One other, Jon Gray, is an enigma. He was unexpectedly outstanding this season: 10-3, 3.48 ERA in 108+ innings, with only 98 hits allowed, and 111 K's. He held both lefties (697 OPS) and righties (662) at bay, which would be a very big asset against the balanced offensive attack of the Akron Ryche.
...BUT...
You have to take his numbers with an Everest-sized grain of salt. We only used him against the worst teams in the league this year. The only above-.500 teams he faced all season were Joplin (who crushed him) and Ravenswood (who didn't.) I simply can't trust that Gray would perform well against a team like Akron. So he will be sitting out the month of November as well.
That leaves two pitchers with unlimited innings in the playoffs: Stephen Strasburg and Anibal Sanchez. The problem with Sanchez is that we never know which version will show up on game day: the one who dominated Major League Baseball last year of the one who continually disappointed us all season in the BDBL. Sanchez allowed six runs in three different games this season, and one of those was against Akron.
I don't think we have any other choice but to keep him on the playoffs roster and give him two starts in the Division Series. Our best starter, Clay Buchholz, is limited to 7.2 innings. Trevor Cahill is limited to 8.2. Shohei Ohtani is limited to 4. It is tempting to use our bullpen as much as possible, but we can only "bullpen" so many games.
At this point, our LDS rotation looks something like this:
Game 1: Strasburg
Game 2: Sanchez
Game 3: Buchholz
Game 4: Strasburg
Game 5: Bullpen game (start Ohtani for 2)
Game 6: Sanchez
Game 7: Strasburg
There are a lot of "X-factors" involved with this plan. Strasburg will be pitching on three days rest, which means we'll have to limit him to around 90 pitches per game. Or we could move our bullpen game to Game 4 and have Stras start Game 5 on full rest. Or we could give Cahill a start. The problem is that if we did either, we'd have no one to start Game 7. However, you should never plan a series to go the distance. One game at a time. We can worry about Game 7 if we get there.
Our bullpen is set: Taylor Rogers, Ryan Brasier, Jonathan Holder, Oliver Perez, Rich Rodriguez, Pedro Strop, and Ohtani for two. We will also keep Cahill on the roster in case we get ourselves into an extra-innings jam.
Our offense is also set in stone. Akron will likely start two left-handers (Carlos Quintana and Robbie Ray), which means our two lefty-bashers, Christian Villanueva and Danny Valencia, are no-brainers. Akron's two best relievers are also left-handed, so we need to max out their usage this series.
Odubel Herrera and Hunter Renfroe were dreadful all season, but we may need to give Renfroe a start, as Ramon Laureano is limited to just 6 PA's against lefties in this series. Otherwise, the rest of the lineup shakes out as it has throughout the season.
We have a big decision to make regarding our lineup against right-handers. Shohei Ohtani's bat is far too valuable to waste on the bench. He hit .279/.369/.487 this season against righties -- and that was a drastic under-performance. He is a huge liability in the field, however, as he is not rated at any position. We used him a lot in right field this season, and he was absolutely dreadful. If he cost the team a run per game in the field, his bat made up for it throughout the course of the long 160-game season. In a short series, however, those small mistakes are magnified and every run is crucial.
The problem is that if Ohtani's bat isn't in the lineup, then he'll be replaced by either Enrique Hernandez (.213/.299/.448 vs. RH this year) or Renfroe (.186/.234/.350). We can't afford to start either of them. At this point, it may need to be a game-time decision. On the plus side, both Hernandez and Renfroe are right-handed power hitters, which plays well in Akron's home park (RH HR factor of 115).
Another question we will need to eventually address is what to do with our 25th roster spot. At the moment, it's empty. We could give it to Herrera or Danny Jansen, but that seems like a waste of a spot. Trevor May is only eligible to pitch two innings in the series, but they would likely be two great innings. Felix Pena was lights-out (.218/.262/.280) against righties, but was pounded by lefties, so he wouldn't be all that useful against Akron's balanced lineup. Mike Montgomery would be a waste of a roster spot as well.
This Division Series will be decided by a series of coin flips. Akron is a 100-win team with a potent offense and a quality pitching staff -- which is exactly why we didn't want to face them in the playoffs. We still have a lot of work to do to prepare for this series.
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