Cleveland Indians: Corey Kluber Pitching Backwards Confused the Cubs
As always, Cleveland Indians pitcher Corey Kluber met with his catcher Roberto Perez and his pitching coach prior to the game and they put together a loose plan for attacking the opposing lineup. It was “loose” because once the game begins, everything is subject to change based on how the game plays itself out. But last night, Plan A was all they needed. And it had a little twist to it…
At this moment in time, the Cleveland Indians‘ Corey Kluber is indisputably the best right-handed pitcher in baseball. He has an arsenal of five pitches, none of which reaches the hitter at less than 90 mph. Most importantly, he has command of every one of them and he rarely, if ever, touches the middle of the plate. And to top it all off, he exhibits an air of confidence on the mound that tells you he can.
If last night wasn’t the most powerful and dominating first three innings of a start by a pitcher in a World Series game, I’d like to know which one was better. The fact that Corey Kluber struck out eight of the first nine batters he faced speaks for itself. But it was the way he did it that was truly impressive.
The Baseball Bible
But before we get to that, a brief time out. Like all teams in the league, the Chicago Cubs have a “book” on every starting pitcher. And today, every pitch that is thrown by a pitcher gets broken down into little pieces that eventually get marked and then commonly becomes known as data.
The data includes, but probably isn’t limited to, the type of pitch (fastball, change, etc.), the location of the pitch which divides the plate into quadrants if it’s a strike, and the count the pitch is thrown on. Then (you already guessed, didn’t you?), the data gets fed into a program that produces a breakdown of who will throw what and when.
So it’s reasonable that every Cubs hitter who stepped up to the plate knew, or should have known, “the book” on Corey Kluber. Except that last night, if you knew nothing about Corey Kluber, you were actually in better shape.
The Art of Pitching Backwards
Because last night, Corey Kluber threw his own book out the window and decided to pitch backwards. For instance, the book says he throws a fastball 46 percent of the time on the first pitch of an at bat. Not last night, though. They were all breaking pitches that were followed up with another one. Then he went to his fastballs diving away and sinking from lefties, and sliders a foot outside the strike zone to the righties (Kris Bryant) that were hopelessly chased.
Here’s what we’re talking about. Just watch all the called third strikes that had the Cubs hitters looking like deer caught in the headlights…
They always say that good pitching will beat good hitting. Corey Kluber gave a classic demonstration that proved the axiom right. Can he do it again now that he’s written another chapter in his book?
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Well, that’s the best part about baseball, and it’s called making adjustments. The Cubs will get another crack at him in Game 4 and they might be a little gun shy about believing the book this time. But you know what, that could just turn out to work in their favor if they revert back to another baseball axiom, this one even older than the first, that simply says “see the ball, hit the ball.”