, little about the Division Series has appeared familiar. Snell, the 2018 Cy Young Award winner, closed out Game 4. From Castillo to Snell, Tampa Bay’s box score looked to be in reverse order.
Snell has been a starting pitcher his whole life. He is getting used to the postseason chaos. He felt weird walking out to the bullpen at Tropicana Field. “Where do I sit?” he said. He found a cold spot on the bench to plop down for several innings. He could not find a good view so far from home plate.
“Super boring,” he said. “You’re in La La Land. It’s not for me. I don’t like it. But it was cool toward the end when I knew I had a chance to pitch, and I was excited.”
He’d filled up on applesauce before first pitch. He kept busy with beef jerky, gum and sunflower seeds.
“It was an exciting time for me food-wise,” he said.
Snell knows to expect the unexpected Thursday. He’ll have his snack pack and hands full.