Game #133 Preview: Indians @ Blue Jays

Since the Blue Jays made the deadline deals back at the end of July, they've only lost one series. They'll try to avoid making it two tonight as they face off against Trevor Bauer and the Indians who they beat on a Ryan Goins walk-off home run last night. Opposing the young UCLA product is our old Tennessee product R.A. Dickey. The 24-year-old Bauer is a quirky guy who was the 3rd overall pick in the 2011 draft by the Arizona Diamondbacks. The NL West squad grew tired of his uniqueness fairly quickly and shipped him off to Cleveland prior to the 2013 season in a three-team megadeal that included Didi Gregorius, Drew Stubbs, and Shin-Soo Choo.

Since then he's kind of just been average, currently sitting at an ERA of 4.31 this season with a walk-rate of 10.2% that has held him back. For all the talk and interest about Bauer over the course of his young major league career, he's currently looking like just a mid-rotation arm for Cleveland which certainly isn't a horrible thing with all their other excellent starters in the organization.

He's also been able to crack up his Cleveland teammates on more than one occasion:

The righty is well-know for throwing a grocery list amount of pitches so here it goes. He throws a four-seamer, two-seamer, changeup, splitter, screwball, slider, curveball, and cutter. When you break it down though, the only ones he throws over 5% of the time are the fastball, slider, curveball, and changeup. His hard stuff comes in around 93mph and he does strike out a fair amount of batters thanks to his varied repertoire, with his curveball and slider leading the way.

What's all this look like in visual form?

Hopeful Lineup

Lefties hit Bauer better than righties, so if there's a game to get Justin Smoak into the lineup, it would be today. Josh Thole will likely be the man catching R.A. Dickey tonight.

1. Ben Revere LF (I guess this will be a thing now...)
2. Josh Donaldson 3B
3. Jose Bautista RF
4. Edwin Encarnacion DH
5. Troy Tulowitzki SS
6. Josh Thole C
7. Justin Smoak 1B
8. Kevin Pillar CF
9. Ryan Goins 2B

Bullpen Usage

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