This won’t come as a surprise, but when the bases are loaded and there are no outs, a team’s run expectancy is at its absolute highest. And by a lot. I’ll pause while that sinks in. In that situation, teams are expected to score at least two runs. It’s the time when, if it’s our pitcher on the mound, we watch with our hands over our eyes and sneak a look only when we feel like it’s safe. Rarely do pitchers escape a situation like that unscathed, and even more rarely do they do that twice in consecutive starts. I certainly don’t hope for Jon Lester to find himself in a bases loaded, no out jam again during his start tonight, but if somehow he does, he’s shown in his last two starts that he can handle that with aplomb.
For all of the criticism for his “yips” when throwing to first base, his composure with runners on base gets less attention. Some of this may be due to the work of David Ross in keeping the runners honest, but it’s also worth noting that the Cubs defense as a whole is among the best in the league. Even with those things being true, however, getting three outs with three men on the bases without allowing a single run falls largely on the pitcher. Lester has shown in many situations before these two starts that he can weather worse trials than these, but working out of jams like these are a large part of what makes a team successful as a whole. Take a look at how Lester has done this in his last two starts:
Friday, April 29 – 7th inning, Cubs tied 1-1
In his fifth start of the season, Lester was cruising through the Atlanta Braves lineup with relative ease, holding them to just one run through the first six innings. The trouble was, his offense had put up just one run themselves, so he had a tie game to protect. Lester had the 5th, 6th, and 7th hitters coming up – a spot in most any lineup that doesn’t exactly inspire fear, but not one to be overlooked. For the Braves, this meant Jeff Francoeur, Tyler Flowers, and Erick Aybar, so probably closer to the “don’t worry about it” end of the spectrum. But they had some surprises up their sleeves. Francoeur, who has been experiencing a bit of a mini-renaissance since returning to Atlanta (yes, I know I’m being a little generous with that term), took the first pitch for a ball, watched a called strike, and then singled to center field.
Ordinarily, a leadoff guy getting on base is trouble, as it doubles the run expectancy. But with Tyler Flowers coming up to bat (career .201 hitter with men on base), it didn’t create much reason for concern. Surprisingly, Lester struggled with this at bat. Not one to typically seem rattled, he struggled significantly through the at bat with Flowers. After getting ahead in the count, 1-2, Lester threw two straight balls, including one that passed David Ross and moved Francoeur to second. Flowers ultimately drew a walk, and the run expectancy goes up to 1.4, meaning that giving up a run in this inning is a near certainty.
The next batter, Aybar, took one strike before bunting the second pitch in front of home plate and making it to first safely. And there we are – bases loaded, and no one is out. By now, the run expectancy is over 2, meaning that not only is giving up a run highly probable, but more than one is likely.
But here’s where the inning shifts. Like the volta in an Italian sonnet, the course of action changes and it ends differently than expected. Lester even struggled a bit in the next at bat. It took eight agonizing pitches to retire Drew Stubbs, but Lester got Stubbs to swing and miss after he’d fouled off four pitches. Jace Peterson came in to pinch hit for Aaron Blair in the next at bat in a spot with even one out, the run expectancy still sat at 1.5. Lester used just four pitches to get Peterson to strike out looking, and Atlanta’s run expectancy is cut in half, and down to a third of what it was when they had loaded the bases before recording an out. The tide and rushed in and then receded for them in just a matter of minutes. The last out took seven more pitches from Lester, pushing his total above 120, but he walked away from the inning after getting Nick Markakis to ground out without having given up a run. From runners on every base and not a single out late in a tie game to returning to the dugout and ultimately ending his day having preserved the tie in a game that the Cubs went on to win.
To accomplish this feat just once it a season is worth a tip of the cap, but Lester did it again in his very next start. And this time it was against a much tougher opponent in a series with likely larger implications than the Atlanta Braves. Arguably an easier situation in some ways (his offense had spotted him a three run lead), but here he faced the third, fourth, and fifth hitters for the Pirates.
Wednesday, May 4 – 4th inning, Cubs lead 3-0
In the 4th inning in Pittsburgh last Wednesday, the 4th inning was one that could have shifted the direction of the game in Pittsburgh’s favor, but, like the Braves, they would ultimately walk away empty handed.
It started with a David Freese single on a 1-1 pitch, and then Starling Marte drew a rare four pitch walk from Lester. At this point, the run expectancy sits at 1.4, but it jumped rather quickly when Francisco Cervelli singled between third base and shortstop on the first pitch and, once again, he has the bases loaded and no one is out.
Through these first three batters, Lester had used just eight pitches, but it took him another eight to get Sean Rodriguez to strike out. He kept the ball down and out of the zone, and even with an eventual full count, didn’t let Rodriguez get anything in the at bat. Not even a sacrifice fly. Josh Harrison flew out to shallow right on the third pitch of his at bat, and like the Braves just a few days prior, the Pirates are watching a valuable scoring opportunity be ripped out from under them. In the last at bat of the inning, Lester again kept his pitches away from the part of the zone where Gregory Polanco could do anything with them, and again worked the count full. But he retired Polanco on a swing-and-miss strike and returned to the dugout without having allowed a run.
In total, that’s nearly 4.5 runs that probably should have been scored by the opposing teams in those two situations, but Lester didn’t allow a single one. In both cases, he worked the lower parts of the zone and kept his pitches away from where they could do the most damage at the hands of opposing hitters. He doesn’t necessarily throw harder or mix his pitches in a way differently than he does in other situations, but in both cases, a higher percentage of his pitches come in at the bottom of the strike zone; low and away for left handed hitters, and low and inside for right handed hitters. Not a spot well suited in either case for the batter to get good contact.
These are the kinds of situations that will get lost in the larger story of how the 2016 season turns out, but they can end up being crucial. These two innings from Lester probably kept two of the Cubs wins from being losses, and while their current record doesn’t seem to indicate that they’ll have difficulty winning the division, we know the season is long, and we know how things can ebb and flow. In many seasons, two wins can be the difference between playoffs and not. Take two wins away from the 2015 Astros and that’s the case.
In all, this is a testament to what is going well for the Cubs this year, and a microcosm of what has them on this historic pace so far. Lester’s ability to work out of these two jams will fade in our memories pretty quickly, but that ability is probably itself a small example of a mental strength in him that keeps him unflappable with runners on and in high pressure situations, and that’s something that I expect the Cubs will need this fall.
Lead photo courtesy David Banks—USA Today Sports.
A run expectancy of 1.4 does not mean that it is a near certainty that a run will score in the inning. More like a 61% chance.