Indians carry winning streak into Toronto to face Blue Jays: Series Preview

Game Three: July 2 – 1:07 pm ET

Trevor Bauer (6-2, 3.19 ERA, 3.44 FIP) vs.
Marco Estrada (5-3, 2.81 ERA, 4.06 FIP)

The aforementioned Bauer has turned his career around and become a weapon for the Indians this year, mostly due to his ability to limit the walks and get ground balls while continuing to get strikeouts.

His 2.99 BB/9 rate is nearly a full walk below his career rate of 3.94, and much better than last years number of 4.04. This control improvement has allowed his good stuff to play up. Another piece of evidence that supports his control this year, is his career high GB% rate of 50%, exactly 10% higher than his career average.

He’s getting ahead on a more consistent basis, and he’s pitching in the lower parts of the zone, then when he gets to two strikes, he has a couple of different weapons to get hitters out.

It’s also worth mentioning that his velocity has increased nearly a full mph on both his fourseam and sinker, which makes a great combo with the control improvement he’s shown. Much like Carrasco, Bauer is able to use 5 pitches at least 13.41% of the time, while not using any pitch more than 31.84%.

He compliments his fourseam and sinker with a cutter, curve and change. All of his pitches except for the sinker notch whiff rates above 10%, as he’s able to use his cutter, change or curve with two strikes. He’s always had an impressive array of pitches, but the command he’s shown as a starter this year has allowed him to use them in pitcher’s counts more often.

There really haven’t been a lot of holes in his game this year, but the same could be said for the pitcher facing him in Marco Estrada, so this one could be quite the pitching matchup.

Next: Game 4: Jays in tough against Kluber