KANSAS CITY — At the trade deadline, both the Toronto Blue Jays and Kansas City Royals beefed up their rotations by acquiring the two best pitchers on the market, David Price and Johnny Cueto, to pitch in big-time games like the one they’re about to play Friday night.
Thing is, neither of those guys are available for the ALCS opener. Instead, the Blue Jays will start a soft-tossing right-hander who last season led the majors in home runs allowed, while the Royals will give the ball to a 31-year-old journeyman who has played for four teams in the last three years and sports a 4.29 career ERA.
No, Marco Estrada vs. Edinson Volquez is not exactly a marquee match-up. But it is an interesting one when you consider what the two right-handers bring to the game and that both pitchers have had success this season against each other’s teams.
When Volquez first faced the Blue Jays in mid-July, he cruised through five innings before a throwing error in the sixth helped open up the floodgates on his way to surrendering four runs, just one of them earned. Volquez faced Toronto again four starts later — in the infamous, benches-clearing, “pretty good hittin’” game — when he threw six strong innings of two-run ball when he wasn’t jawing with Blue Jays hitters. His lone damage that night came on a Chris Colabello two-run shot in the fourth. Otherwise, Volquez was solid.
Estrada, meanwhile, may have gotten a little lucky in his first outing against the Royals this season on July 10, as he gave up nine hits and allowed all kinds of base runners, but came away with just two runs on his line over 6.2 innings. His second outing against Kansas City later that month was much better, as Estrada allowed just three hits and two runs (both on a first-inning double) before leaving with two outs in the sixth inning.
So make that one iffy start and one good start for both pitchers. Even when you pull back the lens to the entire season, they’ve both had similar campaigns, with Estrada posting a 3.13 ERA in 181 innings, and Volquez managing a 3.55 ERA in 200.1. Both players have struck out around the same amount of batters (Estrada had a 6.34 K/9, Volquez 6.90) while Volquez allowed far more walks, and Esrada allowed more home runs. If advanced stats are your thing, both FIP (Volquez was measured at 3.83, Estrada at 4.43) and xFIP (Volquez 4.25, Estrada 4.99) indicate that Volquez should have gotten better this season.
On Friday, Volquez will do what he’s always done: pumping 94-mph sinkers into the zone all day while mixing in his slow, diving changeup and an even slower curveball. He lives and dies with his sinker, which is in part his best pitch, because it can generate so many ground balls, and his worst, because batters have hit .317 against it this season, barreling it up for a line drive 26 per cent of the time it’s been put in play.
Volquez pitched decently against Houston last week, allowing three earned runs on five hits over 5.2 innings while striking out eight. Of course, Toronto is no Houston.
“You’ve got to stay focused in what you’re doing. And you’ve got to execute your pitches,” Volquez said. “We try to do the best we can against every team, and we all know Toronto is a better team than Houston. They’ve got more veteran guys and more power hitters. We’re going to play our game. We’re going to stay with the plan.”
Part of what sparked the fireworks between the Blue Jays and Royals in their most recent meeting was Volquez’s — and the Royals’ in general — insistence on pitching inside and backing Blue Jays hitters off the plate. From the sounds of things, that strategy isn’t about to change.
“We’ll pitch inside aggressively. That’s a power-laden club over there. We’re going to formulate a really good game plan and try to go out and execute,” said Royals manager Ned Yost. “We know that they’re a dynamic team. They’ve got tremendous power. Their offensive guys really study hitting. They don’t miss mistakes. And they’re a dangerous offence unit. They can put some runs on the board in a hurry.”
On the Blue Jays mound, Estrada will also do what he’s always done: dotting his 90-mph fastball around the edges of the strike zone, especially up high, before working in his high-70s change-up and curveball, trying to induce weak contact or swing-and-miss. Estrada has developed a cutter this season, but he doesn’t use it particularly often, and generally only to left-handers who are seeing his other pitches well.
“I’m going about it the same way, just like any other start, just like the first playoff start that I had a couple of days ago,” Estrada said. “I’m looking forward to throwing strikes, getting ahead of guys, trying to keep them off-balance. It’s a big field and so I’ll use that to my advantage. I’m going to attack just like I’ve been doing all year.”
Not that Estrada will need the help, as he’s put together one of the most underrated campaigns from a starting pitcher in the American League, but pitching at Kauffman Stadium will likely be good for him, as its spacious outfield holds in fly balls, which Estrada is prone to allowing.
“I try not to think about it that way. Obviously Rogers Centre isn’t the biggest ballpark in the world,” Estrada said. “I’m not trying to get pop flies all the time, it just happens because I elevate so much. Part of it is just what I do. And this field, I think, is going to help me out a little bit. But still, I’m not trying to get the ball up in the air, because they get ahold of one it’s going to go out and cost me a few runs.”
Not exactly a marquee matchup — but a compelling one to say the least.