Tampa Bay Rays (1) at Cleveland Guardians (2), 6:00 PM ET

TB: Nick Martinez (15-6, 3.10 ERA, 116 DRA-)
CLE: Johnny Wholestaff (36-26, 3.54 ERA, 94 DRA-)

Nick Martínez gave up two runs in 3 ⅔ innings in Game 3 of the ALDS against the Yankees, and when you scan those numbers, you’re likely to think, “Yeah, sure.” It’s Nick Martínez, after all. He’s not the sort of guy who’s going to tempt a manager to leave him out there too long. The veteran put together the worst strikeout rate among qualified starters, and by a fair amount. His ground-ball rate was fourth-worst. He throws 92 mph in a 96-mph league, but it’s not like he’s a breaking-ball wizard who can curl the ball around bats; he throws a fastball two-thirds of the time and a timing-upsetting change the rest, lacks an elite level of chase, and allows the most contact of any full-time starter in baseball. It’s a formula that shouldn’t work, and that’s why he has a 116 DRA- to go with his 3.10 ERA.

Regression candidate? Sure, but perhaps not as much as you’d think. Since returning from Japan, Martínez has collected more than 700 innings of 3.53-ERA baseball, much of it coming with no idea of what day or what role he’s going to work next. He’s so easily overlooked that he doesn’t feel like an outlier at all, but in actuality, he’s one of the great nibblers of our time. Not like Blake Snell, who nibbles until he walks or strikes out someone, and not like the modern versions of Robbie Ray and Framber Valdez, who just nibble until they lose someone. Martínez scrapes the edge of the plate, but no one is better at getting just enough of it. He has the highest rate of pitches among starters in the shadow zone around the plate, and also the sixth-highest zone rate in total, meaning those edge pitches are on the right side of the shadow.

He’s also not afraid to put that 92 right down the middle, at times—which would lead you to equate this behavior, given the high arm slot and fastball reliance, with a ton of home runs. But Martínez doesn’t operate like most high-slot, backspin-oriented pitchers. First, at his velocity he can’t generate enough movement to miss the bat entirely, like peak Justin Verlander, but also, he doesn’t try to climb the ladder to generate whiffs like Logan Henderson. Instead of working north-south, he actually tends to operate east-west, using his cutter to break inwards on lefties and his sinker to run in on righties. Because of the backspin he does generate, batters see those pitches coming and make contact—but often under the ball, and fairly significantly.

A few months back I wrote about the need for two words to describe fly balls: those in the dangerous 26-to-35 degree launch angle band, and the “high flies” in the 36-plus range, the ones that often fail to clear the wall no matter how hard they’re hit. Martínez allowed 226 flies this season, and a full two-thirds were of the latter description. Only four starters out of 155 with 1,500 pitches thrown saw a lower wOBA on fly-ball contact than Martínez did (.189). The fly ball that can’t leave the yard is the best kind of contact a pitcher can allow, insofar as he can control it.

The question will be whether that approach can work in the playoffs, where the lineups aren’t exactly a representative sample. This is true, in the sense that it’s true for every pitcher, and every hitter. He also has the same best-in-baseball outfield defense behind him, just like he did back in May, so the dice are weighted a little in his favor.

As for Cleveland’s starter, we’ll get to all eight of them in the next section.