Decision points: The key moments from Friday’s MLB Wild Card games
By Bill Felber
Bieber or Clase?
In closely contested playoff games, no managerial decision point is as fraught with uncertainty and peril as the simplest and most common: Whether to pull the pitcher.
Make the wrong decision (and either decision could be the wrong one) and the game could blow up in a manager’s face. If that happens, second guessers are sure to flock to the scene.
On the other hand, the right decision can lock down a victory.
Guardians manager Terry Francona faced such a moment in the eighth inning of Cleveland’s eventual 2-1 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays.
It was, perhaps, both the most basic and potentially most controversial of decisions: When do you lift a starter who’s rolling?
The eighth inning began with Guardians ace Shane Bieber in virtually full command. Through seven innings, he had held the Rays to only two hits, one of them a Jose Siri home run.
He got Manuel Margot on a groundout, then fanned Christian Bethancourt on three pitches before pinch hitter Isaac Paredes rolled a ground single into left field.
The next batter was Siri, the same guy who had taken Bieber deep two innings earlier.
This was the decision point with which Francona was forced to wrestle. On the one hand, Bieber was pitching superbly. He had walked just one, fanned eight, and, aside from the Siri homer, the Rays had not advanced a single runner beyond first base.
On the other hand, on the rare occasions when Francona had let Bieber pitch into the eighth inning, the results had not been good. He had done so six previous times, the toll amounting to a 7.71 ERA and a .300 opponents batting average.
Francona had his ace closer, Emmanuel Clase, warmed and ready in the bullpen. Clase had allowed just 54 baserunners in 72 innings. But Clase wasn’t perfect, either, having twice since September 1 blown save opportunities. Beyond that, Francona had not asked Clase to get more than three outs all season.
In a one-run game, Francona’s decision point was a second-guesser’s dream.
He went with Clase, and it worked. Pinch runner Vidal Brujan stole second base on the first pitch, but then Clase retired Siri on a line drive to third.
In the ninth, Clase sat the Rays down without incident, clinching the victory for Bieber and the Guardians and putting Francona on the right side of the game’s critical decision point.