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          SweetSpot

          Grading the performances of the Cy Young winners on the day of aces

          • David Schoenfield, ESPN Senior WriterOct 8, 2016, 01:50 AM
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            • Covers MLB for ESPN.com
            • Former deputy editor of Page 2
            • Been with ESPN.com since 1995
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          The second day of the division series round is one of the best days of the baseball season since we get four games. This day also was special because for the first time in playoff history we had four former Cy Young winners pitching on the same day. We also had Yu Darvish and 20-game winner J.A. Happ facing off, and in the nightcap Johnny Cueto met Jon Lester, who might win this year's National League Cy Young Award.

          The day didn't play out as planned, however, with Darvish starting it off by serving up four home runs, the first pitcher to do that since Rick Reed of the Twins in 2002.

          Let's grade the performances of our four Cy Young winners.

          Corey Kluber, Cleveland Indians: After his top two relievers each threw 40 pitches in Game 1, Terry Francona joked before the game that Kluber might need to throw 170 or 180 pitches. Well, he threw only 104, but he gave the Indians exactly what the bullpen doctor ordered: seven innings of shutout baseball. The only relatively tense moment he faced came in the fourth, with a 4-0 lead, when he walked Dustin Pedroia leading off the inning and then Mookie Betts with one out. David Ortiz, sitting on a first-pitch fastball, got one low and in, but popped it up to shortstop and returned to the dugout in disgust at just missing the pitch. Kluber then struck out Hanley Ramirez looking on four fastballs, painting the outside corner with 95-mph heat for strike three.

          Though he put zeroes up on the scoreboard, Kluber didn't dominate in the usual sense we might think of, as he actually had his second-lowest swing-and-miss rate of any start this season. What became clear was the Red Sox game plan: run up his pitch count and try and knock him out early to get to that Cleveland bullpen that might have been without Andrew Miller and Cody Allen, or at least with their limited availability. The Red Sox swung at only 37 pitches, the lowest swing rate Kluber saw all season. Kluber picked up on this and increased his fastball usage, throwing his third-highest percentage of fastballs in any start (62.5 percent). It was a great job of adjusting and hitting his spots with the fastball as the Red Sox went 2-for-14 against it.

          Grade: A

          David Price, Boston Red Sox: Look, it's difficult to keep making excuses for his postseason performance. He now has started nine times in the postseason and he's 0-8 with a 5.74 ERA. His team has lost all nine of those games. Yes, he has a nice strikeout-to-walk ratio of 52 to 10, and to his credit he had pitched at least six innings in all eight of his previous starts. There has undoubtedly been some bad luck along the way -- and there was some of that in this game -- but at some point you simply have to deliver. In the postseason, you don't have chances for things to even out. You have to pitch well now.

          Anyway, Price lasted only 3⅓ innings in this one, giving up six hits, two walks and a big home run to Lonnie Chisenhall -- his 11th in 58 innings as a playoff starter. His undoing was a four-run second. To be fair, the three hits in front of Chisenhall's home runs were all soft singles -- Carlos Santana to left field, a roller that Brock Holt couldn't field cleanly (Jose Ramirez probably beats it out anyway), Brandon Guyer with a little flare off the fists. Chisenhall then lined a three-run shot just over the fence in right field. Bad luck? Yes, but you also have to get Chisenhall out in that situation. He doesn't even usually start against left-handers (just eight times in the regular season), but Francona wanted him in there for his defense. He hadn't homered off a lefty all season. So, bad luck and bad pitching. When he signed with the Red Sox, Price joked that he was saving his playoff wins for Boston. Don't mess with the baseball gods.

          Grade: D- (for some bad luck in the second inning)

          Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles Dodgers: Man, that was a struggle. Kershaw threw 23 pitches in the second inning and 26 more in the third, sweating like Dwight Gooden during the 1986 World Series. A sign that he didn't have his best stuff or command was a battle against Max Scherzer in the second with two outs and the bases loaded. Scherzer is a decent hitting pitcher (.186, 12 RBIs), but it took eight pitches before Kershaw finally got Scherzer to pop out to shallow left field.

          It seemed as if we might settle into a pitcher's duel after that, but the Dodgers struck for three in the third to take a 4-0 lead. Kershaw promptly gave two runs right back. The Nationals can be tough against lefties -- fourth-best OPS in the majors -- and while they're without catcher Wilson Ramos, who slugged .631 against southpaws, they put together really tough at-bats, refusing to chase much out of the strike zone. Kershaw slowly ran up his count and was done after five innings and 101 pitches. The only times he didn't go at least six innings in the regular season were his first two starts back from his DL stint.

          Look, not all of the eight hits were stinging line drives. It wasn't pretty, but he did leave with the lead. And while he was very good against the Mets in last year's division series, it's also fair to say that we're still waiting for that signature postseason game that erases all doubts that maybe he does put too much pressure on himself in October. In 11 postseason starts, he has pitched seven innings only twice and never into the eighth.

          Grade: C

          Max Scherzer, Washington Nationals: Scherzer made two costly mistakes, a first-inning, first-pitch fastball near the middle of the zone that Corey Seager slugged 429 feet to center field for a quick 1-0 lead, and then a first-pitch hanging curveball to Justin Turner in the third that he hit out to left field for a two-run homer. The long ball was Scherzer's undoing during the regular season, especially in the first half, and we mentioned that the Dodgers could be a tough matchup for Scherzer given his big platoon split in the regular season (.477 OPS versus right-handed batters and .757 against lefties). Righties hit only .156 against him; this was just the second home run he'd allowed off a curveball to a right-handed batter all season. Scherzer settled down after that, but it was too late. That's seven home runs he has given up in his past four starts.

          Grade: C-