October 6, 2013
PITTSBURGH • This just in ... Francisco Liriano is human. He is not Optimus Prime, the leader of the Transformers. He is not Doomsday, the destroyer of worlds. He isn’t even Thor, the God of Thunder.
To repeat: The Pirates’ Game 3 starting pitcher is a real man, vulnerable to illness, slumps, sleeplessness and other frailties that afflict mere mortals.
We can confirm this because Liriano publicly acknowledged that he’s being bothered by a cold. Dude has the sniffles, and probably has been sucking on some lozenges. This is a revelation.
“Yes,” Liriano said Saturday. “I feel kind of sick, my nose and throat.”
There may be hope for the Cardinals on Sunday at PNC Park when they resume the best-of-five National League division series, tied at 1-1 as the action moves into the Pirates’ den.
Maybe this time the Cardinals will face a weakened, achy, sneezing, feverish, Liriano instead of having their bats reduced to toothpicks by a wicked lefthander who turns into a combination of Sandy Koufax, Lefty Grove and Warren Spahn when he sees Cardinal red.
Then again ...
“It doesn’t bother me to pitch,” Liriano said. “I’ll be okay.”
So much for that.
Liriano faced the Cardinals three times during the regular season, and won all three starts. He won all three starts with the authority of Gen. Sherman turning Atlanta into kindling, or the Hells Angels working security for the Rolling Stones at Altamont.
Three starts, 24 innings, 10 hits, two earned runs, 20 strikeouts and an earned-run average of 0.75. The Cardinals batted .127 against Liriano, and lost the three starts by a combined score of 19 to 3.
That kind of kick-butt pitching dominance can get into a hitter’s head. This isn’t the best situation for the visiting team, having to subject themselves to Liriano’s wrath two days after being defused by rookie Pirates starter Gerrit Cole in Game 2 at Busch Stadium.
The Cardinals do plan to show up and take their swings at Liriano.
If the results are the same as the first three times, there will be many swings and misses with stunned Cardinal batters staring at Liriano as if they’d just been mowed down by the ghost of Carl Hubbell.
“You can’t think about how effective he’s been in the past,” Cardinals third baseman David Freese said. “Obviously he’s done his part, but it’s up to us to go out there and put good at-bats together and work your tail off. He’s just really effective. He really knows how to pitch. He’s not one of those lefties that just chucks it. He’s aggressive with everything he has.”
This is crazy. The Cardinals led the NL in runs this season, and shouldn’t be bullied multiple times by any pitcher.
Yes, Liriano is very good. He reaffirmed that by taking the Reds down in Tuesday’s NL wild card game. He was straight-up nasty.
Yes, we know that the Cardinals are inexplicably bewildered by lefthanded pitching. This year they had a losing record in confrontations with those wily lefties, and finished 26th in the majors with a combined .672 onbase-slugging percentage against LH pitching.
That said, it’s not as if the Cardinals are completely feckless against lefthanders. This season Clayton Kershaw (Dodgers), Madison Bumgarner (Giants) and Cliff Lee (Philies) were a combined 0-4 with a 6.00 ERA vs. St. Louis.
So indeed we know that it is possible for the Cardinals to punish quality lefthanded starters and banish them from the game.
The Cards are overdue to put an end to the Liriano rule.
Here are some areas to focus on:
- Make him work. Stretch those at-bats. Quit hacking. Do what the Cardinals do when they are at their best: grind away. Liriano averaged only 12 pitches per inning in making absurdly easy work of the St. Louis hitters during the regular season.
- Lay off the sinkers that plummet out of the strike zone. The sinker is Liriano’s most hittable pitch and he throws it more often than his slider and changeup. Opponents batted .287 against the sinker this season, with seven homers and 11 doubles and a .444 slugging percentage. The key: avoid chasing the sinkers that dart below the low strike zone. Make him elevate the pitch.
- When Liriano has two strikes on a batter he reaches for his hammer — the slider. It’s a devastating finishing pitch. Here are a couple of numbers culled from Brooks Baseball Net: in the 200 at-bats that ended with Liriano throwing a two-strike slider, batters went 20 for 200 (.100 average) with 120 strikeouts.
Liriano does a great job of getting anxious hitters to jump at two-strike sliders that aren’t anywhere near the strike zone. It’s imperative for the Cardinals to avoid Liriano’s most predictable trap.
According to the strike-zone data at Brooks Baseball, in the three games vs. Liriano the Cardinals swung at 42 pitches out of the strike zone — many of them on sliders. Liriano turned those undisciplined swings into nearly 20 outs. The Cardinals need more patience Sunday.
The Cardinals have studied plenty of video of their at-bats against Liriano, but that may be the wrong way to go. Other teams have punched him out this season. Colorado got him for 10 runs in 2.1 innings at Coors Field on Aug. 9. Liriano was smacked for seven runs in three innings on Sept. 4 at Milwaukee. And in his last five starts of the regular season, Liriano went 1-2 with a 5.14 ERA.
When asked what the Cardinals could do to make corrections in their approach to Liriano, Freese said, “Maybe watch what other teams have done against him.”
Here’s something else the Cardinals have to do: get a good start from Joe Kelly. Cardinals’ starting pitchers have played a role in these Liriano landslides by giving up too many early runs that stake Liriano to a comfortable lead. At that point his confidence is all but unbreakable.
On July 29 at PNC Park, the Pirates pounced on Jake Westbrook with four runs in the first inning. Aug. 14 at Busch Stadium, the Pirates got to Shelby Miller and opened a 5-0 lead after four. On Aug. 30, Miller gave way early again, this time at PNC, as the Pirates gifted Liriano with a 4-0 cushion through four innings.
Liriano may be battling a cold, but the Cardinals need to make him feel sweaty and uncomfortable for other reasons. Kelly and his fellow pitchers must keep Game 3 close instead of giving Liriano a free ride in a blowout win. And Cardinals hitters have to make him do some hard work.
Just try it.
Liriano can be defeated.
After all, he really is only human.
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