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Another outing for Wach were he just doesn’t have it. The 3rd inning was a rough go, Cards now trail 4-1. Legitimate big league bats don’t seem to miss many offerings that make their way near the middle of the plate.
Cards blew a lot of chances tonight. DeJong should’ve been on third after Fowler’s hit, and he would’ve probably scored later to give the Cards the lead. Instead he doesn’t score and the Pads take advantage of the Cards poor play the next inning to lead. So frustrating to lose to a poor team like this.
Not that I like Carp unavailable, but this lineup has more potential to jump start the team early in games with slightly better OBP/OPS at the top and significantly better ability to make things happen on the base paths.
LoganAlpha30X7
Top of the 9th and score is 6 to 2, guess Gyorko only pushed in 1 run…Pads challenged and Pham was ruled out at the plate. It was an easy overturn.
Duke with and 0-2 pitch right down the middle. You just can’t win with that. He’s awful tonight and has one-upped Bowman this inning.
Langosch tweeted this afternoon that Rosenthal has met with Dr. ElAttrache. The Cardinals are reviewing the results of both exams, with an announcement of the next step forthcoming Wednesday.
forsch, yep…what a reliever does with inherited runners is ultra important, although not so much for today’s pure closers. They generally start innings. My main point with that was how asinine the stats for blown saves and save opportunities can be, as in my example. Closers who only start innings don’t have to deal with that aspect of it. Plus, sometimes they are let off the hook because the manager yanks them before giving up the tying run, even though they have created the mess which turns out to be the primary cause of the subsequent blown save.
There was even some of this going on in Rosenthal’s last game. Rosenthal, Duke and Brebbia combined to lose the game in the 9th, but imo Brebbia was the best of the three. From a practical standpoint, I would say he contributed the least to blowing the lead. Rosenthal was charged with the two runs that tied it and Duke was charged with the losing run, and thus the loss. To accent how asinine and inconsistent the stats are, Duke was credited simultaneously with a “hold” and a loss this game. I also felt bad for Brebbia because Yadi (or whoever) did him no favors by calling three straight sliders against Betts to end the game. I felt like a hard one inside on the 2-2 pitch had a better chance of putting him away as his fastball had looked pretty good that night.
I’m not following your point about the relievers you listed that KC had under Whitey. He said what he said about Sutter.
^ Maybe so, especially if the right guy is on base. But I can’t say I’ve really noticed it. There are a lot of variables for managers to consider I suppose. You would think most pre-plan for those situations by considering a lot of different potential scenarios…so they don’t have to do a lot of in-game, on-the-fly analysis to give the green light.
You know it’s got to be the analytics. I haven’t read the article closely yet, just skimmed it quickly, but I saw where it said outs are more precious than bases.
Still though, I would think based on analytics you should see more situational steal attempts late in close games…where you’re playing for one run…or early in the game of an anticipated pitcher duel. If you have a man on first and no power bats coming to the plate soon, you know it’s probably going to take either two more hits to score, or a walk and and a hit. The alternative would be to get a stolen base first, then one hit would often produce that crucial one run. Given that the average successful stolen base rate of around 70% would be higher than getting a hit or walk, then maybe it should be considered more often in those situations.
Some reliever stats (including blown saves) have very dubious value imo. One example is how a save opportunity is defined. A blown save is charged to the pitcher who gives up the tying run, not the pitcher who put the tying run on base. This is inconsistent with how win-loss decisions are determined.
For example, consider a game where the visiting team enters the bottom of the 9th up by one run. The team’s “closer” (Pitcher A) enters the game and walks three straight batters to load the bases. The manager pulls the “closer” and inserts Pitcher B. Pitcher B then strikes out the next three batters, but on the third strikeout there is a passed ball which allows the tying run to score. At this point, Pitcher B has done an outstanding job, but is charged with a blown save, while Pitcher A is not charged with a save opportunity. Pitcher A can lose the game, but he can’t blow the save.
Comparing relievers from over 30 years ago to today’s players using these stats doesn’t compel me one bit. As stated earlier, Sutter was often brought into games in the 7th inning with the intent to close – completely different dynamics than we have with the roles of today.
Probably a better way to compare players from different eras is to compare how they stack up against their peers from within their era. Sutter won the CYA, finished in the top 5 for the CYA four other times, and had one other top 10 finish. He had five top 10 MVP finishes, and was a six-time all-star. Rosenthal really has nothing to compare with that, and I don’t think it’s because he’s a widely unpopular guy. Even Herzog stated that in some ways his KC teams were superior to his StL teams, but having Sutter in the bullpen was the difference in being able to win the WS. There’s a reason Sutter is in the HOF and Rosenthal will never realistically come close to achieving that.
Leake sure throws a lot of center cut stuff for a guy without much stuff. This situation needs fixing. Pirates are crushing him yet again.
Leake has been going so poorly for a while, I cringe when I see his name as the starter. It hasn’t looked like bad luck either, his pitches look so hit-able. If he doesn’t turn it around, how much patience will Matheny and Mo have to stick with him down the stretch? They need to get really serious about putting the players on the field who give us the best chance to win. Admittedly, they are in a tough spot, maybe a no-win situation.
It seemed like Wacha was asking the Pirate batters what pitch location they preferred before each pitch in the 2nd. They clobbered him. Score is 5-1. Looks like we’ll need to score in double figures again to have a decent shot in this game.
Oh saves the Cardinals from what would’ve been an epic loss with a strikeout to end it. Mayers has got to go. You know there are better options. Is Mo serious about winning baseball games? He’s been a big zero for quite a while now.
Duke doesn’t do his job either and walks Bell. Matheny going with Oh now. Still can’t believe he let Mayers face 7 batters when it was pretty obvious after 2 and painfully clear after 3 that he had no business on the mound.
