Piscotty is leading off and playing CF.
- Thread starter Duck_walk
- Start date
And the closer hits for himself with the bases loaded and 2 outs in the 9th...of a one run game. Interesting.
At that point I think the only guy left on the bench was the backup catcher. I suppose MM could have used him there but then you're in trouble if Yadi gets hurt. Only having 4 bench players and really only 3 kind of handcuffs the manager. You'd like to not have a reliever hit for himself if possible. He managed to put off until that last AB. If Oh doesn't throw that down the middle waist high meat ball it likely works out. The bigger issue for me is why have 13 pitchers and only 4 subs. If you're going to do that you're going to have issues like last night from time to time.
I agree roster construction is a problem.
But if you're going to be in the spot, you can't use a guy who never bats. Send Leake up there if you don't want to burn your catcher. Have someone else ready to go. You had 13 pitchers on the roster. Use another one of them.
But Oh is the best bullpen option right now. I thought MM made a good decision to use him in the 8th and it worked. Only throwing a few pitches kept him available for the 9th which I thought was a good move too. Unfortunately his spot came up. At that point you have to weigh what the best option is. Do you have more confidence in Oh holding the 1 run lead in the 9th or a pitcher actually getting a hit and getting some insurance runs? Myself I'd go with Oh and the 1 run lead. In the high likelihood that Leake or another pitcher doesn't get a hit who pitches the bottom of the 9th with the 1 run lead? I don't have an issue with Oh batting there. Now maybe you do something different earlier but that's all hindsight too. Everything was working out until the closer served up a meat ball.
Exactly. Oh was literally the worst option to hit in that situation. Leake at least gives you a chance if you don't want to burn the backup C. Oh did his job in the 8th. And Maness hasn't been scored on in nearly a month spanning 9+ innings. Have to at least give yourself a chance to expand that lead. I had a better chance of doing that than Oh did.
But 100% agree, roster construction created that problem.
I also don't understand why Lyons wasn't on the DL if he was hurt so someone else were on the roster. You have two lefties in the pen after the trade. You need a hitter on the roster more than you need a 3rd lefty.
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I have no idea why he pitched Duke in the sixth, either. Their best hitter is a lefty (Votto.) Why did we burn one of our two lefties to pitch to Phillips/Schebler/Suarez? It made no sense.
If you had saved Duke, you'd have had a lefty ready in the ninth to pitch to Votto.
Oh, and he burned his best reverse split righty (Siegrist) to pitch to Billy Hamilton when he pulled Duke. Just bizarre.
Then Matheny double switched Broxton into the game, he only moved the pitcher's spot by one batter.
The decision with batting Oh and leaving him in for the ninth only happened because Matheny made mistake after mistake to put himself in that position.
Although I don't disagree that mistakes were made by MM, if the bullpen does their jobs then he's fine. Duke couldn't find the strike zone and Broxton was melting down. The only thing I really questioned was not using Maness in the 6th rather than Duke. That's been traditionally more where he pitches and the Mo said on the radio the other day that Duke was acquired to use somewhere as a bridge to the 9th (so the 7th or 8th).
Duke, in his career, has a large platoon split. We have a bullpen with five righties. Why didn't we use one of them in the sixth?
I'm not sure what the question is because you just made the same point I did...Maness seemed to make more sense in the 6th. Duke may have a platoon split over his career, but has been as effective against both RH and LH this year so I suppose that's why they initially intended on using him as a bridge guy. Didn't go that way with his first appearance, though, and that's the confusing part.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?id=dukeza01&year=&t=p#plato
There is no way the Cards analytics team agrees with the idea that he doesn't have a platoon split. He's pitched under 40 innings this year. That's far too small to be a relevant sample size.
Even if you say the older data on Duke from when he was a starter isn't that relevant, he had a material platoon split from 2013-2015, and he's had a much better K/BB ratio and a lower HR/PA rate against lefties during 2016 just like he did during 2013-2015. His YTD results are a mirage due to the small sample size, and that shows up in the BABIP data - Righties have a .233 BABIP against him. Lefties have a BABIP of .370.
I'm just going off of what I heard come out of the mouth of the GM and manager. Their intended use for the guy is in the late innings and he isn't intended on being a LOOGY. They're planning on utilizing him like another Siegrist. That is why it was head scratching to me. Say one thing and do another.
They can say what they want, but there's a reason his average outing in Chicago in 2014-2016 was under 0.8 innings.
Siegrist has a reverse platoon split over his career - he's been better against righties than lefties. Utilizing these two in the same manner doesn't make sense, because they have different success rates depending upon the batters they are facing.
The Cards should be saving Duke for tough spots against guys like Votto, especially with men on base - against lefties, he's given up only 5 HR in his last 330+ batters faced as a reliever in 2013-2016, and their rates of doubles and triples against him are also very low. He induces many more ground balls than the average pitcher, which means he generates a lot of double plays - he's induced more double plays in the last 365 days than Siegrist has in his entire career. He's exactly the kind of guy you bring in against a lefty when you are in a jam.
Siegrist is different. He is good enough against both sides of the plate that they should be working him in spots where he might have to face batters on both sides of the plate. He gives up more fly balls than ground balls, meaning you might prefer to start innings with him than bring him in with a guy on 3rd.
I find it difficult to believe that the Cardinals, who have a top tier analytical department, have told Matheny and Mozeliak something other than this.
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I don't disagree with the sentiment that he SHOULD be used against tough lefties. And yes, Siegrist does have reverse splits. However, they do continue to run him out there against lefties. The way I understood it when I heard the sound bytes on the radio yesterday was that they wanted him as basically an insurance policy. He was acquired to take the stress off of Siegrist and Broxton in the late innings getting to Oh.
If Maness was used to close a game Ducks head would have exploded and others on here would have thrown stuff at their TV. Oh rarely pitches inside to ANYBODY, that pitch was middle in and the dude did what should be done with it.
If the situation were different, yes. But the lesser of two evils was putting an actual hitter at the plate and Maness closing. The freaking bases were loaded in a one run game. Not to mention all of the gaffes that lead him to having to make that decision. Of course, the gaffes were created by himself.
