Fans of power pitching should avert their eyes from Game 4 of the American League Championship Series between the Kansas City Royals and Toronto Blue Jays, because the heat at Rogers Centre will be coming from the stands, not the pitching mound.
Among pitchers with at least 120 innings on the season, nobody had a lower average fastball velocity than Toronto's R.A. Dickey (81.4 mph). His counterpart across the diamond, Kansas City's Chris Young, wasn't exactly setting bats ablaze either, with a heater that came in at 86.4 mph on average.
With each team boasting a lineup that's capable of feasting on slow fastballs, you'd think we're in for another offensive explosion as we saw in Game 3, when the two clubs combined for 19 runs in Toronto's 11-8 win.
Delivering on the following keys when Game 4 gets underway at 4:07 p.m. ET Wednesday will go a long way toward determining whether that's the case—and which team comes out on top in a crucial contest.
Toronto's "Fab Five" vs. Chris Young's Slider
Young has relied on a deceptive delivery and four-pitch arsenal more than overpowering stuff to keep batters off balance at the plate over the course of his 11-year career. His slider has long been one of his most trusted options, but he's never gone to it as often as he has this year, especially down the stretch.
That's not all that surprising when you look at the results he's getting. Per Brooks Baseball, the opposition has hit only .167 against the pitch this season, compared to .182 against his changeup and .232 against his four-seam fastball.
It's a pitch that Royals manager Ned Yost made note of during his press conference announcing the 36-year-old as his choice to start Game 4, and it's a pitch that Toronto's "Fab Five"—Jose Bautista, Josh Donaldson, Edwin Encarnacion, Russell Martin and Troy Tulowitzki—has had issues with in the past.
Only Martin has had any sustained success against Young, and as his .367 slugging percentage shows, most of that success came via singles, not extra-base hits. In fact, that "Fab Five" has only mustered four extra-base hits combined—three doubles and a home run—against Young. Ever.
For a team as reliant on extra-base hits for its success as the Blue Jays are—seven of their 11 runs in Game 3 came courtesy of a double or home run—those splits are troubling. If Toronto is going to win Game 4, the heart of its lineup is going to have to figure out how to hit Young—and his slider—quickly.
Royals Must Be Patient at the Plate
While Dickey has a number of pitches in his arsenal, the 2012 NL Cy Young Award winner lives and dies with his knuckleball. Everyone knows that it's coming—nobody, not even Dickey, knows where it's going—but when it's on, it's a devastating pitch that gives batters fits.
So it comes as no surprise that the pitch was at the center of his strategy for attacking a relentless Royals lineup in Game 4, as he told Sportsnet's Ben Nicholson-Smith:
This is going to sound paradoxical, but it’s important for me to always be pitching to contact. And that means I need to be relentless throwing strikes with it.
I think it’s important for me to take a shot or two out of the strike zone, but the great thing and the beauty about a knuckleball is that it can be in the strike zone and be just as effective as out of the strike zone, because it moves so chaotically, so late.
No team made contact more consistently than Kansas City did during the regular season. The Royals also struck out less than any other team, while only Miami drew fewer walks.
With Dickey looking to pound the strike zone with a pitch he really has no control of, Kansas City's batters need to wait for their pitch, something that wasn't lost on Royals manager Ned Yost.
“We don’t expect him to be flat. We expect him to be tough,” Yost told Nicholson-Smith. “You just really don’t know what it’s going to do from pitch to pitch. You try to see it and hit it.”
Underachieving Players Must Step Up
Both Kansas City and Toronto have gotten this far due to the collective efforts of their respective lineups, and while all of the everyday players on each club have had their moments in the postseason, some have been more consistent than others.
Those are some ugly numbers for some big cogs, especially on Kansas City's side of the equation, where Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas, despite recording a combined seven RBI through the first three games of the series, have been anything but stellar.
It's also a list with far too much talent for such mediocre production to continue for long. Game 4 is as good a time as any to see one (or more) of these players start to turn things around.
Whichever club winds up with more production from its underachievers could well be the one that emerges victorious in Game 4.
Unless otherwise noted/linked, all statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs.
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