ALL ABOUT THAT ACE
20-game winner Dallas Keuchel will take the mound on short rest Tuesday.
PHOENIX — Dallas Keuchel repeated himself a couple times Sunday afternoon in the visiting clubhouse at Chase Field, calling the Astros’ wild card celebration just “the best feeling” as suds were trapped in his beard.
“I’ve never been on a playoff team,” Keuchel said. “To get this, and have fun with these guys who have worked so hard to get there — no better feeling in the world.”
Besides continuing to advance, of course.
Keuchel gets the ball on three days’ rest for the Astros on Tuesday at Yankee Stadium in the American League wild-card game in a win-or-go-home scenario against a legendary franchise in a baseball-rabid city known for intense October atmospheres.
“I’m always thinking about it,” Keuchel said of Tuesday’s outing. “I love it.”
It’s not a small task, but Keuchel has a lot in his korner, if you will.
Success against Yankees
For one, the lefthander might be the best pitcher in the American League this season. He won 20 games and finished with a 2.48 ERA in 232 innings, striking out 216 while also carrying the second-best ground-ball rate among qualified pitchers.
What’s most encouraging: He has dominated the Yankees as much if not more than any team he opposed this year. He faced 16 clubs in 2015, each a varying number of times. The only team that did not score off him in any start was the Yankees. Over 16 innings in two starts against them, he allowed nine hits and one walk and struck out 21.
“Bigger competition brings out the bigger competitor, and there’s not a better stage than Yankee Stadium,” Keuchel said.
On June 25, Keuchel threw a shutout at Minute Maid Park and followed that up with seven shutout innings on Aug. 25 in the Bronx.
Keuchel’s not worried about how rested he’ll be come Tuesday.
“At this point in the year, you feel great even when you don’t,” Keuchel said.
Most pitchers throw their side sessions two days after their starts when they’re in standard fiveman rotations and taking four days of rest between starts.
This time of year, pitchers are normally trying to conserve energy. For many, that means skipping a side session between starts in the final month or so of the season.
Keuchel is among that group that wouldn’t be throwing a bullpen right now anyway, even on regular rest. On Sunday afternoon, two days after his final regular season start in Arizona and before game No. 162 got underway, Keuchel played longtoss and threw to a catcher from flat ground.
“Nothing,” Keuchel said when asked what about his routine would be altered if he went on three days’ rest rather than four.
‘The one guy I’d want’
The only element of short rest that would be different for Keuchel, ostensibly, would be one less day of recovery following his most recent outing.
But in Friday’s game, he threw just 99 pitches, and none of them were in particularly high-stress situations because of the lead the Astros built in a 21-5 win. He’s not coming off a highly taxing outing, and he’s a pitcher who doesn’t rely on velocity in the first place.
“Why wouldn’t you go with your best guy?” manager A.J. Hinch said. “He’s been here before the whole year, he’s been the Pitcher of the Month in the American League a lot of months. He’s the one guy I’d want to hand the ball to with the season on the line in a onegame playoff.”