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2022 Season | Series #44 | Guardians @ Twins | Sep. 9-11, 2022

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Maybe I'm nuts, but I would much rather MCcarty start tonight;s game over Pilkington. Pilk has been down right terrible over his last 3 starts. Conversely. McCarty has been damn good when called upon. Instead of Pilk I thought Battenfield could be used backing up MCcarty for tonight;s game.

I'm hoping that Morris will give the team 5 solid innings tomorrow.
 
If I've done my math right (no guarantees)...

If we go 12-12 with one win each against the other two, we would need to go 10-5 against everybody else.

Chicago would need to go 11-6 vs everybody other than us.

Minnesota would have to go 13-5.

Maybe thats off a little, but you get the idea. The tie breaker combined with our lead in the loss column is a big deal.

Obviously any win additionally against the other two buries them deeper.

The games still have to be played, and we still need to win games, but all the advantages are in our favor.

One other thought...

With Minnesota falling below .500, we only play seven games the rest of the way against teams currently above .500...and only six more on the road.
 
Maybe I'm nuts, but I would much rather MCcarty start tonight;s game over Pilkington. Pilk has been down right terrible over his last 3 starts. Conversely. McCarty has been damn good when called upon. Instead of Pilk I thought Battenfield could be used backing up MCcarty for tonight;s game.

I'm hoping that Morris will give the team 5 solid innings tomorrow.

Just a word of caution on Pilk vs McCarty debate. Personally, I prefer neither but when compared to Battenfield who has not even done one MLB start (and need to take off someone from 40 to get him up), the Guardians are going with experience at this point. I pointed this out in another thread, the pressure these next 3 weeks is what Tito wants to manage, especially with youngsters. They could have gone with Gaddis and Curry for tonight and then Saturday. Yes, a McCarty or Pilk would have needed to go down to AAA to make room on 28 man but because Sat is DH, they could been brought back up as 29th man to start/piggyback a game.

And, more importantly, Pilk has slightly better stuff than McCarty if you look 2-3 years out and probably now. McCarty has done well to-date in the bigs because he has gone in mostly as a reliever. The 2 games that he started he gave up 4 earned runs to both NY and Texas in 4 and 5 innings respectively. But, we remember his relief roles when he limits teams to 0-2 runs. What is the difference? Teams scout the starter (like Pilk major role) before the game to know what and how they throw. They are not going to worry about a reliever who barely plays and comes in after their team is up big and they are just enjoying the moment - high 5ing each other. It is not like the shots of Palacios or Oscar looking at their I-Pads in the dugout when a new reliever comes in that they haven't seen to get familiar with them. So, yes McCarty appears to have done better but we need to trust Guardians in what they see as the types of situations they are both put into are entirely different.

And, yes, Pilkington has stunk up AAA in August with his starts. But, remember, he has only been with the Guardians for a year now. I am sure their pitching factory is working with adjusting his hips and other things to make him better (working on it in his AAA starts) while McCarty has been around for years and probably has maxed out his potential. But, in the end, they both came in relief vs Seattle in Sept and both threw 2 scoreless innings with no hits and 1 strike out -- Pilk had 3 walks to McCarty 1. Pilk came in a 3-1 game that was still on the line. McCarty came in a 6-1 game during mop up duty (8th and 9th) where Seattle just wanted to get out for a late dinner. Entirely different pressure and effort from him and Seattle.
 
If I've done my math right (no guarantees)...

If we go 12-12 with one win each against the other two, we would need to go 10-5 against everybody else.

Chicago would need to go 11-6 vs everybody other than us.

Minnesota would have to go 13-5.

Maybe thats off a little, but you get the idea. The tie breaker combined with our lead in the loss column is a big deal.

Obviously any win additionally against the other two buries them deeper.

The games still have to be played, and we still need to win games, but all the advantages are in our favor.

One other thought...

With Minnesota falling below .500, we only play seven games the rest of the way against teams currently above .500...and only six more on the road.

So, what you are saying ... is if we go 500 ball, Min and Chicago have to get 86 wins (if we get the tie-breaker by beating them once) as 12-12 puts us at 85 wins. I am not worried about Twins with their pitching. But, 1-3 vs Sox is realistic with the projected pitching match-ups (Cease one game and Pilk another). That means, Chi only needs 11-6 vs their other teams after going 7-3 in their last 10 games. And, if we go 2-7 vs twins and Sox (worst case), we need to go 10-5 vs Angels (3), Tampa (3), Texas (3) and KC (6). Now, we are not going 1-4 vs Twins as 10-5 is hard with Tampa in there - but this is not a slam dunk (reason we have 73-67% chance depending on website).

Cle 73-65 + 10-5 + 2-7 = 85-77 (162)
Chi 72-69 + 11-6 + 3-1 = 86-76
Min 69-70 + 13-5 + 4-1 = 86-76
 
With Civale and Plesac out it really amps up the pressure on the bullpen as we will be probably asking guys like Morris, Pilkington, McCarty, and/or Curry to go 4-5 innings at most. The bullpen is #1 in the majors since the break in ERA, FIP, and WAR so they are on a roll. They'll be asked to do even more. Guys like Morgan, DLS, and Shaw who haven't seen that many innings will be forced to hold the fort in the middle of the game.

The pressure is also on the offense to pick it up with two starters out. The key is hitting with RISP since we aren't going to score a lot of runs on the long ball. The Guardians are an incredible 50-2 when they get three or more hits with RISP. They have been slightly above average in that category so far. They need to keep it up.

Straw hitting .294 in September is really helping. He's hitting up the middle and pulling the ball like I've been demanding instead of slapping harmless fly balls to right field.
 
So, what you are saying ... is if we go 500 ball, Min and Chicago have to get 86 wins (if we get the tie-breaker by beating them once) as 12-12 puts us at 85 wins. I am not worried about Twins with their pitching. But, 1-3 vs Sox is realistic with the projected pitching match-ups (Cease one game and Pilk another). That means, Chi only needs 11-6 vs their other teams after going 7-3 in their last 10 games. And, if we go 2-7 vs twins and Sox (worst case), we need to go 10-5 vs Angels (3), Tampa (3), Texas (3) and KC (6). Now, we are not going 1-4 vs Twins as 10-5 is hard with Tampa in there - but this is not a slam dunk (reason we have 73-67% chance depending on website).

Cle 73-65 + 10-5 + 2-7 = 85-77 (162)
Chi 72-69 + 11-6 + 3-1 = 86-76
Min 69-70 + 13-5 + 4-1 = 86-76
Of course its not a slam dunk, but do you really think it is likely that we go 2-7 vs Chicago and Minnesota?

My observations were based pretty much upon a worst case scenario.

We could suffer a total collapse...but that would be difficult to do without a major injury. The 1964 Phillies are famous for collapsing, but at the end Gene Mauch was forced to use three starters on two days rest down the stretch.

Their losing streak featured a stretch in which they gave up 9,6,5,7,6,14,5,4,8 runs in consecutive games. That's awfully hard to do.

They got beat out by St Louis, which went on an eight game tear at the same time. That Cardinals team was awesome, beating the Yankees in the Series.

As a side note, I highly recommend the book 'October 1964' by David Halberstam. It is the best baseball book I've ever read, and tells the story of that World Series, and the StL and NY seasons leading up to it.
 
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So, what you are saying ... is if we go 500 ball, Min and Chicago have to get 86 wins (if we get the tie-breaker by beating them once) as 12-12 puts us at 85 wins. I am not worried about Twins with their pitching. But, 1-3 vs Sox is realistic with the projected pitching match-ups (Cease one game and Pilk another). That means, Chi only needs 11-6 vs their other teams after going 7-3 in their last 10 games. And, if we go 2-7 vs twins and Sox (worst case), we need to go 10-5 vs Angels (3), Tampa (3), Texas (3) and KC (6). Now, we are not going 1-4 vs Twins as 10-5 is hard with Tampa in there - but this is not a slam dunk (reason we have 73-67% chance depending on website).

Cle 73-65 + 10-5 + 2-7 = 85-77 (162)
Chi 72-69 + 11-6 + 3-1 = 86-76
Min 69-70 + 13-5 + 4-1 = 86-76

So it sounds like Cleveland needs to get to 86 wins...
 

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