If pulling Dallas pays off, Hinch deserves credit. I have criticized him quite a bit, but he had guts. The pen will be more confident and with the low pitch count Dallas will be fresh.
They can be, but not often for baseball. Right now the average Texas sports fan cares more about the cowboys, Texans, or college football. The average Toronto sports fan cares more about the Maple Leafs or even the Raptors who have been good recently. The average sports fan drives TV markets.
At least you finally admit it! I prefer a little bit of balance. Castro isn't all-world defensively... and can't be this horrid at the plate (especially coming down from what he was able to do in the past). Ideally, Conger finds new life at first (if he has the work ethic), was harboring an injury that made him that horrific, or simply becomes a lefty-only DH.
And guess what.. the average New Yorker cares more about the Giants/Jets. There's still going to be a lot of baseball-specific fans in all of these cities watching games. The NFL rules every market over baseball... except St. Louis.
Couldn't imagine the crowd at MMP ever booing in the playoffs... But I guess like you said, the fans are spoiled with the team's history.
I think he was trying to walk the fine line between how much game to give the bullpen versus how much he wanted to tire out Dallas. It shows confidence in his bullpen that he wanted to pull him at that time, as pulling him indicates his belief that we had the game, in my opinion.
