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Classic Matheny: Leave Wacha in the game too long and bring in an overused Bowman who is not the same pitcher he was the 1st half. Granted the offense blows but this was classic Mathenaging at its finest.
Maddon left the righty against Fowler and it worked for him but it was not smart not to turn Fowler to his weakest side.
Don’t even think about blaming the manager for this soft performance by the offense and loss. The top of the lineup – Carpenter, Pham, Fowler, and Gorko – were a combined 0 for 11. That’s gutless and pathetic in a key, must win game.
The offense and manager sucked tonight. Matheny is getting part of the blame for leaving Wacha in too long. I’ve already shared articles how he leaves starting pitchers in the game too long.
The Cardinals scored 1 run in 9 innings tonight in front of an avid packed house. They had 2 hits and 1run off Lackey over 6 innings. Lackey has an ERA of 4.56. Now, let’s find something to complain about re the manager. Sure.
bccran:
I don’t blame Matheny for much. He makes bad moves and good ones like any manager. The problem is and always has been your buddy Junior. He won’t trade prospects or spend money so the team will always be in a miasma of mediocrity.
BDW is as disappointed as you are.
He thought the team was set up well, but a number of underperformances weren’t anticipated – Peralta, Diaz, Piscotty, Waino, Leake, Oh, Rosenthal, Cecil, Siegrist, Broxton, Socolovich, etc. Bottom line is the back of the bullpen cost us the playoffs this year. Bill will spend the money, but not foolishly, and he wants to make sure he gets a reasonable ROI. His overall track record as an owner is stellar. No reason to believe he won’t get it back on track in 2018.Except that the team did similar to this for the last couple of years and they did little to nothing to make the team better…when almost half the team underperforms that is saying something…or maybe they weren’t as good as they were originally thought to be and that some expected to much out of them or didn’t notice that they’d lost a step or two until it was blatantly obvious…we have no reason to expect that everyone will suddenly play much better next year either…wait till next year is a terrible way to run a team…
They’ll make some moves this off season. BDW has already stated that. They made them last off season, remember? Fowler was one of the top free agents overall and Cecil was rated the second best lefty reliever on the market.
It will be interesting this winter.I felt Matheny was not prepared for Wacha’s meltdown and left him in too long. He needed to manage like it was the elimination game it essentially was. No one warming up in the seventh inning in a one-run game. Having said that, even if Wacha had been pulled immediately after Russell’s home run, and the pen would have been perfect, the Cards would still have lost, 3-1. Just not enough offense.
Wacha was unhittable through 6 innings, but the bullpen should’ve been ready in the 7th. I would’ve had them up quick after the Zobrist single…and maybe he did. The inning progressed quick and maybe Molina’s absence hurt with Kelly not slowing things down as much.
It’s bothersome that a fan would choose “gutless” as an adjective when calling out 4 players’performances in one “key” game, especially since those 4 were a combined 11-26 in the previous two “key” games. Disappointing, discouraging, regrettable, unfortunate, yes, but “gutless”, I don’t think so.
There were 2 on and no outs and there still wasn’t anyone getting ready in the pen. Someone should have been warming to start the 7th because Wacha’s history of not doing well the 3rd time through a lineup. I see this, Brian sees this, Bernie sees this, Dan Buffa sees this….everyone sees this except Matheny and his fan club.
Great post J Patrick. My thoughts exactly. Baseball is a game of failure. Not hitting is just how it goes sometimes – most times. Gutless would be failure to hustle, maybe losing your cool and blaming circumstances, stuff like that.
I have been critical of Matheny this year and I still think we need a better manager. However, I don’t see where the 7th inning was his fault unless you want to blame him for Martinez playing 1B. Wacha had thrown 60 pitches in 6 innings, allowed 2 hits and was cruising. Rizzo hit a ball that any normal 1Bman should have fielded except Martinez was playing about 6 foot from the foul line. The next batter, Zobrist, hit one that Martinez also could have fielded but he didn’t come off the base too much after holding Rizzo on. Russell followed and hit a decent pitch for a home run just inside the foul line. The Cubs’ announcers said that the bullpen was up stretching after the Zobrist hit.
Everything happened fast. Like Pads said, Kelly should have slowed the game down in that inning. Wacha also needed to throw in a 3rd pitch. Only scoring 1 run would have made it hard to win no matter what.
I know it is argued that he should have had someone up at the beginning of the inning. Wacha had only thrown 60 pitches and was rolling. He showed NO signs of the Cubs exploding. Prior to last night, Wacha had the roughly the same BA against the 2nd and 3rd times through the lineup.
If all those players sucked as you said and they did then it falls on the people who decided to place those guys on the roster. How stupid is the front office? Leake was below five hundred, Broxton was mediocre last year, Piscotty was pedestrian after his first good year and what genius thought Carpenter could be a third place hitter. Somebody badly misjudged the players we had. If Fowler and Cecil are an example of what they can do in the off season then don’t do anything. Junior saying he will make moves in the off season is a joke. If he brings in Stanton and Goldschmidt then he has my attention. But he’ll use bandaids and promises like usual. The talking points are already out there. We can’t block our future superstars, we can’t trade our future, we can’t disrupt the depth we have, We don’t want any big contacts that will prevent us from making deals in the future, the players we have will just have to do better and there are a dozen more. The usual crap And 2018 will be a repeat of 2017. Lifeless team, mediocre performances and no playoffs.
Junior as a stellar owner? I’ll be laughing at that one all weekend.
If they need to slow things down why didn’t the pitching coach go out to the mound? I swear stop making excuses for Matheny.
forsch, if it had been just any game, I would probably agree with you. But last night felt like the last chance. The pen is full or arms. Having someone ready during the entire final few innings would have been safer. And if the reports I read were accurate, it took several hits before Bowman got up.
Wacha’s season OPS against
1st time thru order: .570 (in 270 plate appearances)
2nd time: .817 (269 PA)
3rd time: .900 (155 PA)As far as slowing the game down, Kelly is getting guidance from the dugout all along. I am sure they have a signal for the catcher to go to the mound. If the game didn’t slow down, the coaches are at least partially responsible.
Like I said before, I am not pinning the game on this, as the offense scored just one run.
Wacha was still doing his job until the home run. The Cubs were hitting the ball on the ground. Martinez didn’t field either ball hit his direction until then. A better fielding 1Bman should have had them.
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