Colorado Rockies: Scouting report on Cleveland and a homecoming for Bud Black and Jack Corrigan

Scouting Report on Corey Kluber

The Rockies will be facing Corey Kluber, the 2014 American League Cy Young Award winner. Since 2014, he has been in the top 10 in Cy Young voting (winning in ’14, 9th in 2015, and 3rd in 2016).

This season, he is well on his way to be in the top 10 again as he is 9-3 with a 2.77 ERA. His numbers have been even more impressive since his stint on the disabled list with a back injury (he didn’t make an appearance/start between May 2 and June 1). Since his start on June 1, he is 6-1 in 12 starts. He has 86 1/3 innings pitched (or an average nearly 7 1/3 innings per start) and he has only allowed 52 hits, 17 earned runs, and 15 walks while striking out 131 batters. Batters, in that span, have hit .177 against him with a .216 on-base percentage and a .272 slugging percentage.

Kluber, in this span, has gone more than six innings in eight of his 12 starts and he has struck out 10 or more in 10 of the 12 starts. He also hasn’t allowed more than four earned runs in any start in this span.

He is a five-pitch pitcher as he features a fastball, change-up, sinker, a cutter, anda slider (that is sometimes classified as a slurve (slider-curveball hybrid) because it has a lot of horizontal and vertical movement).

According to Brooks Baseball, Kluber, in his most recent and only start in August, has used the fastball more than double of what he did in previous month (15% in July to 32% in August). As a result, he has used the sinker and change-up much less in August.

Kluber may stick with this plan considering that when he did this, he pitched a complete game while only allowing three hits and one run on 106 pitches against the New York Yankees (so it’s not like he was facing the White Sox or Phillies who are terrible).

Scouting report for Bauer

On Wednesday, the Rockies will be facing Trevor Bauer. He has been much more inconsistent this season than Kluber. Bauer is 10-8 with an ERA of 5.00. He has had five starts, in particular, where he has been shellacked. One of those starts was against the Rockies where he went 3 1/3 innings while giving up five hits, four runs (all earned), and he walked five.

However, in his past three starts, he has been very good. He is 3-0 with a 2.25 ERA in 20 innings pitched. His opponent’s batting average (.267), on-base percentage (.325), and slugging percentage (.400) is still a bit higher than the Indians would like but those numbers are much better than his previous two starts when they hit .393/.500/.464 and he had an ERA of 11.12.