Keys to the game (5/20)

Keys to the game-

1.) Trust your stuff. Mike Clevinger has made two major league starts this season (10 innings, 3 runs on 4 hits total), and one relief appearance (1/3 of an inning, 0 runs on 0 hits). While he has not been able to pitch deep into ballgames, he has handled his business when it comes to limiting our opponent’s offensive production. If you remember Clevinger started the year off in Triple A, and made quite a bit of adjustments to his mechanics. The adjustments have thus far paid off, and he gets the opportunity to make his third start today as Corey Kluber is still on the DL. Clevinger has good stuff, so he just needs to trust it. He needs to work on maintaining his command as to avoid walking batters. If he has to throw a lot of pitches (thus preventing him from pitching deep into ballgames) so be it, as long as he gets the out at the end of the battle. Do what you have to do to put zeros on the board- then hand it over the bullpen.

2.) Bullpen be ready! Knowing that Clevinger typically goes around 5 innings, our bullpen needs to be ready for the hand off. Our bullpen still ranks #1 in all of baseball (no surprise there because they are freaking awesome), with a 1.85 ERA, they are almost a full point lower then the second place team (which is the New York Yankees- who have a 2.71 ERA).  No matter what state the game is in, when the ball is turned over to them, we need them to continue to maintain.  As we saw in last night’s game, the Astros are going to play hard till the very last out. So don’t let them sneak up on you!

3.) Be looking for mistake pitches. Mike Fiers takes the mound for Houston tonight with a 1-1 record and 5.75 ERA. He is currently leading the majors in home runs allowed, allowing 16 homeruns in 36 innings of work. Eesh. Now you all know that I am a huge advocate of small ball. I whole-heartedly believe that the best way to consistently win ballgames is by successfully carrying out the fundamentals of small ball, so that needs to be the offensive goal entering into every game. But knowing that Fiers has struggled severely with his location/giving up the long ball, our offense needs to be actively looking for mistake pitches. If he is going to throw meatballs over the plate, we need to be ready/able/willing to hit them out of the park! Let’s get Clevenger a cushion!