Swisher is one of my all-time least favorite White Sox players. He was only on the South Side for a year (2008), and that was one year too many in my book. He batted .219 and got benched in favor of Dewayne Wise late in the season.
The national media likes to portray Swisher as "always laughing, always smiling" and "great in the clubhouse." Maybe he is, and I don't pretend to know what goes on in any major league clubhouse. What I do know about Swisher is he is overmatched against upper-echelon pitching. His weaknesses always come to the forefront in the playoffs. In 47 career postseason games, he is hitting .165 (26 for 158) with 48 strikeouts.
Swisher cemented his reputation with another lousy playoff showing Wednesday night as the Tampa Bay Rays advanced to the ALDS with a 4-0 win over the Indians. Swisher went 0 for 4 with two strikeouts and looked pathetic during a critical at-bat in the bottom of the seventh inning. The Indians were trailing 3-0 at the time and had two men on with two men out. Tampa Bay summoned reliever Joel Peralta from the bullpen to replace eventual winning pitcher Alex Cobb. Peralta easily struck Swisher out on three pitches, and Cleveland's best and final chance to get back in the game went by the boards.
In the bottom of the fifth inning, the Indians had a golden opportunity -- runners on first and third with nobody out. They failed to score after Michael Bourn struck out, Swisher grounded out weakly to first and Jason Kipnis grounded right back to Cobb for the final out.
All told, Bourn, Swisher and Kipnis went 0 for 12 with 12 baserunners stranded. That's not what you want from your 1-2-3 in the lineup. For Swisher, failures in the playoffs have become all too common. He just can't do anything against quality pitchers from quality teams. I have to say I don't feel the least bit sorry for him.
Swisher hasn't been useless against every elite pitcher:
ReplyDelete.321/.413/.566 vs. Jon Lester
.324/.468/.459 vs. David Price
.242/.350/.485 vs. Cliff Lee
.407/.543/.481 vs. Mark Buehrle
.308/.400/.346 vs. CC Sabathia
.324/457/.649 vs. C.J. Wilson
He's faced all of those guys at least 30 times.
Of course, the rub is they're all left-handed. Against elite right-handed pitchers:
.183/.284/380 vs. Justin Verlander
.216/298/.490 vs. Felix Hernandez
.180/.212/.380 vs. James Shields
.212/.316/.424 vs. Jered Weaver
.157/.272/.257 vs. John Lackey
Of course, he's also hit right-handed Jeremy Guthrie to the tune of .350/.426/.675. The White Sox could have used that the last few years. As a team they've only hit .242/295/.408 against him.
For his career, Swisher has just been better at hitting left-handed pitching than he has been at hitting right-handers. The difference is exacerbated when you're talking about how he fares against elite guys, which you'd intuitively expect.
That makes Swisher a somewhat limited player, but not a useless player. Most players cope with much worse limitations.
The problem for Cleveland is that the entire team sort of mirrors this particular weakness. As a team they hit .247/.320/.402 vs. right-handers this year and .271/.341/.425 against lefties.
That's something Terry Francona was obviously aware of when he chose Lonnie Chisenhall over Mike Aviles to start at third base. That's probably part of why Aviles or Drew Stubbs weren't called on to pinch-hit for Swisher either time he was there with men on base, and why Joe Maddon brought in another right-hander to face Swisher in the seventh.
You'd maybe want to know why in the hell the Indians carried Jason Giambi on their postseason roster if that seventh inning wasn't a good place to use him. But then again, even as a designated pinch-hitter against right-handers, there's the case that Giambi isn't good enough to warrant making that switch and having to burn another roster spot to put another fielder out there for two more innings.
Which is maybe what amplifies Swisher's struggles against right-handers. Any guy who would be good enough to be an obvious upgrade in that spot, and have enough utility to warrant a team's roster spot during the season, is probably a starter somewhere. Or at least the dominant half of a platoon.
Or, you know, he'd be Mark Kotsay. I think I'd have rather just had Swisher.