That was probably the shittiest way to have the winning streak end but at the end of the day it makes no difference how it happened. Time to start another one.
He will. Remember the flak, those of us who raised an eyebrow when hinch was granting Dallas' wish to go through 9 inning, received? Since then, even with Dallas begging and arguing to stay in, he's been pulled through 7. Those in the" don't question anything department" believed, what's another 10 pitches going to do? I still think every pitch counts. The same applies to the relievers. I would blame the no rest day this week. Though I do think if the game had been closer, the dragon pitches another inning. Maybe hinch reads the "astros are too boring thread". =) I always respect the Royals.
I agree, but boy did it suck watching us implode. Of course Giles should have been able to close it out anyway.
How unprecedented/unfathomable is it to have 14 pitchers on the 25-man? Seems it should be easier with Swiss Army Marwin (although he's not 100 right now) on the roster.
Great post. Believe it or not, they are going to lose a game or two before October. If Hinch is tinkering with the bullpen usage, better to do it now against a non-divisional road game in early June while he can than being forced to tinker with it later in the season out of necessity. There is still a long way to go.
I was all for letting Hoyt at least get one more batter to try to work himself out of trouble in the eighth, I just knew Giles was gonna screw it up with bases-loaded. As a closer there is no excuse for leaving a hanging Slider down the middle of the plate with two strikes when the batter was in protect mode, Maybe it doesn't happen with McCann back there.
Seriously, I don't mind what Hinch did at all. He brought Guduan in with a 4 run lead. If a 4 run lead is a situation that Guduan "has no business being in" then they need to get rid of him. He brought Hoyt in with a 3 run lead to see if he could stop the Royals momentum. Was Will Harris the better move? Absolutely, but I like bringing Hoyt in to see if he could handle it. He couldn't last night, unfortunately, but I still like giving him a shot. Then he brought Giles in during the biggest situation and the Royals finished the job. At the end of the day, their current winning streak took a back seat to seeing what a few guys can give them in the future. He gave them their shot, now today I bet he manages the game like he normally would.
Come October, I'm quite sure the pitching roster will change. And most likely we will have a base stealer as insurance.
I would be shocked if we lost the next two with Keuchel and McCullers on the mound, so assuming we win one of them, that's a 2-2 record on the road, which is perfectly fine
I felt like they threw last night's game in the trash. Normally, that's really dumb, but with a sizeable advantage in the division, I think this team had a little leeway to burn a game. Reymin Guduan most likely won't be here in October, but he's here now. May as well use him and see how he responds to each situation that he's inserted into. He and James Hoyt held a 2-run lead on Monday so I'm fairly sure that A.J. Hinch thought that he could hold a 4-run lead on his own.
So you ARE concerned, just not really concerned? Giles has failed PLENTY on the road this year.... 7.15 ERA - .304 BA
The nature of the baseball postseason doesn't do a ton to favor a team that has a huge regular season. We could win 120 games and be just as likely to lose in the 1st round as win it all. If we continue to blow away the competition by a huge margin, one of the advantages is the ability to rest arms, and try players in tough situations to see how they respond. That certainly feels like what Hinch was doing with Guduan and Hoyt, instead of just going to Harris which would have been the smart thing to do if you were only focused on last nights game. The Giles failure sucks, no way to sugarcoat it. Even if he was brought into a tough situation he should have handled it. Then he compounded it with an awful 9th. Only his second blown save, he has reliably finished games this year, he didn't last night.
Yea, I think Giles **** the bed in the 9th, but seriously it never should have been 2 back to back rookies pitching back to back nights. Stop being cute just put our normal 7-8-9 pitchers in. Really bad managing for this game.
I'm really not concerned. If he fails a few more times, then I will be concerned. Right now I'm not. I don't care about the cosmetic runs he gives up that have no impact on the result.
I can only imagine the rage on here if Harris or Devenski were the ones that didn't get the job done last night.
