Bullpen tandem provides sigh of relief
All season, the Astros have seen their bullpen make or break games. Against the White Sox in the ALDS and throughout the rest of the postseason, bullpen availability and resiliency will be key for Houston.
Starter Lance McCullers Jr. gave the Astros 6 2⁄3 scoreless innings in their Game 1 win, tasking the bullpen with securing seven outs. After Phil Maton got the final out in the seventh inning, Kendall Graveman gave up two singles, a walk and one run with two outs in the eighth, but Ryan Pressly finished retiring three of the four hitters he faced to preserve a 6-1 victory.
Astros pitching coach Brent Strom said Friday that Graveman has been working through some mechanical issues with the lower half of his body.
“His post foot, his foot that’s on the rubber, he had a tendency — not to get too detailed, he had a tendency to get quad-dominated instead of maintaining a flat foot on the rubber, which impacts his direction,” Strom said. “You’re seeing a lot of arm-side misses inside to righties, and of course with that heavy sink he has, it just exacerbates the movement. So we’ve had to readjust his sight line, so to speak.”
Graveman had a 0.82 ERA in 33 innings with Seattle earlier this season. Since Houston acquired him in July, he has posted a 3.38 ERA in 24 innings — including his first career postseason appearance Thursday.
Graveman required just five pitches to secure two outs on fly balls, but then threw 20 more as he allowed three consecutive batters to reach base before Jake Meyers snagged Yasmani Grandal’s 103.8 mph missile in center field to end the frame.
“I do believe what we’ve added here, which is a curveball, has helped him a great deal,” Strom said. “Nobody’s harder on Graveman than Graveman himself. When you come over to a new team, especially a team in the race like we are, being in the postseason, there’s added pressure to be the new guy on the block and to be thrust into the eighth-inning position. He’s going to be fine. We have great faith in him.”
Pressly followed Graveman and threw 21 pitches in the ninth inning. Pressly allowed a bloop single and struck out two batters, though both Eloy Jimenez and Gavin Sheets forced him to full counts after initially falling behind 1-2.
As an 8-9 inning tandem, Pressly and Graveman are an invaluable part of the stable of righthanders the Astros must rely on to dispatch a White Sox lineup heavy with righthanded hitters. They reversed roles in Friday’s 9-4 Astros victory in Game 2.
Pressly, who had already been warming up before the Astros completed their five-run seventh inning, went ahead and threw a scoreless eighth. Graveman surrendered a walk and single to start the ninth but retired the next three hitters to complete the victory. He was the first Astros pitcher in the series to retire young White Sox star Luis Robert, who grounded to short for the first out in the ninth.
Luis Garcia will start Game 3 after the Astros spent most of the season carefully monitoring his workload as he pitched north of 155 innings. Jose Urquidy, who threw a light bullpen Friday, will start Game 4 if necessary. If either starter struggles to go deep into a game, the Astros can turn to Cristian Javier or Zack Greinke for length.
Greinke’s effectiveness as a reliever is a potentially dangerous unknown. He worked out of the rotation the entire season until making a 2.1-inning relief appearance on the last day of the regular season, which marked his first game pitching out of the bullpen since he did so 38 times for the Royals in 2007.
Strom said Greinke has taken well to his new role, though compared to Javier and other relievers he does need longer to get loose before coming into the game.
“Greinke is Greinke. There’s nothing different,” Strom said. “The one worry I have is, if we do get Javier up, I would say, and then the starter kind of gets out of it and you have to get him up again, I think ( Javier) can respond better. I’m a little concerned about Greinke being able to do it, but we will see.”
In 19 postseason appearances, all as a starter, Greinke has a 4-6-0 record and 4.22 ERA (50 earned runs/106 2⁄3 innings pitched).
“You know, this is a guy that started Game 7 for us,” Strom said. “This was a guy that was going to pitch the ninth inning if we tied up the ALCS with Tampa in the ninth inning in San Diego. He’s a big-time pitcher, and I’m sure he’ll respond. There’s been no blowback or any kind of disgruntledness on his part. He wants to take the ball and wants to help this team.”