Pitching Prevails in Game 1 of ALCS

By Djack

Coming into this series you know a few things about each teams strengths, the Indians have an amazing bullpen, and the Blue Jays have a very powerful lineup. Both teams have good starting pitching, so you should expect a very even matchup between these two teams throughout this series with things going back and fourth. For instance, one game we might see the Blue Jays offense explode for 10  runs and the next you might see the Indians shut them down completely with their filthy pitching. Well, that's exactly what happened last night, the lethal Blue Jays lineup was neutralized by great pitching, and error free baseball. Corey Kluber is the definition of a horse, he went out there and shoved for 6 1/3 innings before handing over the keys to the Indians most dominate reliever, Andrew Miller. I love how Terry Francona uses Miller as a long set up man, simply for the fact that it works so efficiently, and it closes the gap between the starter and the closer. Miller came in struck out 5 batters to get 5 outs before handing it over to Cody Allen in the ninth. Before we get to the ninth let's rewind a little. The Blue Jays had their ace on the mound as well, Marco Estrada. We saw how well he pitched in the ALDS when he shut down the Rangers for 8 innings, and he continued that success last night. He made it through 5 scoreless and was looking basically unhittable, until the sixth inning when Francisco Lindor hit a two run BOMB off him to give the Indians a 2-0 lead. That would be the difference in the game, Cody Allen came into the game in the ninth, and shut it down. The Indians took game one as their pitching staff deserves all the credit in the world for shutting down one of the best offenses in baseball. Marco Estrada probably hates his life after one pitch cost his team the game, you can't blame him though, can't win games if you can't score runs. Never thought I'd have to use that line when talking about the Blue Jays. I expect the Blue Jays offense to play with a little extra fire in game 2, so I'd be very nervous if I were Trevor Bauer.