Yay, game 7!
Verlander is quite simply on fire right now and has been for months. If they make the WS is there anyway Houston can get 3 starts out of him? Because I would be throwing him out there every chance I get at this point.
Dusty out as Nats manager. Apparently wasn’t Rizzo’s decision. Interesting.
Hooray, the Astros made it so we’ll get to see Justin start at least one more time, hopefully two. As for three, I can’t see it happening because the guys who have to make that decision have no upside to doing it. If it goes well, you’re still gonna be labeled as a guy who doesn’t protect his pitchers. And if it goes poorly, well, that’s all kinds of terrible press.
Two starts plus a relief appearance, yeah, that could happen. Even likely, if it goes seven games and Justin’s starts continue as good as they have been.
Har!
First two games of the series have been pretty darn good. Crazy one last night, all that late-inning back-and-forth. The Astros have to feel pretty fortunate going home with a split, considering how little their offense did for the first 16 innings of the series.
What a game. JV was pitching well and only gave up 2 hits. Unfortunately those 2 hits were homers. Not surprising against a fastball pitcher. Anyway JV did his job and kept the game close but got no run support. JV came out in the usual non DH NL fashion, when they pitch hit for him in the 7th. After that is when the crazy began. A team that never lost a game when leading in the 8th inning the entire season ( 93-0 I believe ) saw their bullpen collapse. Of course thats only half the story as Houston’s bullpen had issues holding a lead as well. In the end, the teams scored a combined 7 runs in the two extra innings, one more run than the teams managed throughout the first nine. Being a Tigers fan its hard to miss the fact that Cameron Maybin played an important part in the extra innings. He managed to get on base, get into the pitcher’s head by stealing 2nd and then came home on the ensuing homerun. That was classic Maybin and nice to see as he had a rough regular season before getting dumped by the Angels and picked up by the Astros. If these teams keep playing like this I really hope the series goes the full 7 games.
Looks like Girardi isn’t returning as Yankees manager- if it’s involuntary- that makes no sense.
Sounds like they fired him?
Still kinda unclear.
In any event, my first thought on firing Girardi is that you’re much more likely to hire someone worse than someone better.
Also, are we now at three managers who got their teams into the postseason being fired?
Wow.
He almost got booed out of Yankee Stadium before ALDS game 3 and the media was ready to run him out of town – until he stopped trying to overmanage the series. Not saying this is a smart move but it’s not exactly a surprise either.
His deal was up, so they didn’t renew him but they didn’t technically fire him.
So you use a starting pitcher for 4 innings because, then you use your closer for 2 innings because. Aren’t these on the opposite spectrum of baseball analytics?
Probably not as opposed as it seems.
There are multiple facets to a starting pitcher, typically because they throw more of a variety of pitches. For some starters, late in a game is bad because of pitch counts. For others, late in a game is bad because the other team’s hitters get their 3rd or 4th look at the guy.
Teams keep stats on both of those measuring sticks: pitch counts and times through the order, and that figures in, as well as just watching a guy work. Last night, Rich Hill was good at times, but looked like he was occasionally struggling with command…and Dave Roberts knew he had Kenta Maeda set to run out there for 2-3 innings if necessary.
And so moving to closers, typically they’re guys with one, maybe two dominant pitches. Here, it’s definitely an exposure thing, a times through the order issue. If your closer can get the first three outs of a six-out save opportunity with 12 pitches and face only 3 hitters, you like your chances with sending him back out there.
Jansen had one 2 inning save in his career. One. Hill had thrown a 9+ inning (unofficial) no hitter this year.
I think Roberts wasted his bullpen early and then panicked by using Jansen late.
Maybe if it was game 7 or a game you had to win, but he went against his own math and history to use Jansen like that.
It’s the postseason. You take your chances by pushing your best pitchers. Last year in an elimination game, the Cubs had Aroldis Chapman go for an 8-out save. Eight. That worked.
Sometimes it pays off, sometimes not. Big situation, you ask your best guys to do their best. Two innings before, a guy who’d looked unhittable, Morrow, gave up the first runs in 28 bullpen innings for the Dodgers, and he wasn’t being asked to do anything out of the ordinary.
Sometimes shit just happens, even when your plan lines up the way you want it to.
Rosenthal with more: this is what the Dodgers do. Roberts has more faith in Maeda, Morrow, Cingrani, Watson and Jansen than he does in his starting pitchers not named Kershaw.
I don’t get why the Yankees would fire Girardi from a pure baseball perspective, but it makes sense from a perception-is-uber-important-in-NY perspective. Some other team is likely to get a solid manager in a year or two while the Yankees do…who knows what?
On the subject of Roberts pitcher usage, his decisions made sense based on the game situation at the time and recent player performance. That’s really all you can ask of a manager in the post-season. If his guys had performed the same as they did just last week against the Cubs, it would have worked perfectly.
Yea, the Dodgers got fewer innings out of their starting pitchers than any team this year.
I forget who it was, some ex-ESPN guy who is now with the MLB network, but he said before the Yankees first playoff series that they should just use their bullpen only for one game. It turned out they did exactly that when Severino only lasted 1/3 of an inning in one game. And the Yankees won.
That one came as a surprise, just like the Dusty Baker firing.