Blue Jays, Royals will have lots of balls in the air in ALCS Game 4
TORONTO — No team hit more home runs than the Toronto Blue Jays. No pitcher allowed more flyballs than the Kansas City Royals’ Chris Young. Only one ballpark has yielded more home runs than Rogers Centre in the past five seasons.
How all of that coalesces in this afternoon’s American League Championship Series Game 4 will determine whether the Jays are able to tie the series at 2-2 or the Royals can take charge up 3-1.
“He's had good success against some of these hitters,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “His height and his deception in his delivery, his competitiveness. He had a great outing against Houston in Kansas City and his last two starts were really, really good. He's a good choice for us.”
Young, a veteran journeyman with his fifth team, went 11-6 with a 3.07 ERA in 123 1/3 innings of work this year. Among pitchers who logged at least 120 innings, however, his 27.1% ground ball rate was the lowest in the majors. Young’s road numbers were actually much better than they were at home in pitcher-friendly Kauffman Stadium, although he didn’t pitch in Toronto.
That could prove troublesome against a Toronto lineup that blew away the competition with 232 homers and 891 runs this season. And the Blue Jays awoke with a fury in Game 3, hitting three home runs and rolling up 11 runs to cut the Royals' ALCS lead to 2-1.
So what now?
“He does elevate the ball a lot,” Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said of young. “But watch, when he's on, it's tough to catch up to. It's awful enticing, but guys have trouble really getting to it, getting on top of it to -- but we've got Dickey going knuckleballer, hopefully he keeps it out of the air, too.”
Young made one start against the Jays this season — at home. He logged a minimum quality start of three runs in six innings while taking the loss, giving up a two-run homer to Edwin Encarnacion.
He’s a soft tosser at this juncture of his career, with an average fastball velocity of only 87 miles per hour this season. He typically throws that pitch about 60% of the time and his slider about 40% with a negligible amount of change ups mixed in. The Jays hit a homer in one of every 20 at bats against flyball pitchers this season.
“If he's got the fastball and slider going he's going to be very, very tough,” Yost said. “Again, every pitcher has to execute. If a pitcher executes he's going to be in good shape. If he doesn't, he probably won't be in good shape.”
The flip side, however, is that Toronto is starting knuckle ball pitcher R.A. Dickey, who can also be home run prone when he’s not sharp although opponents homered only once every 32 at bats against him this year.
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