Plauderkasten^^ » Commodore Trust as an owner and

Go inside the numbers and matchups that will decide Monday nights game, and then vote for which team will win at the bottom of the page.What we learned in Game 2Josh Tomlin was very good, Andrew Miller struck out five of the six batters he faced, and Cody Allen threw a 1-2-3 ninth as the Indians beat the Blue Jays 2-1, taking the first two games. Indians pitchers have 25 strikeouts in the first two games.?-- David SchoenfieldInside the pitching matchupWhen?Marcus Stroman?is on the mound:?Stroman started the wild-card game against the Orioles, giving up two runs in six innings with six strikeouts and no walks, but didnt start in the division series sweep of the Rangers. Stroman is fun to watch, a short righty with a six-pitch repertoire. He has gone to his sinker and cutter more this year, throwing those pitches more than 50 percent of the time, while mixing in his fastball, curve, slider and changeup. His game is all about keeping the ball down and getting grounders -- he had the highest ground ball rate of any qualified starter in the majors. He has been very good his past 14 starts, posting a 3.23 ERA and giving up eight home runs in 89? innings.Against the Orioles, Stroman threw 44 percent cutters and 32 percent sinkers, not throwing a single four-seam fastball. He had a similar game plan against the Indians back in August, throwing just one fastball against them in 100 pitches. During the season he threw his fastball 22 percent of the time, but hes at his best when the sinker is working or the cutter gets in on lefties. --?SchoenfieldWhen?Trevor Bauer?is on the mound:?Bauer was scheduled to start Game 2 before cutting his right pinkie finger fixing his drone, requiring stitches and forcing the Indians to push him back to this game. Yes, this never happened to Sandy Koufax or Bob Gibson. As Buster Olney wrote the other day, aside from how Bauer will be able to pitch with the stitches, another issue that could potentially pop up is if the stitches start bleeding and blood gets on the ball and whether the umpires will view that as a foreign substance.The good news for the Indians is that Bauer wont need to go deep into the game. Outside of Andrew Miller and Cody Allen, the bullpen has barely been used, with Bryan Shaw pitching 2 2/3 innings and Dan Otero one inning. Well almost certainly see Otero, who had a 1.53 ERA, and perhaps Zach McAllister and Jeff Manship.As for Bauer, he had one hot streak through early July, but finished with a 4.26 ERA, including 6.39 in September. He went 4 2/3 innings in his playoff start against the Red Sox, finishing with six strikeouts and no walks but serving up two home runs on a night the ball was flying at Progressive Field -- as it often does. Bauer allowed 15 of his 20 home runs at home, although the ball also tends to fly out at Rogers Centre.Bauer works off a fastball that averages 93.2 mph, preferring to work middle-away to both lefties and righties. He works up in the zone with the fastball, which led to a .447 slugging percentage allowed on the pitch. You know Blue Jays hitters will be looking to feast off some of those high fastballs. He adds a curveball, cutter and changeup, with the curveball his go-to wipeout pitch -- batters hit .134/.145/.221 with a 45 percent strikeout rate against it.Player in the spotlightJose Bautista. Hes hitless in his past 14 at-bats after starting the postseason with home runs his first two games. He hit just .223 against fastballs this year so lets see if Bauer and the bullpen challenge him with hard stuff. -- SchoenfieldDid you know ...Bauer faced the Blue Jays twice in the regular season, holding Toronto to a .476 OPS against his fastball, his lowest OPS against any team that he faced multiple times. Just 3.2 percent of his fastballs were hard-hit by the Blue Jays, and they missed on 28 percent of those pitches, all his best marks. -- ESPN Stats & InformationWhat will decide Monday nights gameBauer getting the Blue Jays to chase breaking stuff. Bauer threw just 78 pitches in his only start this postseason, 27 of which (35 percent) were breaking balls. Bauer used his breaking ball on fewer than 20 percent of pitches during the regular season. Despite the small sample size in the postseason, batters chased 50 percent (8 of 16) of his breaking balls outside the strike zone. Will Bauer adjust his approach against the Blue Jays? Toronto swung at 26 percent of breaking balls outside the strike zone during the regular season, the lowest chase rate in the majors against the pitch. -- ESPN Stats & InformationChoosing sides: Who will win?? Torontos slug-happy lineup was a no-show during the two games in Cleveland, but the Blue Jays will be reinvigorated by a return to Rogers Centre. The Stroman-Bauer matchup is advantageous for Toronto, and the Jays offense will do enough to grind out a win and climb back in the series. -- Jerry CrasnickThe Blue Jays will finally start hitting Monday night. They always hit better at Rogers Centre and against the droned Bauer, it probably will continue to be that way. Toronto has too good of an offense to stay down for too much longer. I think they will get to Bauer and hand the Indians their first loss of the postseason. -- Andrew MarchandWhere the series standsOnly one team -- the 2004 Red Sox -- has rallied from a 3-0 series deficit, so this one certainly has a must-win feel to it for the Blue Jays, especially with Terry Francona threatening to bring Corey Kluber back in Game 4.?--?Schoenfield NMD Cheap Canada . Numbers Game looks into the Canadiens securing the services of Thomas Vanek in a trade with the New York Islanders. The Canadiens Get: LW Thomas Vanek and a conditional fifth-round pick. Buy NMDs Canada . The Dane followed up his first European Tour title last weekend with eight birdies and just a single dropped shot on Thursday for a one-stroke advantage over South Africas Allan Versfeld and Portugals Ricardo Santos. http://www.nmdshoescanada.com/ultra-boost-cheap-canada/uncaged.html . Gather a group of friends, or find a league to join online, draft your team, set your lineup and compete in a number of different formats. NMD R1 Womens Canada . -- Timbers coach Caleb Porter didnt stray from his business-like approach to the season even after Portland downed the two-time defending league champion Los Angeles Galaxy to gain crucial playoff position. Stan Smith Shoes Canada Sale . -- For the first time in two months, an opponent was standing up to Alabama. NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A chancellor will rule within the week on whether a co-owner of the Nashville Predators can keep his lawsuit against the teams ownership group in a Tennessee court or have to submit to arbitration.Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle heard nearly three hours of arguments Wednesday on a motion that would force David Freeman out of her court and back into arbitration with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman.Freeman, a former team chairman, sued Predators Holdings LLC and current team chairman Tom Cigarran on June 23 and is seeking $250 million in damages for his original 48 percent stake in the team being diluted.The lawsuit states that Freeman, through Commodore Trust, organized the Holdings investment group in 2007 to keep the Predators in Nashville. But it charges that some Holdings members have conspired to repay his dedication to the team and community by claiming that Commodore owns less than one percent of Holdings.The lawsuit also states that members of the Predators ownership group have refused to treat Commodore Trust as an owner and have repudiated Holdings commitment to compensate plaintiffs in return for tens of millions of dollars of loan guaranntees that kept the Predators solvent and in Nashville.ddddddddddddThe complaint names Cigarran the chief architect of this scheme.Freeman has been involved in other NHL arbitration cases over the past year, but the lawsuit argues that Bettman cannot be impartial because he has an obligation to protect the league.At Wednesdays hearing, attorneys for Freeman and Commodore Trust, which is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit, argued that league rules are so overly broad that they wrongly could allow the commissioner to arbitrate this case. They also argued Freeman is technically not a co-owner of the team but rather an investor in a trust whose business dispute should not be decided by the commissioner.Lawyers for Predators Holdings and the NHL defended the commissioners impartiality and the leagues constitution, which gives Bettman the right to handle disagreements among both clubs and owners through arbitration. They also said Freeman agreed to arbitration when he signed consent agreements as part of buying the Predators in December 2007. ' ' '