How to Beat the Indians Part 1: The Hitters

BY Jay Piques , October 12th, 2007 This is one of the more entertaining times of the year to be a baseball fan. When the calendar turns to October second guessing and scrutinizing every move made by the manager becomes a birthright exercised by every fan of the game, regardless of the intensity of the fan. As a guy who can say he's nearly always agreed with the way Tito has managed I figured what wiser thing for me to do than to second-guess everything he will do in advance. Of course what this really means is I just gave my friends a list of things that I will likely be wrong about. But lets start with the hitters in the likely batting order: 1st Grady Sizemore: (LHB) It's never easy to get a high-energy high-talent player out, but if the Sox are going to be able to get it done it will most likely come on inside-pitches where he is only slightly above MLB average. Also very important in getting Sizemore out will be getting off-speed pitches to land for strikes. He may struggle at hitting off-speed stuff, (Hitting .222 vs the league average of .240) but he's also not going to chase junk pitches out of the zone as evidence by his .391 on base percentage and low rate of chasing pitches out of the strike zone (14% in counts with less than 2 strikes and only 26% in counts with 2 strikes). Hits lefties for better average but with less extra base-pop. 2nd Asdrubal Cabrera (RHB) Go outside (.121) but stay away from the middle (.304). Easy enough right? Another guy who has a harder time with Offspeed pitches with a .214 average. Obviously anybody who knows which pitch is coming is going to be able to hit anything so a large part of the Sox success will be dictated with how well their offspeed stuff is mixed in and how effectively they can throw them for strikes. Cabrera's game doesn't have any glaring holes in it at this stage, except he hits lefties (.950 OPS) at a far better clip than righties (.720) 3rd Travis Hafner (LHB) Down and Inside. The more you look at the top third of this lineup the more concerned with how economical any pitcher will be when facing this trio. (Daisuke?) Hafner's ability to hit offspeed pitches is even further behind Sizemore and Cabrera. 'Tek will need to resist the urge to set him up with a high-fastball for a swinging third strike; that's where Hafner murders the ball. 4th Victor Martinez (Switch) The most likely of the guys so far to chase a bad off-speed pitch out of the zone with 2 strikes (36%) though excellent at putting the hittable stuff in play (46%) His strike-zone is top-heavy in that he hits high stuff much better than stuff lower in the zone. Slightly better at hitting fastballs. 5th Ryan Garko (RHB) His two weakest spots are Inside and Low, and while he's another top-heavy strike-zone hitter he's not a tremendous threat with the high cheese. He hits roughly the same against fastballs and offspeed stuff. Hits lefties better (.914) than righties (.812) 6th Jhonny Peralta (RHB) Expect a feast of curveballs, sliders, and changes coming his way where he is substantially worse than against fastballs. Lets more than his fair share of plate appearances get to two strikes than average (43% vs 35%) which should help out Sox pitchers with good strikeout rates (Beckett, Daisuke, Paps, Delcarmen etc.) The key will be getting through Peralta's at-bats as economically as possible as he's not a hitter prone to chasing bad stuff. 7th Kenny Lofton (LHB) Probably the hitter most likely to face Javier Lopez, in fact he faced him eight times already. That's because Lofton sports the biggest splits between facing lefties (.545 OPS) vs righties (.838). Of course this brings up a whole other problem that not many noticed so far; Javier Lopez isn't all that great at getting lefties out. I'm sure the temptation to bring in a lefty-specialist for a guy who cant lefties will be too great. Lofton only managed one hit in eight plate appearances against Lopez but got walked twice. Before those later innings Sox pitchers should try and blow fastballs by the old man with the slow bat speed. 8th Trot Nixon (LHB) Lived up to the off-season billing of being a poor man's J.D. Drew except with much worse defense. Nixon wont hit for much power (3 homers this year) unless matched up against the right pitcher (Old Man #22). Lopez may also end up facing Nixon a few times especially if he's stacked after Lofton where he posts similar numbers without the big jump against righties. Trot even started to lose his reputation as being a great fastball hitter – though he does still excel at getting them in play. Can get buried if he lets the at bat get to 2 strikes – which happens more than often. Sadly at this stage of his career he's a shadow of his 2001-03 self. 9th Casey Blake (RHB) Not bad for a #9 hitter, just very average. Hits better on outside stuff, so the Sox will be wise to pitch him inside. Typical right-handed batter splits. Decent pop to his bat but strikes out a ton in the process. Similar in a way to Kevin Youkilis, without any of his signature plate-discipline – the only thing that gives him value.