I haven't known closers to have difficulty coming into a game with a runner on. I have seen closers come into a game in a non save situation and claim that they lacked the adrenaline to put a zero on the board. Fiers knew for sometime that he was going to be used in the pen. He has done it before in his career. You can try to spin it anyway you want, but Hinch handled the pen poorly in game 2. Hopefully it doesn't cost us the series. At this point I am sure Luhnow wishes he had taken the KRod deal. Hopefully next year the team can have a plug and play pen so it doesn't matter if Hinch lacks touch with the pen. I haven't worked for the Astros in years, but my sister and other people working there say Hinch is very good at the human part of managing. He lets the young players be themselves if they play hard and kept the club from a complete meltdown at the end of the year. All of those are important skills for a manager. Hopefully he gets better at his weaknesses.
You should be. The Astros should be on the verge of eliminating the Royals. A loss today and the Astros will be staring down elimination.
It was poor because it resulted in a loss... and when it results in a win, its good decisions.... sounds like typical BBS logic. Right handers coming out of this pen not named Harris/Gregerson are going to be at a matchup disadvantage against the Royals in most parts of this lineup. I actually preferred Qualls over Fields, but they decided to go with Fields for the K ability (which he did live up to).
I have given up trying to argue over the bullpen with some of these people. If he brought Fiers in, then they would be complaining about pulling Kazmir and putting a starter in a relief situation. If it fails it would have been a terrible managing choice either way.
Is not that complicated. You want your starter to go 6 or 7. Lets say he goes 6, then Sipp 7, Harris 8 and Gregerson 9. Lets say he goes 5, then Fields go in the 6th, Sipp in the 7th, Harris in the 8th and Gregerson in the 9th. Oliver Perez is to be used ONLY against lefties, no Morales or any other right handed hitter. So, Oliver should be used in the 8th against Hosmer or Mastousak, NOT BEFORE. If starters goes under 5, then Fiers. Now, some forum members have mentioned maybe Fiers in the 6th, i would not mind that one, especially if he starts the inning and has the time to warmup in the bullpen. This has been done A LOT in the winning streak, to do it otherwise has made us LOSE many games. Remember, this has been posted BEFORE the game today, so is not like we are saying these things AFTER the fact.
We need to turn this chat back into a positive one instead of a negative one. We have our ace on the hill pitching game three of a split series.... Put away the sad songs at least for now jeez... Get em Dallas!
Now the question is how are we going to use Neshek? To pitch to a guy like Cain? Right now i think he is our weak spot, but if he is able to turn it around, he could help big time as a specialist vs righties. (Cain, Perez and Escobar)
Does anyone have an idea how I can stream the game today. I don't have MLB Network from my cable provider and I can not purchase the stream on MLB.com because you must be a customer of a select few tv providers. Thanks in advance!
GoGo in. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Astros lineup for Game 3. I'd like to think my pic is the best. <a href="http://t.co/7woBjz3ffG">pic.twitter.com/7woBjz3ffG</a></p>— Julia Morales (@JuliaMoralesRS) <a href="https://twitter.com/JuliaMoralesRS/status/653242847190102016">October 11, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>.@<a href="https://twitter.com/ajhinch">ajhinch</a> points out Carlos Gomez who is starting in center/hitting 6th, has good # against Edinson Volquez, which Carlos has also mentioned</p>— Mark Berman (@MarkBermanFox26) <a href="https://twitter.com/MarkBermanFox26/status/653243387429044224" data-datetime="2015-10-11T16:18:54+00:00">October 11, 2015</a></blockquote> <script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Volquez's numbers against the Stros are pretty stout .. Hopefully Dallas can make the bullpen irrelevant today for us though
This is why, despite it seeming to make sense on paper, teams rarely bring in their 8th/9th inning guys before those innings (7th inning exceptions exist, of course), no matter how high leverage the situation might be. The players themselves say they're so much more comfortable when the pen has defined roles & routines, thus the complete lack of true "closer by committee".
After watching the Utley slide, it might be in our best interest to move Correa over to 3rd next season. That cant possibly be legal.
I have no problem with a properly executed "take out" slide to disrupt a double play, that's a part of baseball. It's the late slide when the runner is practically on the bag already and the "slide & roll" that are dangerous.
My biggest issue with the Utley slide, is he never even made an attempt to touch the bag. It's not just that he missed the bag, he never even tried to touch it, he simply went after Tejada That should not be legal. Going into the bag hard is fine, collisions will happen, but you shouldn't allow a runner to go after a fielder and never even attempt to get to the bag. I've always hated the "neighborhood" crap for fielders also, maybe with replay now, we will soon move to an era where touching the bag means touching the bag, whether you are a fielder or a runner...and plays like Utley made last night get people tossed
Totally agreed, and he shouldn't be allowed to slide so late that he has no possibility whatsoever of staying within an arm's-reach of the bag.
