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With all these infielders around now who knows whats gonna happen. Great to see him coming back
Guess Mo said they will have to figure it out. Lots of scenarios I imagine. Gotta remember thats against AAA pitching though.Hudson was not very good today, but he did eat some innings to save the pen. Hopefully the offense can get 3+ runs the next three times at bat.
So Carlson hits for Knizner with the bases empty, down by three runs?
If pinch-hitting for Knizner was in fact a possibility all along, then why not do it when it counts — like with the bases loaded and two outs in a tied game? Sigh. Bad managing. Real bad.
Drama in the 9th. Yepez homers Donovan but Albert strikes out. Close but no cigar. Got more than 4 runs though. Go Cardinals!
And the game ends with Puhols whiffing on a pitch two feeT off the plate. THAT’S WHAT YOU GET WHEN YOU STRAND 10 MEN OR THEREABOUTS.
This one is on Mo. Hudson pitched longer than he should have because not enough effective bullpen arms.
…just completing the thought on Knizner batting with the bases loaded and two outs in a tied game.
Andrew Knizner since May 2 is slugging .177. He has 11 total bases in 62 at-bats. I understand if Goldschmidt was unavailable to hit for him, or for Albert in the 9th. But when Carlson hit for Knizner in the 8th, we found out that hitting for Knizner was a possible strategy all along. Ollie Marmol is in over his head, as a tactician and as a roster manager. Just terrible today.
“This one is on Mo. Hudson pitched longer than he should have because not enough effective bullpen arms.”
Not sure I see that, CC. Unless someone was unavailable, why couldn’t Marmol have used Cabrera, Gallegos, and Helsley to cover the 7th, 8th, and 9th innings?
Exactly Brian. Anyone who thinks the front office doesn’t have input into the lineups is being naive. Gotta sell those tickets.
Yeah like they got 5-10K walk ups for the game cause Albert was announced a couple hours before game time. lmao!
Albert had a double and he also came up in 2 instances where he popped up a very hittable slider and struck out in the 9th. Yeah maybe he shouldn’t have played against the righties but he came up in one instance where we needed him to.
The issue isn’t Albert as much as the leaving Dakota in for the 7th. When he did that and we coughed up the 5th run old Mail it in Marmol said screw it and threw Johan and kid kerosene McFarland.
They were lucky to win 2 of 3. If the Reds had just a little better D in the series they probably would have swept the Cards at home.
Looked like Marmol (Was it Mo?) was trying to save the bullpen which helped the Reds win. Maybe the Pirates will be easier for them?
At some point we should see them slide and become more of what they really are. Closer to a .500 team. It’s very early in the season.
At some point we should see them slide and become more of what they really are. Closer to a .500 team. It’s very early in the season.
I disagree with this assessment. The Central is pretty weak, so I expect that to carry the team to close to if not over 90 wins. I’d especially anticipate that if Flaherty and/or Matz can stabilize the rotation a bit.
Bob Reed, yes he could have used them bit when you only have 3 effective relievers you have tô be picky about when you use them. Also, didnt Galegos throw 33 pitches Just 2 days ago. He was probably basically unavailable for another day.
Pujols SHOULD NOT bat or start against a RHP! Why?!?
Also, is Jordan Walker hurt? Hasn’t played the last two days.
Well got to watch grandson for a while so had to watch it recorded. My take on it. Lots of runners left on. We had some chances to steal and we didn’t which ended up costing us cause there were some base hits after those guys that could have stolen, got on. Don’t know if it’s just up to players to steal or if Ollie calls them but he needs to call more. The reds catcher has a bad percentage of throwing out runners. We left Hudson in too long. He was up and down all day so should have got him out of there before that last down. Not going to harp too much on Oviedo for homer or not putting in our better guys when behind but Woodford should be here and should have been inserted in 7th.
I agree CC, we have 8 relievers and we can’t throw the main three everyday, especially in games when we’re down by two runs late.
This is on whoever said we can’t afford good relievers. They filled out this pen with castoffs and are getting castoff results at the fans expense. Not exactly breaking news. More like the theme of the season.
Significant acquisitions needed.
Pujols SHOULD NOT bat or start against a RHP! Why?!?
Also, is Jordan Walker hurt? Hasn’t played the last two days.
I mostly agree but you did see the rbi double he had right? You’ll likely bring up the slider he missed which he was clearly upset about and the K in the 9th.
I mean you’d rather see Goldy. He was off limits which means you have Molina, Sosa or Or the .659 ops carlson coming off the DL a couple days ago. Im sure we know your feelings on 2 of those options.
“Bob Reed, yes he could have used them but when you only have 3 effective relievers you have tô be picky about when you use them. Also, didn’t Gallegos throw 33 pitches just 2 days ago? He was probably basically unavailable for another day.”
You’re right, CC, about Gallegos and the 33 pitches on Friday. I agree he might not have been available — though he is the “rubber arm” of the trio for sure. And I think the decision to leave Hudson in for the 7th inning was a gray area quandary (unlike pinch-hitting for Knizner with the bases loaded and two outs in a tied game). I would not say that Marmol unquestionably fouled up by leaving Hudson in. It was a 60-40 decision at most.
But my thinking went like this. Hudson wasn’t in the midst of a good pitching performance; he was having a bad game. And the Big Three not only had yesterday off, all three also didn’t pitch on either Thursday or Wednesday against Tampa. Thus, there’s some accumulated rest there, so to speak.
And finally, none of the Big Three has really been ridden that hard this year. Entering play Sunday, Cabrera was on pace for 57 appearances and 72 innings, Gallegos on pace for 59 games and just 61 innings, and Helsley for 62 innings and a mere 51 games. Genesis is tied for 19th in MLB relief innings, and none of them are even in the top 75 in appearances. So these are pretty darn relaxed numbers, by current reliever standards. Therefore, with a tied game or leading by a little, in the 7th or later, for me today was a day to go with those three — again, unless Hudson had been very sharp, which of course he wasn’t.
And yes, I am probably the most long-winded baseball commenter you know. You win that bet. 😉
In my opinion Marmol is doing as well as Shildt or Matheny would have done. In some cases I think he is better, such as being more candid instead of all the coach speak.
Having said that I don’t think managers really determine as much as we think they do. I believe that front offices have much more to do with the W/L record than managers do, especially in the modern game where a lot of decisions are dictated from above. The manager doesn’t give out silly contract extensions, sign players for nostalgic reasons, or bring in cheap low hanging fruit resulting in a bullpen with only 3 of the 8 being viable options. And frankly it isn’t the manager who decides who plays in St. Louis and who plays in Memphis.
The umpire really hurt us. He made two terrible strike calls against Knizner who then struck out with the bases loaded. Not sure I would have pinch hit for Knizner that early in the game. You can have your players looking over their shoulder with that kind of moves. Also you have to ask if you want to use a key pinch hitter that early. If Goldy was not available then is Molina or Sosa that much better. I think they are better but neither are tearing the cover off the ball.
Again the umpire struck later in the game when he called a strike on a clear ball four pitch to Bader which would have loaded the bases for a pinch hitter for sure in that situation.
I agree, Sooner, about the umpiring and the damage that inflicted. But as for the other thing, Knizner hasn’t hit a lick for six weeks. I wouldn’t advocate pinch-hitting for him if there had been fewer than two outs, OR if the game hadn’t been so tight (it was tied, of course), OR if there had only been one man on base — but of course the sacks were jammed. Every condition had to be met, in order to pinch-hit there. And every condition was met.
A hit there scores multiple runs, and a multi-run lead entering the 6th inning, with all the best relievers available, very likely means a win. It was just the bottom of the 5th, but there was never a more key situation in the game — before or after that moment. (The hitter to use was Dylan Carlson, who did in fact hit for Knizner in the 8th, pointlessly, with a 3-run deficit and the bases empty. Now THAT was a wasted pinch-hitting deployment. Marmol had his chance in the 5th and missed it, and a big situation never came again. This is a DH league now, so you don’t need to save pinch-hitters any more. Marmol blew it.)
But Knizner’s (highly predictable) failure left the game a toss-up. And as far Knizner looking over his shoulder…well it’s the middle of June in a tight race for first place. Can’t worry about the fragility of players’ psyches at this point. Gotta win games. And it’s not like Knizner is the Catcher Of The Future, either. That’s Ivan Herrera — who should be called up within the next month, if Yadi and Andrew continue to flounder this badly at the dish, while Herrera hits .300 with good plate discipline and some pop for Memphis. As a batter, Herrera has basically a Brendan Donovan profile, and we’ve seen how well that can potentially translate at the MLB level.
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And I keep hearing how forthcoming, how candid, how transparent Ollie Marmol is. All I see is a manager who’s full of crap when he talks about Jake Woodford, his truly major gaffe — major not simply because of Woodford in and of himself, but because of how Marmol’s bizarre dismissiveness toward Woodford has directly resulted in self-destructive nonsense like Packy Naughton making two MLB starts, and Jordan Hicks straining the bullpen with his own abbreviated starts, and untested/undertalented relievers being given roles beyond their ability — VerHagen in particular.
If Marmol just didn’t want Woodford to be his 5th starter exiting Spring Training, then fine. He was dead wrong for several reasons, but fine. He then still had the chance to use Woodford constructively as a medium-to-high-leverage multi-inning man. But no, Woodford was made Marmol’s whipping boy, the garbage mop-up man. And we still don’t know why.
Transparent, my Aunt Fanny.
End rant.
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