The Showalter Advantage

BALTIMORE, Maryland October 3, 2014 - It would be tempting to proclaim that Buck Showalter's managing has been "Weaveresque," or something to that effect. His ability to out-fox and out-maneuver Tiger Rookie Skipper Brad Ausmus has been a huge part of the Orioles' two scintillating victories to begin their American League Divisional Series with the powerful, power-laden, playoff-savvy Detroit Tigers.

In the opener Thursday night, with the Tigers down by only one run in the bottom of the eighth, and with the Orioles having a runner at second base and one already out, Ausmus elected to replace Reigning Cy Young Award Winner Max Scherzer, even though he'd thrown just 96 pitches. To the horror of Ausmus and the Tigers, the bullpen he called upon in that eighth inning was torched, totally, by the determined Orioles. Before the inning was over, a tight nail-biter of a game - one Detroit trailed by a mere run - had morphed into a ridiculous blow-out; 4-3 became 12-3. It got worse for the Tigers on Friday afternoon. This time, Tigers sluggers made super quick work of usually stingey Oriole hurler Wei-Yin Chen. Trailing 2-0 after two innings, thanks to a Nick Markakis homer, the Tigers exploded for five runs in the course of only ten pitches. Those ten pitches produced five straight hits, including a three-run home run by J.D. Martinez and a solo blast by Nick Castellanos. The Orioles' 2-0 lead turned quickly to a 5-2 Detroit advantage. Funny thing is, Ausmus nightmare started to percolate here, even though the Tigers would continue for a time to score. We explain:

In the fourth inning, after Chen lost the touch that got him through three unscathed innings, and with his team now behind by three runs, Showalter summonsed to the mound Baltimore's very young flame-thrower, Kevin Gausman. Gausman is the Orioles' fifth starter even though he is just two years removed from Louisiana State. Two years ago, Gausman started for the Bayou Bengals on opening night against the University of Maryland. Friday, Gausman was called into the pressure cooker of the Major League Playoffs in front of 48,000 crazed Baltimore Oriole fans. He handled it very well, throwing three and two-thirds innings and scattering three hits while striking out five, Gausman gave the Orioles the breathing room they needed to come back. Many of his pitches were clocked at 96, 97 and 98 miles per hour. Everybody on the Orioles knows Gausman can attain such speeds, but they rarely see it when he starts a game since he figures to pitch six, seven or eight innings, and grapples with the issues every starter faces: pacing himself, holding back some strength. Friday, Showalter told him, in effect, to let it rip for as long as you can, and we'll come get you when you run out of steam. Gausman got the message. His pitches rippled with speed and movement and Tiger hitters who are rarely overmatched found themselves swinging late and catching wind.

Justin Verlander started Friday for the Tigers, but it wasn't the same Verlander that had won a Cy Young award. He survived into the sixth inning, but was touched up for three runs and six hits. After Detroit busted ahead in the top of the fourth, coaches on both sides told reporters that they believed it was critical for Verlander to throw a "shut down" inning in the bottom of the fourth. He couldn't do it. Adam Jones led off the inning with a solid single, and he moved to second on Nelson Cruz' ground out. Verlander struck out Steve Pearce, but allowed an RBI single by J.J. Hardy. Jones raced home, cutting the Detroit lead to 5-3, and getting the Oriole crowd back in the game. Ausmus removed Verlander after Cruz drilled a single to center to start the sixth inning. Anibal Sanchez replaced Verlander and got the Tigers out of the sixth without the Orioles' scoring. He also retired Baltimore in the seventh. He faced six hitters and retired six hitters. The game now moved to the eighth, and again it proved the Tigers' undoing. In the top of the inning Gausman finally appeared to tire. Tori Hunter walked to lead off, and Miguel Cabrera singled him to second. Victor Martinez followed with a booming double to straight away center. Hunter scored easily. But with no one out, Cabrera rumbled around third and received a stunning green light from Tiger third base coach Dave Thomas. Out in the far reaches of center field, Adam Jones was scraping the ball off the wall and firing a strike to Jonathan Schoop, the second baseman with the rocket arm. In one motion, Schoop caught the relay throw, wheeled around and fired it to catcher Caleb Joseph. Joseph tagged Cabrera out. Now the rest of the story. A lot of Tiger fans were incensed that Clark sent Cabrera. But he had virtually caught up to Hunter; there was only about seven yards between them. It was between third and home that Cabrera ran out of gas. While Hunter scored with total ease, not even sliding, not even a very good slide could save Cabrera. He was very out as well as being very out of gas. So instead of Detroit leading 6-3 with Victor Martinez at second and Cabrera at third and nobody out, they had one out, one on, and no more runs coming...for Detroit. For Baltimore, the fun was just starting.

Ausmus said Sanchez could not have gone another inning. He is recovering from an injury and, except for a brief relief appearance in one of the last games of the season, had not pitched since early September. The 35 pitches he needed to mow down six Orioles without incident had finished him, said Ausmus. So Joba Chamberlain was called upon, though he'd been torched the night before by the Birds. So enchanted were the Howling Oriole Faithful at the prospect of facing the Mountainous Chamberlain, they greeted him with a standing ovation. Really: they actually did that. And with good reason. To his credit, the big right-hander with the full grizzly beard and long bushy hair, quickly retired Alejandro De Aza on an infield grounder. Next came no. 3 hitter Adam Jones. Chamberlain drilled him in the right leg with what appeared to be a fast ball. Cruz followed with a single to left, putting runners at first and second. In a wonderful at bat in which he fought off several pitches, Steve Pearce followed with a single into right-center field, scoring Jones and making the score 6-4 Detroit. Ausmus knows a brewing disaster when he sees it, and he saw this one with enhanced clarity. Out of the dugout he marched and called on Joakim Soria. It was not an enlightened choice. No, not at all. J.J. Hardy was the first hitter to face Soria, and the clutch-hitting shortstop coaxed a base-on-balls from the Tiger hurler. Now the Camden Yards diamond was FOB: full of birds. That gave Showalter the absolutely perfect opportunity to use the premier pinch swinger in the game, Delmon Young. Soria had more or less expected to see Young, and he recalled Young had gotten a hit off of one of his fastballs during a prior confrontation. So he threw a slider. What Soria should have remembered is that Young is a chronic first-ball swinger. Young was all over the slider, smashing it hard into the left field corner. Runs-a-plenty were pouring in on home plate. Crews, from third, scored in a jog. Starting from second base, Pearce ran hard and also made it home without trouble. The big question, of course, was Hardy. A student of the game, he got a tremendous jump on the batted ball from his vantage point at first base, and got a green light from Baltimore third base coach Bobby Dickerson to head home. In left field, J.D. Martinez bobbled the ball after it richocheted to him off the wall. But he hit the cutoff man and the throw from Ian Kinsler actually beat Hardy to the plate. But at the same time, it forced catcher Alex Avila up the line. Hardy went into a tremendous sweeping slide on the foul side of the plate, and Avila could not catch up to him as he reached out and tagged the plate on the way by. The Orioles now had four runs across, and a 6-3 deficit was now a 7-6 lead. Brad Brock, who had retired two Tigers in the 8th in relief of Gausman, picked up the win. Zach Britton, who mowed Detroit down in the 9th, got the save. Now the ALDS moves to Detroit with the home team in an 0-2 hole in the best of five series.

Ausmus had drawn heat prior to the playoffs for his pitching decisions late in the game. According to Jon Heyman of CBS, "Tiger relievers didn't stop too many folks all year, posting a woeful 4.29 ERA as a unit for the season. And for two games here in the American League Division Series, they have been nothing short of a disaster....Through two games Chamberlain has a 108.00 ERA, and Soria 45.00, though it's hard to say one has been better than the other. Either way, it's hard to imagine Tigers manager Brad Ausmus going back to them.

"If we get to the eighth inning with a lead on Sunday," Ausmus said afterward, "we'll have to find somebody."

Presumably somebody not named them," Heyman wrote.

Over at NBC, Matthew Pouliot said this:

"Yet Ausmus refused to try anything different. Maybe Soria hadn’t quite returned to form following the oblique injury, but Al Alburquerque remained criminally underused. Alburquerque had a 2.51 ERA this season, lowering his career mark to 2.82. He allowed two runs over 18 2/3 innings in August and September. He held right-handers to a .190/.281/.237 line and was still plenty respectable against lefties (.245/.311/.369). Yet his last three appearances this year came in games the Tigers lost a combined 28-9. He hasn’t pitched in the ALDS.

It’s not just the eighth inning, either. On two occasions against the Orioles, Aumsus has seemed to defer to his players against his better judgment. In Game 1, he started Davis in spite of a groin injury that had him looking more like a 40-year-old catcher than a fleet-footed center fielder. There’s no way Davis should have played (Davis started again today, then exited in the fourth because of his injury). In the sixth inning today, he sent Justin Verlander back out to the mound, only to pull him after a leadoff single (that should have been caught by Davis’s replacement, Ezequiel Carrera). If Verlander was one mistake away from coming out, why send him out to make that mistake?

Brad Ausmus’s flaw has nothing to do with intelligence. He just seems overly resistant to change. He doesn’t like tweaking his lineups: Rajai Davis has bigger platoon issues than any right-handed hitter in the game; he’s a quality leadoff man against lefties, but he really shouldn’t be starting against righties at all. Ausmus hits him ninth on a full-time basis regardless. Ian Kinsler had a .270 OBP in the second half, yet remained the everyday leadoff man. Ausmus decided it made more sense to win or lose with him..."

The point of all of this is that Showalter is making one brilliant decision after another. Ausmus is doing the opposite. Weaver, as brilliant and cunning as he was, as willing as he was to push everything to the edge if it would get him a win, never was as successful in the post-season as he was in the regular season. He managed in four World Series, but won only one, in 1970, against the Reds. His Orioles lost World Series against the Mets in 1969, the Pirates in 1971 and the Pirates again in 1079. He retired after the 1982 season, and even though it was largely his team in 1983, Joe Altobelli took them home. Showalter appears to have a plan to improve on that post-season Oriole record. He certainly has more freedom than Weaver in crafting a roster for the special circumstances of the post-season. He and Duquette are just as willing as Weaver and Cashen, Weaver and Dalton, Weaver and Peters were at picking up players in August and using them in October. If the Birds can emerge from this series, Showalter will deserve a good solid dose of the credit. His plan for the bullpen and use for the bullpen has been a recipe for victory. I'm in no way looking away from Duquette, who gets more than a little bit of credit for many of the points herein cited.

It was Showalter's use of the bullpen in the first game that set a pattern for the series so far. He seemed to know in advance exactly what he wanted to do with Miller, Darren O'Day, Tommy Hunter and Zach Britton. Playoffs are different than the regular season, and managers have to recognize that. Showalter is. Andrew Miller hardly ever pitched more than one inning for the Orioles. Now, in the playoffs, he has pitched more than one everytime in.

In the playoffs, Showalter's hook is a bit shorter with his starters, especially those like Chen, who run out of gas suddenly. How far can an advantage like Showalter take the Orioles? Can it overcome the fact that the Orioles are missing three All Stars? In a word: Maybe.