Fascinating nuggets of information on both teams before the game or series begins as seen on Yahoo!

October 12, 2007

HITTERS

•  The Indians were more inclined to swing and miss than any other AL club against Boston's Game 2 starter, Curt Schilling this season. Tribe batters missed on 13 of their 59 swings against Schilling, or 22 percent. The rest of the league missed 14.5 percent of the time when taking a hack against the Boston right-hander.

•  Schilling likes to use his split-fingered fastball when he is ahead in the count. That is good news for two Indians hitters -- Kenny Lofton is 3-for-5 and Travis Hafner is 3-for-7 against splitters from righties on pitcher's counts.

•  Indians batters struck out ten times against Schilling when they hooked up back in May. That was the highest single-game strikeout total for the Red Sox starter this season. Four of those strikeouts came when Tribe hitters swung through his fastball up in the strike zone.

•  The Red Sox had great success against groundball pitchers this season. There were thirteen pitchers in the league who induced more than 340 groundballs this season, including Indians starter, Fausto Carmona. The Red Sox led the league in well-hit average against that group of pitchers.

•  The Red Sox, however, did not solve Carmona in the regular season. They batted .167 (4-for-24) as a team against the Indians’ sinkerballer and were one of only two teams that did not record an extra-base hit against him. The Devil Rays were the other.

• BoSox hitters took 79 percent of the first pitches they saw from Carmona in their one regular season meeting. They did not put a first pitch in play the entire game against him.

PITCHERS

•  What do you get when you have a 92-95 mph sinker? You get the AL’s groundball percentage leader and Indians Game 2 starter, Fausto Carmona. Sixty-five percent of the total pitches put in play against Carmona were grounders.

•  When opponents did lift Carmona’s sinking fastball in the air they batted .474 (82-for-173). Here is a breakdown:

•  Carmona allowed just one extra-base hit to a right-handed batter against his sinker in the final month of the regular season -- a home run by Seattle’s Jose Guillen.

•  Red Sox starter Curt Schilling was outstanding in his Division Series victory over the Angels. Here are a few of his pitch-by-pitch accomplishments from that game:

•  Schilling's split-fingered fastball was not as deadly this season as it has been in years past. Opponents hit .300 (45-for-150) against it in 2007 and just .173 in the four previous seasons. The Indians were only 1-for-10 against Schilling's splitter this year, however.