When Baltimore Orioles manager Buck Showalter announced that his starter for tonight’s all-or-nothing game against the Texas Rangers was going to be Joe Saunders, people like me, who enjoy such recreational activities as imagining themselves to be smarter than they truly are, pointed things like this out:
This season, righty-hitters have put up a dangerous .349 OBP/.500 SLG/.359 wOBA against Saunders. To put this in perspective based on his numbers, he makes the average right-handed batter look like Albert Pujols (this season). In fact, Saunders has given up 21 home runs this season, all against bats on his right side. This should all be of interest because the Rangers lineup is sort of, kind of EXTREMELY right-handed-heavy, with only two regulars bothering to bat from the left side.
So, rather obviously, Rangers manager Ron Washington put together a lineup that looked like this:
- 2B Ian Kinsler, RHB
- SS Elvis Andrus, RHB
- LF Josh Hamilton, LHB
- 3B Adrian Beltre, RHB
- RF Nelson Cruz, RHB
- 1B Michael Young, RHB
- DH Mike Napoli, RHB
- C Geovany Soto, RHB
- CF Craig Gentry, RHB
The thing is, this is the Wild Card play-in game, and as such, rosters are set for a single game, which allowed Showalter to go with a bullpen that looked like this:
- Jake Arrieta, RHP
- Luis Ayala, RHP
- Zach Britton, LHP
- Tommy Hunter, RHP
- Jim Johnson, RHP
- Steve Johnson, RHP
- Brian Matusz, LHP
- Darren O’Day, RHP
- Troy Patton, LHP
- Pedro Strop, RHP
In other words, he had more than enough artillery to not only cover for Saunders, but also use favorable pitcher/batter match ups as soon as he wished. If Washington responded to such manipulations, he’d end up burning out his bench long before he’d likely desire. If he didn’t respond, Showalter would be able to set up the matches he prefers for the majority of the game.
However, this is baseball. And if there’s one recurring lesson from this game, it’s that you can’t predict it. The Orioles ended up getting an incredibly heroic outing from Saunders, who pitched into the sixth inning and kept the powerful Rangers lineup to a single run, as the Baltimore Orioles went on to win the game 5-1 and effectively end the Texas Rangers season. Here’s how it all happened:
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