Pena offered at a ball that never started over the plate..... also at a guy whose ball tails down. The slider even further away. Jeremy made up his mind before the pitcher threw the pitch that he was swinging. Absolutely brutal.
I don't really like the Matte batting helmets but the Orioles one is cool. It looks like a regular hat. We wear our Matte helmets with the Space City uniforms.
Even that 2-3 games would be extreme. All the articles/studies I've read that try to answer this question generally show the same general conclusion that lineup and in game decisions have very little impact in the grand scheme of things. It's not that it doesn't matter, it's that its overwhelmed by so many other factors (e.g. Astros/Orioles outcomes on hits greater than 100 mph this game, lineups with Maldy putting up 7 and 8 runs against better pitchers than the one without him putting up 3 so far). Dusty is not a good manager in terms of in-game tactical decisions. That's not exactly a new thing and it was known when Crane and the Astros hired him. People calling for him to be fired as a result doesn't make a ton of sense and if he is fired it's probably not going to be for that reason. I have no inside information, but from what I can tell Dusty is pretty good at many of the other things that a manager needs to do which are frankly a bigger part of the job and way less visible to fans. He does seem to look at the big picture / long-game more than the "win this one game" approach. It certainly doesn't explain all of his questionable decisions, but they Astros do seem to perform well when it counts in the post-season and you can't ignore how the regular season may have impacted their ability to do that.
