Having a National League (and St. Louis Cardinals) orientation as my primary focus, I see far fewer American League games over the course of the season. One respite from viewing the same NL Central teams 19 times each year is the all-too-brief bursts of interleague play.
I had put a star on the calendar for Tuesday evening when I noticed that two-time AL Cy Young Award winner Corey Kluber and the Cleveland Indians were set to face Carlos Martinez and the St. Louis Cardinals.
Despite what some too-optimistic Cardinals fans were suggesting, Kluber is on a different plane from Martinez. The way I put it is that Kluber has been for some time what Martinez still aspires to be. While the younger Cardinal has shown flashes of brilliance at times in his career, his outings in the three weeks since coming off the disabled list with an oblique strain have been off-balance.
With that, I came in expecting a 3-0 or 4-1 Tribe victory behind a complete game delivered by their ace. My anticipation was only increased by an 86-minute rain delay before first pitch.
With the Cardinals hitters among many MLB teams striking out at a high rate, I wondered if Kluber might eclipse his personal career best of 18 strikeouts, achieved against these same Cardinals in interleague play three years ago.
Imagine my surprise when the script was almost immediately thrown out the window. Kluber set a record alright, but it was the dubious mark of his shortest-ever outing as a major leaguer – just 1 2/3 innings. Despite the offense staking him to a 2-0 first-inning lead, Kluber allowed six runs. The Cardinals pounded his cutter for six hits, including a pair of home runs, as he could not secure the final out of the home second.
To put into perspective how rare this clunker was, on Tuesday, Kluber was going for his 40th consecutive start of five or more innings. Obviously, that streak was broken.
With the ERA of Cleveland’s ace up to 2.54, the unofficial mid-point of the season coming no later than this weekend for most teams (Game 81) and the All-Star break nearing, I thought it would be a good time to check in on the American League Cy Young Award race. Kluber is the reigning winner, adding his 2017 honors to his 2014 trophy. (He also finished third in 2016.)
Rather than offer anecdotal evidence, ideally I would poll selected members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, but that is obviously not practical.
Instead, I headed over to ESPN’s website to view a tool called the “MLB Cy Young Predictor”. Its formula, borrowed from sabermetric pioneer Bill James and Rob Neyer, includes innings pitched, earned runs, strikeouts, walks, saves, shutouts, wins, losses and provides bonus points for a division title. The intent is not to determine the best pitcher, but instead to best predict where the votes will land.
The formula seems to work pretty well in forecasting the human vote. In fact, nine of the last 10 winners over the last five years were correctly predicted. The one miss was a second-place finisher.
I was surprised again on Wednesday morning, as the Predictor currently has Kluber pegged third. Luis Severino of the Yankees leads the way with 128 points with reborn Justin Verlander of the Houston Astros (that is still weird for me to type) is second at 112.5. Kluber has 110.6.
I did not look ahead of Tuesday’s start to see where Kluber was ranked just before, but my guess is he had been ranked second – as he was at the start of June, when he was behind only Verlander, 94.4 to 91.4.
But the real story here is Severino. Since his fourth-place showing according to the Predictor at the beginning of the month, the 24-year old has made five starts. Over those 33 2/3 innings, Severino fanned 40 and posted a 1.60 ERA, lowering his season mark from 2.31 to 2.10.
It is not a fluke either, as in 2017, Severino was an All-Star and went on the finish third in the Cy Young vote. The right-hander fanned 230 in 193 1/3 innings and logged a 2.98 ERA in 31 starts last season.
Coincidentally, Severino pitched this Tuesday as well, spinning seven shutout innings in Philadelphia and picking up his MLB-leading 12th win. Phillies personnel called him the most dominating pitcher they have seen in a long time. Last month, Max Scherzer struck out 15 Phillies in just 6 1/3 innings – and the general feeling was that Severino was even better.
Perhaps I should be using Severino as the yardstick for his fellow Dominican Republic native hurler Martinez, who is two years older. While the Cardinal has two All-Star berths, he has yet to place in the NL Cy Young vote.
Now, Kluber is looking up at Severino, too.
Next time, we will look into the 2018 NL race – unless a hotter rules-oriented topic emerges, that is!
Brian Walton was the 2009 National League Tout Wars champion, scoring the most points in the league’s 19-year history. He also holds the all-time NL Tout single-season records for wins and saves. His work can also be found daily at TheCardinalNation.com. Follow Brian on Twitter.
