Game 2 — Who Will Show Up?

tldr; Game 1 was awesome. Game 2 could be head to head lock if both pitchers bring their “A” games, if Bauer gets rattled the Cubs may tie this up.

Game 1 was a pitching masterpiece for the Indians, Kluber and Miller were both stellar in terms of location and delivering under pressure. Check out Harry Doyle’s highlights from the game.

For Game 2 we look start by looking at the Vaughn score for each pitcher.

The Vaughn Score, as described here, is a directional indicator of a pitcher’s ability to control the count and drive positive outcomes (strike outs, ground outs, fly outs). Walks are very bad, hits are bad. Hits are factored by impact to score. Better score is an indicator of run prevention.

Game 2 brings us Jake Arrieta for the Cubs and Trevor Bauer for the Indians. As you can see from the graph below Arrieta’s per game Vaugh Score is better than Bauer’s.

This makes sense as Arrieta’s regular season ERA was 3.1o compared to Bauer’s ERA of4.26.

But this isn’t the regular season, it’s Game 2 of the World Series and the Indians are sitting on a home win. Let’s explore this more.

The graphic below is the post-season Vaughn performance between Arrieta and Bauer. Interesting, Bauer has a slight advantage over Arrieta. This is mainly due to Arrieta getting shelled in his appearance against the Dodgers, giving up 6 hits, 4 runs (2 homers), over 21 hitters in 5 innings. “Yuck”, says Harry Doyle. But wait there is more…

Here is the mapping of performance and pressure — by game — for the regular season. You can see that Bauer gets in more trouble and does not fair well with pressure.

However, the post season is a mixed bag with a slight advantage to Bauer. If both pitchers show up — this is going to be a great game. If Bauer gets shaken Cubs’ fans just might have a win in their pocket.