ALDS Game 2 Analysis: Tigers a Road Favorite vs. Guardians

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00:00First in Cleveland, first pitch a little bit after 4 p.m. Eastern time. The Guardians,

00:08a strong game one, a strong opening inning of the opening game of the ALDS. They lead

00:15one game to nothing, but the Tigers are a road favorite. Why? The presumed and guy who

00:22is going to win the American League Cy Young Award, Tarek Skubal, is on the bump for Detroit.

00:29The Tigers, DRS, a minus 130 road favorite in the land. Will Detroit even up the ALDS

00:36when the night is through?

00:38They should, but if we're looking at all four pitchers tonight that are due to start, there's

00:42really no area that you're going to say, you know what, I'm going to fade this because

00:45the ERA has been over the past 60 days, 1.94, 2.58, 2.92, 2.72. So it's not as if we're

00:52going into the same, like, you know, there's unbelievable mismatches on the mound, which

00:56theoretically you probably should have on a night-to-night basis when Skubal's out there.

00:59Hear me out on this. He's been fantastic. I do give the upper hand to Detroit, but let's

01:03go over this game. The Cleveland Guardians are going to show up. They have a formidable,

01:07you know, lineup here against left-handed pitching, to be honest. The first six guys

01:10in that lineup over the past 30 days, look at the weighted on base percentages, 4.46,

01:154.94, 3.63, 4.01, 5.65, and 3.28 against left-handed pitching. But this isn't tomato can left-handed

01:22pitching. Let's just do the end of the season and we're going to wait for the playoffs.

01:26This is Derrick Skubal, the best pitcher in Major League Baseball. He should be able to

01:29hold down the fort. Now you flip it over to the other side and say, well, Matthew Boyd's

01:32not that great a pitcher, but I just told you, a 2.72 ERA. His XFIP is 3.89, which typically

01:38during the regular season, I'm like, yeah, let's move on. Let's not fade that guy because

01:41it's not high enough. You like that danger zone, 4.5 or higher in the XFIP. So he's quality.

01:46Now, if you say, all right, the Tigers should have a decided advantage in this game on the

01:50mound. Somewhat, I agree with you, but let's take a look at the hitters in the lineup for

01:53the Detroit Tigers and what they've done against left-handed pitching over the past month.

01:58Boyd, he has actually struggled with right-handed batters and left-handed batters. 3.78 and

02:033.78 actually an equal weighted on base percentage on both sides. Now granted, it's only 58 batters

02:09in the majority of those batters from the right-handed side, 52 of the 58. So let's

02:13erase the left-handed batters and just focus on the right-handed batters, which will be

02:16the majority of the lineup tonight. But if we look in totality, Ben, and say, well, how

02:20have they actually done as a team against lefties? Let's go over that ISO power number,

02:25which you want around 165 or higher. Deerling 0.74, Henry Malloy 0, Abanez 100, Perez 0.45,

02:34Torkelson 0.53, Meadows 1.38, Rodgers 0, Sweeney 0.42. The only positive there is left-handed

02:41batter Riley Green at a 2.42. Everybody else is below. So theoretically, you see that

02:46six of like, I got to take the over. I don't know if we get seven runs tonight to be honest.

02:51So I'm going to take the under in this ballgame, which by the way, Detroit didn't even score

02:55in game number one. We'll see if they can get off the map. And I don't expect seven

02:58runs in a school bull start going up against Detroit tonight. So six wild number. I'm still

03:04going under.