Unconventional bullpen move that propelled the Indians in Game 1
CLEVELAND – This was progress. Two days after Buck Showalter took bullpen usage back to the Paleolithic, Terry Francona dragged it into the present and maybe even beyond. He deserved to stand atop the Cleveland Indians dugout, beat his chest and scream like he’d gone from flint and steel to internal combustion overnight. When an open-minded manager meets an intellectually curious relief pitcher and October baseball injects a thick-gauged needle of urgency, happy, beautiful things result.
And baseball being what it is, a game that calibrates itself so that nobody ever can be too smart, nobody ever too right, all of this could have backfired and led to the crucifixion of Francona for overmanaging or cutesiness or untold other sins. From this he was spared, mercifully and thankfully, because the cruelty of doing everything right only to see everything go wrong would’ve been misplaced on this game.
No, he deserved a round of applause and a hearty pat on the back for using his best reliever in the fifth inning of Game 1 of the American League Division Series. That Francona’s best reliever is not his closer already speaks to how he runs these Indians, with unmatched aplomb and flexibility, but this was something else – Andrew Miller jogging out of the bullpen with the game not even halfway over, Francona intent on not blowing a lead.
By the end of Cleveland’s 5-4 victory, he had achieved that. It took 40 pitches from Miller and 40 more from closer Cody Allen. Together they recorded 11 outs, eight of them on strikeouts by the Boston Red Sox, the most dangerous offense in the game. Francona asked the world of them, and they delivered him the galaxy instead.
“Nobody ever said you have to be conventional to win,” Francona said.
These words came from the mouth of a man who has spent his lifetime in baseball. He grew up in baseball clubhouses with his father, an outfielder. He played in the major leagues. He managed in the minor leagues. He is on his third big league managing job. He is exactly the sort who hews to convention. Which is one of the things that makes Francona the special sort of manager he is: He’s a strategic chameleon, and he knew the Indians’ best chance Thursday came via some expectorate to the face of the typical.
Bullpen usage in 2016 goes something like this: You have a role. You have an inning. You are called upon in almost identical situations. Even if the most important plate appearance of any particular game is, say, in the fifth inning, the chances of a manager bringing in his best reliever then are somewhere between 0 percent and 0 percent.
The confluence of factors Thursday night – Cleveland holding on to a 4-3 lead and starter Trevor Bauer nearing 80 pitches and needing to go in Game 4 on three days’ rest, and the heart of Boston’s order headed to the plate – happened to gift Francona an excuse not to do what Showalter had done in the wild-card game with his Baltimore Orioles: lose with your best pitcher, in that case Zach Britton, not having thrown a single pitch.
If anything, Francona risked bringing Miller in too early, with two outs in the fifth. Once the bullpen door swung open, though, the 37,763 who packed Progressive Field recognized just how unique this was: the angular, 6-foot-7 left-hander with the big fastball and the bigger slider playing middle reliever. Calling it that, of course, like the middle innings are some sort of wasteland, only plays in to the false idea that someone of Miller’s acumen shouldn’t be deployed then. On the contrary, Francona’s exigency highlights what managers are capable of when they embrace fearlessness.
“I mean, that’s why we got him,” Francona said, and it’s true: Cleveland gave up four prospects in July for a fireman, that anachronistic role that doesn’t limit a reliever to one inning but summons him at any time, any inning, to mow through hitters, like he did striking out David Ortiz after allowing the first two hitters on base.
Miller gets it. “Maybe as more and more stats come out,” he said, “we realize there’s bigger moments in the game than the eighth and ninth inning, and that can be appreciated.” He has just described the concept of leverage. Much as we want to romanticize the ninth inning, because it consists of the final three outs and pitchers are awarded saves for locking it down, the net effect of this is a degradation of ideal bullpen usage. The biggest out of Game 1 happened not to be the last in the fifth, nor any in the sixth, nor the first two outs of the seventh, all of which Miller secured. The highest leverage Thursday, actually, belonged to Allen, upon whom Francona called for his first five-out save of the season.
Asked how he felt after he secured it by striking out Dustin Pedroia on a 3-2 check swing, Allen said: “Same as a three-out one.” Never mind that Allen threw more pitches Thursday than any game in 3 ½ years. This is the postseason, and without starters Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar, the Indians are mimicking so many other teams of recent postseason success, with a bullpen-centric pitching staff. Electric arms in short doses have proven themselves wildly potent. Cleveland second baseman Jason Kipnis, who hit one of the Indians’ three home runs, has been on the other side of Miller wending his way through a lineup, and he did not come away from the experience with fond memories.
“Miserable,” Kipnis said. “Especially as a lefty hitter. I know what those pitches look like. I’ve faced them. I’ve walked back to the dugout with my head down after every time seeing him. … You really have to pick your spots against him and kind of get lucky. You have to guess right. And after guessing right you have to execute. It’s not a fun at-bat.”
This is why Terry Francona did what he did Thursday. It was to give his team some cushion to add on another run to its lead. It was to pressure the Red Sox with every out that dwindles away. It was because if the Indians took Game 1, that meant they only need two more to win the short series – and Corey Kluber, arguably the best pitcher in the AL, starts Game 2 and would start Game 5, if necessary, on full rest.
“We wanted to win the game tonight,” Francona said, “and we did.”
So in came Miller, and out he went to a standing ovation, and in came Allen, and out he went to a standing ovation – 40 pitches apiece, both under normal circumstances too spent to pitch tomorrow but allowing the adrenaline of October to push them.
“I’m not gonna miss any of these games,” Miller said. “We find a way to show up and play.”
“Absolutely,” Allen said.
“This is a selfless team,” Miller said. “This win sums up who we are.”
What they were saying was: It can be done this way. The Cleveland Indians want 11 wins this October. One down, 10 to go. If it takes the reinvention of bullpen usage, well, great, because the modern bullpen is a broken, inefficient mess that needs it. If nothing else, it shows baseball that even still, after 15 decades, the game is finding new ways, new strategies, new reminders. This may not become the norm, may not even be adopted during the regular season by Francona, but it’s there, and it worked, and was it ever beautiful.
