NLDS Game #1 Preview: Lester vs. Lackey
These blogs are here to educate. To inform. To help you watch a baseball game differently so that hopefully at one point a buddy looks at you and says, “Holy shit you know a lot about what’s going on right now.” That’s the goal. So if you read ddnesday’s preview for the Wildcard game, I’m fairly confident you were that guy. That you knew the Cole Train would be erratic early (he was), that he’d leave pitches up in the zone (he did), that we would hammer those pitches up in the zone (we did), secure an early lead (we did), sub-in a defensive oriented lineup once we got that lead (we did), and that Arrieta would breeze through a very average lineup (he did) while locking up a fairly easy win (which we did, obviously).
So that’s what we’re trying to do here again here with game 1 of the NLDS. I’d like to arm you with the necessary insight to see this beautiful fucking game at a better level. To do so, we’re going to talk about Lester, our lineup, John Lackey, and how to beat the insufferably self-absorbed St. Louis Cardinals. So let’s do it.
Lester: this is why we signed Lester. Yes, we wanted him to anchor a young team and be a clubhouse leader. And yes, we wanted him to lead our rotation and eat innings and shut down losing streaks before they start and all that good shit. But at the end of the day, Lester’s here to take the ball in October and promptly shove it down our opponents’ throats.
So far in his career, it’s safe to say Lester’s been pretty fucking good at doing just that. He’s played in 9 separate playoffs series in 5 of his 10 pro seasons. He’s started 12 games in those 9 series (2 relief appearances as well), tossing 84 innings while surrendering just 67 hits and 23 walks. That’s good for a 1.071 WHIP. For context, the current active leader in regular season WHIP is Clayton Kershaw at 1.033, and right behind him at #2 is Madison Bumgarner at 1.111. Takeaway #1 – October Jon Lester is comparably effective at limiting base runners with two of the best starters in all of baseball.
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His last 6 postseason starts have been remarkably strong, save for one bad inning last year against the Royals where a handful of horrible decisions on the part of A’s manager Bob Melvin coupled with some really bad luck led to a late game collapse. But even including that outlier inning, Lester’s gone 4-1 with a 2.66 ERA alongside a 3.4 SO/BB ration and 1.059 WHIP while pitching into the 8th inning in 4 of those 6 starts. Takeaway #2 – like a fine red wine, October Jon Lester has gotten better with age.
Then on a relevant note, Lester’s pitched against the Cardinals in October before. Specifically, he carved them up inside and out in the 2013 World Series going 2-0 while tossing 15.1 innings of 1 run ball (solo homerun to Matt Holliday). The Cards managed just 9 hits (only 2 of which went for extra bases) off Lester in those 2 starts while striking out 15 times. It’s also worth pointing out that one of those starts came in St. Louis when the series was tied up 2-2. So there was October Jon Lester taking the mound in front of 48,000 mouth-breathing degenerate Cardinals’ fans at Busch Stadium in an absolute must win game against Adam Wainwright. And then two and half hours later there was October Jon Lester walking off that mound with 7.2 innings of pure, unadulterated brilliance and a 3-1 lead under his belt. You know the rest of this story – the Red Sox closed it out then went home to finish the series in 6 games. Takeaway #3 – October Jon Lester has been in this position before, against the same organization, in the same stadium, in the same atmosphere, and shoved it up their ass.
So looking at this game and matchup, you historically need to give credit to Jon Lester. Yes, the Cardinals lineup changed quite a bit. Light-hitting Pete Kozma has been replaced by Jhonny Peralta. Jason Heyward has somehow become more of a complete player while textbook average white guys Randal Grichuk and Stephen Piscotty have somehow emerged as impact players. That’s fine because the holdovers from 2013 are far worse. Holliday has been shit since coming off the DL. Yadier Molina should probably still be on said DL, and even if healthy, he’s regressed to an average offensive player. And speaking of regression, Matt Carpenter is right there with him. He’s still good, but not the player he was two years ago and there’s no debating that.
So essentially it boils down to one of baseball’s best October pitchers going up against a team he’s had October success against. Yes, the Cardinals will run out a relatively different lineup, but it’s essentially the same kind of team with the same style of play. The fact that he’s been in almost the exact same situation before and performed EXTREMELY well makes me confident that Lester will give us a good game tonight and go at least into the 7th inning. Simply put, we will 100% have a shot to win this game at the end.
Lineup:
1. Fowler CF
2. Schwarber LF
3. Bryant 3B
4. Rizzo 1B
5. Castro 2B
6. Coghlan RF
7. Russell SS
8. Ross C
9. Lester P
More of this will make sense when I talk about Lackey, but just know for now that we need to load up on lefties. I expect Maddon will go with offense early and then make defensive substitutions if and when necessary. I think we’re at an offensive disadvantage having to start Ross over Miggy (obviously) but even more so because Miggy hits righties very well and has historical success against Lackey. But that’s the price you pay to have Lester out there, and take comfort in the fact that the Cubs are 30-16 in games started by Ross this season. That’s good for a .650 win% which is actually an uptick from our season win% of .590. So there is certainly some magic to be associated with his presence in the lineup. Then again, that comes with the territory when talking about the 2015 Dad of the Year.
Some miscellaneous thoughts: La Stella is 2-3 career against Lackey. His approach lines up well with Lackey’s style, but you have to go with Castro here. He’s done wonders for this team down the stretch.. I like him to be aggressive early for reasons explained below. Then I think Coghlan should have a good game as he’s absolutely owned Lackey in his career thus far (8 for 17 with only 2 K’s). And finally, I think that the lineup, as a whole, needs to be ready to attack Lackey early in the count. Here’s why…
Lackey: first things first, Lackey is a very good pitcher. I know he had a dog shit year or two in Boston, but you need to understand that this guy is very, very good. He’s a crafty veteran with still enough power behind his heater and bite on his offspeed to be more than just your run of the mill older starting pitcher. He’s 10th all time with 18 career October starts spread out over 14 separate series (9-5) in 7 postseasons. So needless to say, he’s been here before, and while here, he’s done quite well posting a 7-5 record with a 3.08 ERA in 117 innings while posting career comparable WHIP, BB, and K rates. So by no stretch of the imagination should you think tonight is going to be a cake walk for our lineup, regardless of how hot we are.
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Lackey’s transformed himself since his brutal start in Boston. Part of that transformation required him to change his style from the power fastball/curve sequence he relied on in his time to Anaheim into a more cerebral, efficient pitcher. That meant losing weight, redefining his pitch sequences, and overall changing the way he approached a lineup. Old Lackey just wanted to go out and shove against whoever was in the batter’s box with little thought to the rest of a lineup. Now, he’s far more methodical and deep in his repertoire. He mixes different fastballs. Different breaking balls. And he mixes it all within the strike zone.
He’s got great command. He’s constantly around the zone. He used to throw 60% 4 seam fastballs. That number is down to about 20 now, with 20% being two seamers and then another 20% being cutters (two seamers go in on righties, cutters go away). He uses the 4 seamer to come in on left handed hitters or to get a quality strike down and away to righties. He’ll then use the two seamer and cutter down in the strike zone to generate weak contact. It’s like a push and pull approach. He’ll push you off the plate (if you’re a righty) by running a two seamer in. Then he’ll pull you back over it with a cutter on the outside corner. Then come back in again. He’ll do this over and over and over again early in the count. So expect a lot of quality, late moving fastballs in and around both sides of the strike zone tonight.
He also uses a slider/slurve/breaking ball about 20-25% of the time. It’s kind of an off-shoot of his cutter. It will get bigger and more of a sweeping action on it. It’s particularly effective on the back foot of left handed hitters. That means he’ll start it down and in on a lefty, and then it will break towards the left handed hitters left (back) foot. It’s a swing and miss pitch and it’s very good. The same pitch is effective against righties, although he’ll start it more on the outer third of the plate so it finishes 6-8 inches off the plate. Either way, it’s a chase pitch for righties and lefties, and Lackey absolutely LOVES it when he’s even or ahead in the count, and even more so if you’ve battled your way to a 2-2 or 3-2 count. The deeper the count, the worse off you are.
Specifically, Lackey’s 2015 batting average against in 0-0 counts is .329, then .310 in 1-0 counts, .372 in 0-1 counts, and .333 in 1-1 counts. Conversely, those numbers drop significantly in deeper counts where players hit just .183 against him in both 2-2 and 3-2 counts. That makes sense when you consider everything I just said about his pitching style.
He pitches to contact early. Tries to get ahead with heavy fastballs to both sides of the plate. You know what you’re getting early. It’s when you see multiple pitches in at-bat that you get in trouble. He comes in a couple times. Away a couple times. Then drops a sweeping slider on the outer half to you. That’s really really difficult to hit against. You’re seeing multiple looks within the same at bat. It’s just really hard to look for a good pitch to hit when you’re looking at multiple pitches within multiple locations all within the strike zone. Compare that to Gerrit Cole who was just pumping gas up in the zone, so you only had to key in on a 4 seam fastball up. Much harder to key in on different kinds of fastballs all down in the zone.
So how to we beat this guy? We stand a little closer to the plate and jump on him early. You have to go into your AB knowing that you’re probably not going to get a good fastball up to drive, so you have to be ready to hit something that may not be an ideal pitch to drive. It sucks, yes, but you just have to be able to sit back on a ball and drive it up the middle or take it the other way. He’s going to pitch to your weakness, so you have to know your weakness and be ready to compromise. That means Bryant might have to go back up the middle early on. Rizzo might have to swing at an 0-0 pitch. Schwarber should be ready to look the other way too. Point is, you can’t rely on your strengths to hit Lackey around. You have to take a mature, all fields approach, and you have to take that approach the second you step in the box. He’s not going to get to 3-1 and then lay one down the middle. He’s going to be aggressive. So you have to be aggressive right back. Otherwise, you’re looking at a lot of 1-2, 0-2 counts and sitting on a pitch that simply isn’t coming.
Fortunately for us, we have a lot of good left handed hitters that don’t try to do too much at the plate, and Lackey is far worse against those kinds of players. Chalk that up to him not having a change up (thank fucking god). Fowler, Coghlan, Rizzo, La Stella… they all (generally) take what they’re given. I hope the same can be said for Schwarber but still not really sure what his approach will be. He’s generally patient but I think he should just be up there first pitch ready to drive it back up the box. Either way, there’s enough balanced lefties in our lineup to play his game. And if they do, then Kris Bryant better be ready to hit with runners on base. Because it’s going to take some station to station baseball for us to get multiple runs on the board. So it’s a combination of being patient with your own approach (not trying to do too much) while being aggressive in the same respect (but trying to do it early in the count when you’re getting fastballs).
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So there you have it. This is going to be an outstanding baseball game. I think it comes down to the last three innings. I think both bullpens get heavily involved at that point due to pinch hitters. I think both starters put up good competitive starts. But at the end of the day, we’re the hotter team. We’ve been preparing every day for the last week while the Cards have been sitting in the comfort over their own shitty suburban St. Louis homes waiting to see how things played out. Don’t forget – we’re in the driver’s seat.
Final Score: Cubs 3, Cards 2.