Defense the difference
Superior fundamentals don’t show up in box scores but have fueled two routs
CHICAGO — Carlos Correa stopped for a second to track the baseball’s trajectory. He held his follow-through and hesitated to sprint, surveying the oppositefield missile toward a fill-in right fielder.
Garcia ran first to his left. He swerved back toward his right. Turned around and out of options, Garcia flung both hands in the air. The ball bounced behind him. Two runs scored and broke the game open.
“When I hit it, I thought it was going to be right at him. The ball just took off, and I didn’t notice if it went forward or not,” Correa said, a sly smile starting to creep across his face. “I am just glad it dropped.”
Correa and a few teammates tried to foretell the future for two days, hiding their advantage inside cliche-riddled answers. Two days at Minute Maid Park displayed the disparity in great detail. Houston has exposed Chicago’s dreadful defense to take a stranglehold on the American League Division Series.
“I think people don’t always give the importance that they might need to for the defensive side of things,” first baseman Yuli Gurriel said through an interpreter. “I think in the playoffs, especially, pitching and defense is what wins you games, and you need to have a good defense if you want to be able to advance in the playoffs.”
The defensive imbalance between the two teams is seismic. An Alex Bregman throwing error notwithstanding, the Astros have been flawless from start to finish.
Correa took away a leadoff single from Tim Anderson in Friday’s first inning with a wonderful, ranging play to his left. Jose Altuve ended Thursday’s game with a barehanded play on an Adam Engel grounder that took three bounces before reaching him.
“Like I always say, you can’t win on defense, but you can lose on defense,” manager Dusty Baker quipped after Game 2. “Nothing surprises me. I’m more surprised when we don’t make the plays. I’m more surprised when we make errors.”
The White Sox entered the American League Division Series worth negative-39 defensive runs saved, according to FanGraphs. The Astros lead the American League with 78 defensive runs saved. Chicago’s .982 team fielding percentage ranked 27th of 30 clubs.
In the regular season, Chicago’s pitchers threw 84 wild pitches, and its catchers permitted 18 passed balls. No other major league team had a higher combination. The White Sox have thrown two wild pitches in the series. Both advanced an Astros baserunner into scoring position. Both scored.
Chicago has not committed an error during the series. It might be the most misleading number across any of the sport’s four current playoff series. The Astros are seizing advantage of hidden shortcomings, stuff that doesn’t show up in a box score.
The Astros have been unafraid to advance an extra base against Chicago outfielders who aren’t accurate with relay throws. Hitters have seized advantage of curious defensive positioning, going against shifts and through the tiniest of openings in the infield.
Chicago shifted during 20.3 percent of its opponents’ plate appearances in the regular season, according to Baseball Savant. Only the Rockies, Brewers and Phillies shifted less.
“Defensive positioning a lot of times, you look at the pitcher, and you look at the frequency of where the ball goes, so you position them,” Chicago manager Tony La Russa said after Game 2. “But they did find the holes, and we didn’t as much.”
But Houston’s infield has no holes. Correa is worth a careerbest 21 defensive runs saved. Altuve is worth five outs above average, according to Baseball Savant. Only five American League second basemen are worth more.
“We’ve been playing good defense all year,” said catcher Martín Maldonado, who has thrown out 19 of the 48 baserunners who tried to steal against him in the regular season. “We take pride in that enough where you may see Carlos, Altuve, Breggy — even on day games — taking ground balls. We take a lot of pride in that as a team.”
“People haven’t talked about defense overall much this year just because our lineup is so good, but I think we should have two or three Gold Glove finalists on our team.”