Four burning questions for the final week of regular season
In between champagne showers, so many questions. As several major league clubs mop up from playoff or division-clinching wins, the postseason is bearing down quickly. Sure, there’s a few matters of seed and hosts and even a wild-card berth here or there, but the playoff field is largely settled.
And that gives us time to ponder several key issues that need resolution before next Tuesday, when the runner-up in the National League West takes on an also-ran from the Central in the NL wild-card game. A look at the final-week drama in MLB, even if the on-field variety proves less than climactic:
Can the Astros be whole again?
They’ll have home-field advantage in at least the Division Series, will have the spotlight and pressure off them thanks to the 106-win Boston Red Sox and the specter of a New York Yankees-Red Sox ALDS, and have the most dominant starting pitching collection in the playoffs.
So, why will this final week be fraught with peril for the Houston Astros?
The defending World Series champions will find out plenty about three crucial pieces to their championship puzzle: Carlos Correa, Lance McCullers Jr. and Charlie Morton.
Correa has been dogged by oblique and back injuries and is suffering through the worst season of his career.
He’s sitting on a career-worst .238/.323/.400 slash line, and the numbers are even worse in the 34 games since his August 10 activation: .174/.257/.223.
McCullers has been out since August 4 with a strained right forearm, and will not be built up enough to start in the playoffs. The Astros will find out this week if he’ll be hale enough to fill a multi-inning reliever role. And let’s not forget how important that role was last year, when McCullers threw four shutout innings of relief – 54 consecutive curveballs, no less – to save Game 7 of the AL Championship Series.
The Astros are deep and can theoretically withstand the absence or suboptimal performance of all three ailing All-Stars. It’s certainly not what they want, however.
Will the Cubs clinch quickly enough to rest?
Kris Bryant, like Correa, has struggled to shake off a lingering injury. In this case, it’s a sore left shoulder that’s forced him to the disabled list twice this season. He has just one homer in 69 at-bats since his return, while striking out in 39% of his at-bats. Ideally, the Cubs would take this week to further rest Bryant, but that whole need-to-clinch-the-division thing will compel them to roll him out there.
Meanwhile, they’re still without a closer, but will keep a close eye on Pedro Strop this week as he aims to return from a hamstring injury. Is one week – plus, presumably, a couple offdays before the NLDS – enough of an on-ramp to get him up to speed and trusted in the late innings?
And can the Cubs fend off Milwaukee quickly enough to give Bryant & Co. some rest?
Can the Red Sox sort out their pitching woes?
“I don’t think anybody in this room has a doubt.”
That was Matt Barnes a couple of days ago, aiming to calm the masses in New England regarding Boston’s bullpen as it heads to the postseason. Alas, the numbers suggest otherwise, most notably 12 blown saves since the All-Star break. Barnes, who was the trusted set-up man to closer Craig Kimbrel, is working his way back from a hip injury and has pitched just twice this month.
Meanwhile, ace Chris Sale has one start left to ramp up in his return from a second DL stint for shoulder inflammation. All should go well – Sale struck out seven in 31/3 innings, throwing 73 pitches in his most recent start – but it’s an awful lot of last-week Maalox for a team that may win 110 games.
What’s up with the A’s-Yankees wild card duel?
Home-field advantage is an oft-overrated metric in baseball, but it theoretically has extra juice in a wild-card setting, given the emotional jolt of the winner take-all stakes. (That said, home teams are just 5-7 since the 2012 lid-lifters).
The stakes are even higher when the road team must travel 3,000 miles, and work in a hostile ballpark that plays far different than its home yard.
That brings us to the A’s and Yankees, who hold a 1½-game lead over Oakland for wild-card home field. Retain it, and the game is played at Yankee Stadium, where the Bombers have hit 144 home runs, compared to 107 on the road.
Take them out of the Bronx and into the marine layer and pitcher-friendly conditions of the Oakland Coliseum, and things look a lot different: The A’s pitch to a 3.43 ERA in the shadow of Mt. Davis, and a 4.18 ERA on the road.
That creates a big task for the Yankees this week: Seven largely meaningless but very challenging games at the Rays and Red Sox, while the A’s go on the road to Seattle and Anaheim. The Yankees hold the tie-breaker, so the A’s will have to finish a game clear of them to play host on October 3.
(USA Today/TNS)