The similarities are present.
You get that with two underdog playoff teams. You get it more when those teams were expected to be on the outside looking in by the time their seasons ended, and you get it when both teams showed a penchant for contending but were still expected to fall back and be nonfactors in the race to a World Series.
The similarities start to pour out even more when both teams survive the American League Wild Card play-in round to advance to the AL Division Series as the Kansas City Royals did last season and the Houston Astros did Tuesday. The teams face each other in Game 1 of the ALDS on Thursday, with the Royals holding the league’s best record this time around.
“Nobody really gave us anything at the start of the year, and I don’t think anybody gave us a shot at the end of the year,” Houston ace Dallas Keuchel said in his press conference after throwing six shutout innings against the New York Yankees on short rest in the Wild Card Game. “We’ll have as much fun as we possibly can in Kansas City.”
Unfortunately for Houston, Keuchel, a front-runner for the league’s Cy Young Award, won’t be able to pitch until Game 3 of this series, when he will be on regular rest. That means he will be a bystander for the all-important Game 1 at Kauffman Stadium.
For the men who will participate in that crucial opener, there are a few keys vital to their success, particularly in the shorter best-of-five format.
1. Royals Bullpen Repeat
Kansas City’s bullpen was a major factor in the Royals getting to a seventh game in last fall’s World Series. The group was a crutch for the team’s so-so starting rotation, and its 2.74 ERA and 70 strikeouts in 62.1 innings were good reasons to lean on it—only the San Francisco Giants bullpen threw more last postseason, but covering more than 10 innings in an 18-inning game in the National League Division Series helped the total.
This year, the rotation is even less reliable on paper—its 4.34 ERA was nearly the worst in the AL and the worst of all postseason rotations—and that might end up putting an even heavier burden on the bullpen this time around. During the regular season, it was up to the challenge, with its league-leading 2.72 ERA, league-best (by far) 80.4 percent strand rate and league-high 539.1 innings pitched this season. Its 5.0 FanGraphs wins above replacement was fourth, but that was only because its strikeout rate (8.38 per nine innings) was ninth, shoving down its overall value by the website’s calculations.
KC's bullpen is missing a key piece, not that the Royals are worried about it at all. http://t.co/RA12oMk4p8
— Doug Padilla (@DougPadilla) October 7, 2015
Despite the bullpen losing closer Greg Holland to a UCL tear in September—he had a 5.82 ERA in his final 19 appearances—it still has four potentially dominant relievers in Danny Duffy (no runs allowed in 8.1 relief innings), Ryan Madson (195 ERA+ in 63.1 innings), Kelvin Herrera (153 ERA+ in 69.2 innings) and Wade Davis (444 ERA+, 0.94 ERA and 10.4 strikeouts per nine in 67.1 innings).
Those four leave manager Ned Yost with a simple paint-by-numbers game plan that seemed to work pretty well last postseason.
“All Yost needs from his starters is for them to throw well for five innings and maybe steal an out or two in the sixth,” Jeffrey Flanagan wrote for MLB.com. “Then, if the Royals have the lead, it is, for the most part, checkmate.”
If Kansas City’s Game 1 starter Yordano Ventura can do that, he and the bullpen could get the Royals off to a great start in this series.
2. Finding McHugh’s Best Form
Because the Astros went 11-16 in September, they dumped themselves into the Wild Card Game, forcing them to throw Keuchel then and not in Game 1 of the ALDS. That leaves 28-year-old right-hander Collin McHugh (19-7, 3.89 ERA, 3.58 FIP) to take the ball in the first game against the Royals.
McHugh was not very good through his first 14 starts, pitching to a 5.04 ERA, though he still managed to win seven games and pitch seven innings in four of those to show a certain level of inconsistency.
Over his final 11 starts, he was better and more consistent, sort of. He had a 2.89 ERA in those outings, but in three of his final five turns, McHugh allowed four runs or more. His ERA in those games was 8.05. For him to give the Astros a legitimate chance to win Game 1, he has to avoid that kind of blowup Thursday.
“At the end of the day, it's just a matter of going out and executing,” McHugh said in his press conference Wednesday. “I've been really blessed and fortunate this season to be able to come out on the right side 19 times. But like I said, that means we've got a really good ballclub.”
3. Royals’ Small Ball vs. Astros’ Long Ball
For the similarities these teams have, or had, they go about their success in very different ways. The Astros were second in the league in home runs, and the Royals had the second fewest. The Astros strike out more than any team in the league, and the Royals strike out the least. The Astros walked the fifth-most times, and the Royals walked less than everyone else.
Maybe it was because Yost knew he needed a minimal lead for his bullpen to succeed during last year’s playoffs, but the Royals dropped eight sacrifice bunts for whatever the reason. That was the most of any AL participant and second most behind the Giants, who had 104 more plate appearances. Give the Royals 100 more plate appearances, and they likely lead the entire postseason in that stat, by a lot.
Because the Royals are likely to rely on the same formula for winning this year, they could be bunting early against McHugh. And if the Astros can’t find a way to pull away while Ventura is on the mound, the strategy could easily work again.
In the other on-deck circle, the Astros are thinking about striking with one swing rather than a series of plate appearances. They had seven players hit at least 15 home runs this season, and four more finished in double digits—Preston Tucker hit 13 despite having 323 plate appearances, and George Springer hit 16 despite missing nine weeks with a wrist injury.
Ventura allowed seven homers in a nine-start stretch over the final two months of the season, so he is susceptible to the long ball, though he did not allow one in his final four starts of the season. If the Astros can strike for early home runs against Ventura, as they did against Yankees wild-card starter Masahiro Tanaka, their power could start to bury the Royals and keep them from seeing those outstanding relievers.
All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.
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