Every Brewers Pitcher Who Faced the Mets in Game 3 Had a Plan That Worked, Except the One They Needed Most

[Matthew Trueblood]

The Brewers' plan to neutralize and overmatch the Mets lineup in a win-or-go-home Game 3 of the Wild Card Series was elegant. It was executed brilliantly. It was a triumph. And then it wasn't.

Image courtesy of © Benny Sieu-Imagn Images

With their season on the line, the Brewers handed the ball to Tobias Myers Thursday night. It has been a wonderful rookie season for Myers, and the team was happy and fortunate to be able to turn to such a suitable starter, given all the injuries they've incurred over the course of the long season. Still, you don't want to hand your whole season to a rookie starter, and they never intended to do so. Myers was set to start, and the team knew they would need some innings from him to make up for heavy usage of their relief corps in Games 1 and 2, but he couldn't be the whole plan.

Myers had two pitches that made him a good candidate to take on the Mets lineup: a tight, gyro slider and a high-rise fastball, both from the same high, overhand release. The nine batters who made up the New York batting order Thursday night, when facing breaking balls like Myers's from a righty with a high arm angle, batted .227/.329/.364 on plate appearances that ended on those pitches. In reality, though, they were more vulnerable to that type of slider than those numbers suggest.

Firstly, those numbers are only on decisive pitches. There are a lot of walks baked in, and there are a lot of pitches not captured by results-centered data that didn't end at-bats, but could advance the pitcher toward getting an out, anyway. Those nine hitters whiffed on 47.7% of their swings against those breaking balls on the year, and their modest numbers overall came with a .350 BABIP. The Brewers knew Myers could attack the Mets with his slider and get a lot of strikes and outs, without risking giving up much power. He just had to locate.

The other weapon Myers would have at his disposal was his high-rise four-seam fastball. The Mets' hitters did quite well against pitches like Myers's--with a high release, high induced vertical break, and a relatively straight shape, rather than lots of run to the arm side--but they weren't going to be able to settle in and hunt it. He threw the slider enough to keep them guessing, jumping at the ball, and freezing up on some fastballs at unexpected edges. His fastball shape sets up his slider gorgeously, and against the Mets, that turned out to be doubly true, thanks to some extra heat.

What Myers was not doing, of course, was utilizing his cutter or changeup. That was wise, given the lineup he was facing and the fact that his fastball and slider are his best pitches, anyway, but what had worked for him through five dazzling shutout innings was not going to work upon entry into a third trip through the lineup. That's why Pat Murphy got him out of there after five innings, and why it was the right call, despite his low pitch count. The question was, whom should he go to to keep the Mets at bay?

One highly effective approach in pairing up relievers with particular starters is to find ones with sharply contrasting styles. You give hitters one look a couple of times, and then radically change what they're looking at. Go from a sinker-slider guy to someone with a vertical profile, or from a soft tosser to a fireballer, or from a high-slot righty to a sidearm lefty. Drastic changes in style from one pitcher to the next can ruffle a batter, and force them to start over in the project of locking in on a release point.

In this instance, the Brewers went completely the other way. They believed they had an approach--a combination of sheer stuff, location, release point, and mechanics--that could tear through the Mets, so they stuck to it. On came Trevor Megill, an extremely souped-up version of Myers, with his won lively fastball and a sharp breaking ball. Megill got three outs, and then, so did Nick Mears. All three of Myers, Megill and Mears have overhand slots--more so than anyone else on the team.

Those three pitchers use their overhand mechanics to deliver great rising action on the fastball, along with breaking balls that have more power than depth but sharp movement. After they plowed througn the Mets, Freddy Peralta came on for the top of the eighth and did the same thing. Although he comes from a lower release point, he famously throws a fastball with good carry and a flat vertical approach angle.

Peralta fits nicely with Myers, Megill, and Mears, too, in that recently, he's altered his delivery, his pitch usage, and his breaking ball shape, making the latter more vertical and less sweepy.

The tighter action of that breaker is what kept the Mets off-balance all night. They kept waiting for the three-fastball Brewers to show up, and they kept getting rising four-seamers and a bunch of breaking balls tunneled perfectly off of them. Through eight innings, the four pitchers who recorded 24 outs without allowing a run barely made any use of changeups or cutters, and no one threw a sinker. Megill's breaking ball is a power curve, but in essence, the quartet of hurlers went with fastballs half the time and sliders 40 percent of the time. They made the Mets look helpless, as hitters who are caught guessing wildly wrong often do.

There was just one more inning left--three more outs. At that point in the game, nifty little tricks you think have fooled an offense (whether because of the sheer quality of the pitches being thrown, the way it violated their scouting report and expectations, or both) fall away. If you have a superstar closer, when that moment comes, you bring them in and let them shut things down.

Alas: Devin Williams was the one pitcher who didn't fit the mold of the night. That could have been fine; it could have been inconsequential. Williams does have incredible stuff. It's some of the best on the team, or even in the league. There was probably a remote, perverse sense of relief in the Mets dugout that the parade of the clones was over, and that they would have a chance to face a different kind of pitcher, but that, too, didn't have to matter. Williams doesn't beat teams because he poses a uniquely bad matchup for them; he beats them because he's exceptional.

Here's the real problem: Williams didn't have command of his screwball. Unfortunately, that state of affairs has cropped up too often this season. His lower arm angle and looser fastball shape might have been a minor relief for the Mets, but eventually, the greater relief emerged: the man on the mound couldn't land his out pitch where he needed to.

The writing for that has been on the wall all season, although that's of little comfort now. Since Williams returned from a major back injury in July, he's been using a more crossfire direction with his delivery. That might be a matter of protecting himself from some of the movements that contributed to getting hurt in the first place, or it might have been a change born of a desire for more deception, but it came with a cost. Against righties, especially, the Airbender has to come back from the edge of the plate and dip just below the zone, for maximal effectiveness. Last year, he could consistently hit that spot, and he got lots and lots of whiffs and weak contact with it. This year, he hasn't been able to dot it there.

The incredible rightward swerve of Williams's screwball means that those pitches right on the outside corner to a righty at the knees go un-chased, and are never called a strike. He lacks a reliable breaking ball, so he needs righty batters to be fooled by the Airbender the same way they are on sliders for other pitchers. It has to look like a strike, then dip below the zone. This year, because Williams has been working around his own body more and not getting downhill as much, the pitch isn't doing that as often.

Sometimes, he hangs it, especially over the glove-side third of the plate. The pitch has the same movement it always had, but the angles are different in his post-injury form, and for the delicate thing that is getting same-handed batters to miss on a pitch that moves to the arm side, the difference is crucial. He's escaped a good number of jams this year, because he's still a very good pitcher, but there's a chink in the armor now.

It's hard to tell whether Pete Alonso knew that. Did the Mets have on their scouting report, don't give up on that Airbender to the outer edge, and stay through it, because it's been missing up? Or did Alonso just react quickly and swing with all the finely-controlled adrenaline that fills you up during a playoff game, and run into one? It doesn't really matter. What matters is what happened. On a 3-1 pitch with two runners on, Williams missed with the Airbender. It was above the knees, on the white of the plate, and then it was gone over the right-field wall and the Brewers' grand plan was a fun but unhelpful memory.

The Brewers almost could have gotten out of the inning without even facing Alonso. Williams battled with Francisco Lindor before issuing a 3-2 walk, and then he left an 0-2 screwball over the plate to Brandon Nimmo and gave up another single, on an almost playable grounder. Their All-Star closer, their relief ace, just wasn't quite good enough, and it brought Alonso up, and then it brought the season down. It's a vicious way for a season to end, because they had such a great plan, and the only part of it that didn't work was the part that seemed to require no great thought or creativity at all. The offense gave the pitching staff just a scintilla of breathing room, and the pitchers all came through. Excruciatingly, in the ninth inning--his inning, his territory, the space he keeps sacred and wants to pitch every single time the team has the lead--their previously best pitcher couldn't do so.

Williams might need to unwind the alignment change he made this year, in order to regain his previous levels of reliability. Then again, maybe he needs to preserve it, to keep himself healthy, and the tack will need to be developing a new pitch. Either way, and this is another punch to the gut, it probably won't happen in a Brewers uniform. Williams is one of the most obvious trade candidates in the game this offseason. That his final impression with the team will be such a miserable one, after all the heroics he delivered for them, is another level of frustration to heap onto this loss.

We can't take much solace or joy from the fact that the Brewers aced everything before that, except to note that they still have a great process. They still have a lot of great pitchers who get the job done, and will still have a deep bullpen after trading Williams this winter. They still have every reason to look toward 2025 and view themselves as favorites in the NL Central. That's all great. It just doesn't make up for--doesn't neutralize the pain of--the thing they don't have, anymore, which is a chance to win the World Series this fall. That was really possible, and for a couple innings Thursday night, it started to feel tantalizingly real. Now, that chance is gone. They'll have to go through another 162 demanding games just to return to this stage and get another chance as good.

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[Brock Beauchamp]

I was all in favor of trading Williams before last night happened and my opinion certainly hasn't changed. What a depressing way to end the season; now it's time to build anew for 2025.

[Brian]

21 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

I was all in favor of trading Williams before last night happened and my opinion certainly hasn't changed. What a depressing way to end the season; now it's time to build anew for 2025.

Mets video: Devin Williams was tipping his pitches. Seems to happen a lot with the Brewers. Must watch.

https://www.tiktok.com/@jomboymedia/video/7421803600554347818

[Michael Trzinski]

29 minutes ago, Brian said:

Mets video: Devin Williams was tipping his pitches. Seems to happen a lot with the Brewers. Must watch.

https://www.tiktok.com/@jomboymedia/video/7421803600554347818

I don't know if I could have seen the difference in his glove/hand position unless it was pointed out. Maybe the height of the glove, but not the hand inside the glove 1/2" farther. 

[Team Canada]

There is a thread going now for this: 

 

[Ro Mueller]

It's difficult to even draw a lesson from this series.

Win Game 1? Lead by more than 2 runs in the final inning of the deciding game?

Those are easy things to say, but most series come down to these clutch situations regardless.

Sucks!!!