Looking at ALDS Game 2: Blackburn Vs. Burnett

It was a good start for the Yankees Wednesday night, riding 6.2 innings from CC Sabathia on their way to a 7-2 victory over the Twins.

It sounds cliche and unnecessary, but every game truly does count in a short series, especially a best of five.  If we learned anything from the Twins Tuesday night victory over the Tigers, it’s that the Homerdome can still be a rockin’ place to play.  With the baggy walls ready to gasp their last breath, you can be sure that winning in Minnesota will be a tough task.

All the more reason to focus on game 2, when the Twins will throw Nick Blackburn against AJ Burnett for the Yankees.

Blackburn has been a solid pitcher for the Twins.  Amazingly, he’s posted back to back 11-11 seasons with an ERA just over 4.00 both years.  You can’t put too much on wins as a statistic for a pitcher since so much of it is dependent on run support, but pitching in the typically weal AL Central would hopefully yield slightly better results for the 27 year old right-hander.

Blackburn doesn’t have a tremendous history against Yankee hitters.  Here’s how they’ve fared against him so far:

A couple of things of note here:

• Eight strikeouts over eighty-six plate appearances is not very good.  One of the better indicators of a pitchers effectiveness is their strikeout to walk ratio and home runs allowed.  Blackburn has actually walked more Yankee hitters than he’s struck out, which isn’t an encouraging sign for the Twins.
• Four home runs in eighty-six plate appearances should be encouraging, though.  Naturally, Blackburn has had the most trouble with the top of the order.  The younger guys like Melky and Cano have barely seen him but have not fared well in their few at-bats.

Another thing to look at or Blackburn are his career splits over a season:

It doesn’t appear that Blackburn gets any stronger toward the end of the season.  Interestingly, his second best SO/BB ratio of the year comes when his opponents are hitting best off of him, mostly due to his high home run totals in September and October.  His other numbers are basically on par with the rest of his year.

For our last trick, let’s take a quick look at how the Yankees break down against right-handers and left-handers:

I’ve left the Yankees performance against left-handers in their for a little bit of context.

Pretty darn good numbers for the Yanks.  The additions of Nick Swisher and Mark Teixeira, both switch hitters, and Hideki Matsui’s dominance over left-handers this season has actually made the Yankees better against lefties than righties, albeit a marginal difference.  Still, making up that gap from 2008 (.734 OPS against lefties, .784 OPS against righties) has certainly helped.

What’s good for the Yankees here is their SO/BB ratio against right-handers, which is about 1.50.  Blackburn’s career ratio is 2.46 and against the Yankees is actually less than 1.00.  One can bet the Yankees will try and work the count as usual against Blackburn because they don’t seem to afraid of his stuff.

Let’s look at what AJ Burnett has done against the Twins:

Again, the caveat of small samples sizes.

Clearly, Burnett has fared better against the Twins than Blackburn has against the Yanks.  Two home runs, four doubles and one triple in 145 plate appearances is outstanding and shows up in his .331 slugging percentage against.  Naturally, Joe Mauer has hit well against Burnett because Joe Mauer hits well against just about everybody.  Burnett’s SO/BB ratio is right around his career mark of 2.22.

Looking at Burnett’s season splits can be an exercise in frustration:

Nobody pitches consistently at the same level over the course of a season.  It’s nearly impossible.  There’s ups and downs like everything else in life.

What’s frustrating about Burnett is his walk totals.  Even at his most effective (June and July), Burnett was still walking 32 batters in 234 plate appearances.

At times, his numbers just don’t seem to match up right:  His best SO/BB ratio (Sept/Oct 2.47) yielded his highest batting average against.  His worst SO/BB ratio (July’s 1.31) yielded his best OPS against.

All of Burnett’s numbers are up this season: his home runs per nine innings (HR/9), BB/9, and hits/9 are all higher than his career average (and undoubtedly raised his career average in the process).  At the time of his signing, no one expected him to be an ace, but the hope was that he would match the sub-4.00 ERA he had posted in two of the previous three seasons in Toronto.

He hasn’t.  It’s hard to call Burnett a disappointment if you looked objectively at his numbers, but he hasn’t lived up to the hopes.  A decent run in October could help alleviate those thoughts.

Finally, let’s look at the Twins splits against right-handers:

Again, lefty splits added for context.

The Yankees have a 69 point edge in OPS against righties over the Twins.  Not a huge amount but significant.  The Twins slugging percentage is pretty low, while their OBP is a decent .345.  With a little bit of patience, they should be able to get on base against Burnett but getting the big hit might be difficult if Burnett is spotting his pitches.

The Twins as well have fared a bit better against lefties despite having lost to Sabathia Wednesday night.  Andy Pettitte will go in game three at the Metrodome on Sunday, which will surely be a challenge.

Given the Twins history against Burnett and their low power numbers versus right-handers compared to the Yankees, you have to like the Yankees chances in game two.  The Twins best hope is to keep the game close through the middle innings and hope their bullpen can keep it close.  If Blackburn isn’t fooling the Yankees hitters the second time through the order, they’ll start chipping away and getting guys on base.

At that point, it’s all up to AJ Burnett.