Tigers Bullpen Is Terrible, but Orioles Showing Goods for Deep October Run

If the American League Division Series matchup between the Detroit Tigers and Baltimore Orioles has a prevailing storyline after two games, it's how much the Tigers are getting killed by their biggest weakness.

The storyline just below that one, however, is equally important. While the Tigers are indeed being done in by their biggest weaknesses, the Orioles are showing that their biggest strengths are, well, actually really strong.

If you missed Friday's action, you missed the Orioles follow up a 12-3 win in Game 1 of the ALDS with a 7-6 win in Game 2. And where the Orioles ran away with Game 1 because they destroyed Detroit's bullpen, their destruction of Detroit's bullpen in Game 2 was the deciding factor.

You could see it coming as soon as Tigers skipper Brad Ausmus tabbed Joba Chamberlain to protect a 6-3 lead in the bottom of the eighth. After Chamberlain opened the floodgates for Baltimore's eight-run eighth inning in Game 1, the notion that a three-run lead was safe with him felt like a long shot.

It was. A Steve Pearce RBI single cut Detroit's lead to 6-4 and chased Chamberlain. Then came Joakim Soria, who walked J.J. Hardy to load the bases and bring up Delmon Young as a pinch hitter. With him being Delmon Young and this being October, he inevitably swung at the first pitch and poked a bases-clearing double to left field.

Zach Britton came in for the ninth, got the Tigers in order and now here we are to discuss this series' dueling narratives.

It actually wasn't all bad for Detroit's bullpen in Game 2. One positive involved 2013 AL ERA champ Anibal Sanchez coming into the game in relief of Justin Verlander in the sixth inning and pitching two spotless frames with a pair of strikeouts.

Such a performance was what I had in mind when I highlighted Sanchez as a potential savior for Detroit's bullpen before the series began. As he made good on that idea, it was actually possible to be optimistic.

At least that was true until Ausmus got into his actual bullpen, and everything went all to hell. After Thursday's disaster, MLB.com's Jason Beck highlighted the brutal figures:

This should be shocking. But it's not. Per FanGraphs, Detroit's bullpen had the fourth-worst ERA in baseball and was easily the most hittable bullpen of any playoff team in the second half.

And the look of the Tigers bullpen, as Jon Paul Morosi of Fox Sports captured perfectly, was as bad as the numbers:

"

Closer Joe Nathan has been hittable in many of his save opportunities, setup man Joba Chamberlain has regressed in the second half, and manager Brad Ausmus has yet to entrust veteran Joakim Soria with high-leverage situations on a consistent basis.

"

Given how much damage Chamberlain and Soria have caused, the best hope for Detroit's bullpen now is that Sanchez can be the bridge to Joe Nathan and that he'll miraculously turn back the clock. This, however, is another long shot, and the Tigers can only count on one game to give it a trial run.

In other words: No matter what David Price and/or Rick Porcello can do in Games 3 or 4 or how much more thunder the Tigers' vaunted middle of the order can provide, their bullpen has probably already given them the kiss of death.

OK, then. Let's talk about the Orioles.

Check that—the super-awesome, super-fun-to-watch, super-dangerous Orioles.

Patrick Semansky/Associated Press

Coming into the series, it was impossible to imagine the Orioles beating the Tigers in a starting-pitching battle. They would win if they continued to do what they do best: hit home runs, play defense and shut games down with their bullpen.

Two games in, it's hard to imagine the Orioles sticking to this formula more perfectly.

After Nelson Cruz and Hardy went deep in Game 1, it was Nick Markakis' two-run homer in the third in Game 2 that gave the Orioles a 2-0 lead, and from the looks of things, it permanently rattled Verlander.

Wei-Yin Chen gave that lead right back in the fourth inning, of course, as he was chewed up and spit out by Torii Hunter (single), Miguel Cabrera (double), Victor Martinez (single), J.D. Martinez (homer) and Nick Castellanos (homer). That signaled it was time for the bullpen to stop the damage.

Rob Carr/Getty Images

No matter. The Orioles bullpen was good at that all season and was good at it in Game 1 when Andrew Miller, Darren O'Day, Britton and Tommy Hunter combined to allow just one run in four innings. In Game 2, Showalter chose to unveil the bullpen's newest weapon: Kevin Gausman.

Gausman, the No. 4 pick overall in 2012, came in and threw enough gas on the situation to pitch three-and-two-thirds largely dominant innings, allowing one run and striking out five.

"Kevin presented himself real well," said Orioles skipper Buck Showalter afterward to Roch Kubatko of MASNSports.com. "And we thought he could be a weapon for us in the bullpen in the playoffs, because with their lineup, you're going to have some challenges pitching to them. Worked out good."

Darn right it did, and it brings us to the scary, though: If Gausman can continue to do that, Showalter can spend the rest of October applying his bullpen mastery to a bullpen that's even deeper than we thought.

Of course, Gausman did get some help from his defense. In the fifth inning, Ryan Flaherty, Jonathan Schoop and Pearce turned one of the best double plays you'll see:

That's the Orioles defense for you. According to Baseball Prospectus, they finished fourth in defensive efficiency. That's what you can do when you have guys who can turn plays like that.

Now, I just referred to dingers, defense and relief pitching as the three things the Orioles do best. But there's actually another thing they do best, and it's the thing that got them over the top in the eighth inning: clutch hitting.

Yeah, I know. We're not supposed to talk about it like it's an actual skill. But within the confines of a season, some teams are just plain good at it. The Orioles sure were, leading baseball with a .793 OPS in high-leverage situations, according to FanGraphs.

Young only got 26 plate appearances in such situations in the regular season and didn't perform very well in them. But he did hit .500 in pinch-hitting opportunities, and his .859 OPS and numerous big hits in his 128 postseason plate appearances were looming in the background. His game-winning double might as well have been a foregone conclusion.

Cue Cruz speaking to Eduardo A. Encina of The Baltimore Sun:

All told, it's a stretch to say things have gone perfectly for the Orioles. At the least, there's the background concern that their starting pitching has met expectations. Chris Tillman's five mediocre innings in Game 1 and Chen's clunker in Game 2 have shown that, yes, Baltimore's starting pitching is beatable. The Tigers aren't the only team in this series with an Achilles' heel.

It's clear, however, that the major difference between the two clubs is that the Orioles have a heck of a lot more protection for their Achilles' heel than the Tigers do for theirs.

The Orioles defense and bullpen are well suited to the task of taking pressure off the club's starting pitching, and their offense can produce both booming and big hits. It's also very much to their credit that they've needed only two games to show how many guys they have who can contribute to these strengths.

One more push will finish off the Tigers and their broken bullpen. After that, even clubs with good bullpens are going to have a hard time with the Orioles.

Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted/linked. 

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