4/23/24 - Game 23 - Guardians Versus Tanner Houck (Again)
A second date in less than a week. Can the Guardians avenge their previous dud against Houck?
We are only six days removed from Tanner Houck casually disassembling the Cleveland Guardians in Boston. Last Wednesday, the Red Sox righty hurled nine scoreless innings on fewer than 100 pitches. Houck allowed only three baserunners on the way to his complete game shutout in 2024, which deserves special mention given the state of starting pitcher longevity.
Repertoire
The slider is the story. As it was last Wednesday. It accounted for 39 percent of his pitches last week (graphic below) and 39 percent of his pitches historically (above).
For the sake of our matchup grades tonight, we will assume repeated usage of these pitches from last weekend. It appears the split-finger is much more heavily leaned on by Houck. Really, he was a three pitch guy against the Guardians — slider, splitter, and sinker. Why would he attempt to fix what is not broken in tonight’s matchup?
Matchup Grades
Assuming repeated usage from Tanner Houck compared to last start will tilt our numbers slightly. His gamesmanship in incorporating more splitters to attack the Guardians lineup rendered the previous rendition of matchup grades useless. The chart below summarizes how the grades have changed in only a week of time, based solely on the Houck pitch mix shift.
The pitch mix changes reveal benefits to Bo Naylor and Tyler Freeman.
Freeman should see a lot of sliders and sinkers and is capable against either one. He represents a great matchup for the Guardians against Houck and was not in the lineup last week, a mistake that should be rectified in tonight’s game (or tomorrow, pending reported inclement weather).
The younger Naylor is more proficient against righty splitters than anyone else in the Guardians lineup, competent against the slider, and dominates similar sinkers to that of Houck.
The biggest challenge for the Guardians will be in laying off the Houck slider. Last Wednesday, they swung and missed at eleven of them as a team. This was mostly Estevan Florial (4) and Gabriel Arias (3). Florial is clear sit situation this afternoon despite the capacity for damage against Houck’s sinker. At the major and minor league level, Florial has been downright terrible against similar sinkers and righty splitters. The adjustment to the repertoire against the Guardians for Houck emphasizes the splitter more than we had previously seen from the Red Sox righty, which is a bad sign for Florial.
Arias, on the other hand, grades out well against each one of Houck’s offerings. His struggles last week seemed to be poor guessing or plan of attack at the plate. But he also registered one of the three Guardians hits (along with Josh Naylor and Jose Ramirez).
Lay off the slider out of the zone, be ready for splitters. That is what is on the docket for the Guardians tonight. Also, they could shuffle the nine that played a little bit. Despite Austin Hedges representing a good matchup and managing a flyout to the warning track against him last week, it would be a good idea to start Bo Naylor. Perhaps Stephen Vogt could opt for Tyler Freeman and Ramon Laureano in place of Brayan Rocchio and Estevan Florial, as well.
Gage’s Lineup Pick
Kwan - LF
Gimenez - 2B
Ramirez - 3B
Naylor, J. - 1B
Freeman - CF
Naylor, B. - C
Arias - SS
Brennan - RF
Laureano - DH