is he your best pitcher on 2 days rest of 7 innings w/ 110 pitches, coupled w/ potentially being in a situation he's never ever done before. JV is right there with cole and certainly looked horrible coming off 3 days rest and he preached how great he felt going in
what don't you understand?? he's saying he'd have brought him in with any lead in the 8th or 9th. i'll give you one more chance, then i'll have to give up ya
that needs to be said? he made decisions as a coach and lives with it. that goes for any other coach/game manager. all these hindsight posts are just that. people wanting to question this or that. doesn't make you right or wrong
If that is true then you bring Cole in the 7th inning instead of sending Greinke back out there. Would have taken some stones to do it but I don't think anyone would fault AJ for that move if Cole **** the bed even though Greinke was pitching so damn well. A part of me wishes Greinke was at near 100 pitches after 6 IP and therefore it would have been a no-brainer to bring Cole out there in the 7th. Greinke was so damn efficient that I don't even know if AJ had that as a realistic scenario going into the game. It would have been tough for Nats hitters to go from seeing Greinke twice through the lineup and then to try and hit Cole.
These guys are accustomed to throwing 30-40 pitches on their second day of rest as part of their normal routine. Asking a SP to start on three days rest is a much riskier bet than using one for an inning or two on their bullpen day.
it doesn't really matter which is worse. both are significant risks and JV was shaky from the beginning.
JV is not as good as Cole and was shaky throughout almost the entire postseason. I think JV was simply exhausted over the past few weeks as age and the number of innings he pitched this season caught up with him. It's really not that uncommon to use SPs in this way in the postseason. For instance, Strasburg and Scherzer both pitched on two days rest between the WC game and the second game of the NLDS.
And cole's outing in game 1 shows he isn't immune to anything its more common in this era sure but that certainly doesn't mean it doesn't carry huge risk. we just saw what happen to kershaw in the game that sent washington to move on. for every example of something maybe working in favor, you can do the same for it not
1) Will Harris was the Astros best relief pitcher this year, one they had repeatedly turned to in high leverage situations this postseason, with (until game 6) overwhelming success. 2) Zack Greinke made 14 starts (prior to game 7) for the Astros this year (including the postseason) - care to guess how many lasted into the seventh inning? 3. Care to guess how many lasted past the seventh inning? 1. Care to guess how many of his previous four postseason starts this October reached past the sixth inning? 0. Hinch was on borrowed time with Greinke. Frankly, the mistake was not pitching Cole to *start* the 7th, with 2-3-4 due up for the Nats. That was your ballgame. Greinke should've never seen the 7th - Cole or Osuna. Once he passed up that option, Harris/Osuna to put out any fire was the right call. But then Cole pitches the 8th. And then you throw every pitcher you have in the 9th.
Maybe he pulled Zack too soon. We will never know. Was Greinke starting his 3rd time through the order or 4th? If 4th I can see why he pulled him with that 1188 OPS allowed.. If 3rd. Well. Last three seasons show Greinke just fine 3rd time through. The few times he has gone 4 times through he was terrible. As for not bringing Cole in. Yea maybe he should have made that call. But damn. Lot of unknowns. Harris has been your best reliever this year. But I think he was shown too much to the Nats. Cole coming in with men on base and only 2 days rest. No way you can say if his control would be sharp or he would have his dominant velocity. BIG unknown and the 7th inning of game 7 is not a place you want to start testing ideas. If anything maybe try Devo. They had not seen him much and Devo was throwing the ball better late in the season. Can sit here and b**** and moan all we want. Pitching didn't lose us this game. If the right strings were pulled AND the players performed then maybe they could have saved the offenses a** and we get the ring. But this loss is on the bats more so than AJ or the pitching. 7 total runs in your last three home games isn't going to win you much against a team that offensively was red hot. Just like the yankees had to beat one of our studs at least once to get to the next round and couldn't do it. We had to beat one of the Nats studs at least once and we didn't do it. Strassburg is virtually unbeatable in the playoffs. 9 earned runs on a 1.46 ERA in 55 post season innings. You could just about chalk game 2 and 6 up as write off's. The NATS beat our studs 3 out of 4 times. We were lucky to even sniff a game 7 really. Hopefully we come back next year pissed and with a chip on our shoulder the size of a manhole cover. Hopefully JV can go see a hypnotist and get his world series yips exercised or have Kate come in the locker room and give him a blow before the game, anything to get his world series sh*t together. Strom works with Zack and gets him to be the best pitcher he can be at this age and if we are lucky a legit number 2. Lance comes back as one of those TJ pitchers that gains 1 or 2 MPH on his fastball and he can actually have a healthy season. Urquidy builds on his World Series game and we find another Wade Miley that doesn't Wade Miley down his leg in September and the post season (that sucks dude went from getting mentions on the Cy Young ballot to a puddle of rancid cream). Cole is gone. We can't afford him and it goes against our organizations strategy. Maybe some deity will come down and transform Forrest Whitley into the no trade prospect that Lunhow seems to think he is. Or someone finds the pictures Whitley has of Crane banging a sea lion thus the reason we have to keep him. We will be great next season. It will be another fun ride. Who knows. Maybe we can unwrap porcelain doll Carlos Correa and get a healthy season out of him and see what he truly is. Maybe Yordan with some experience turns into a monster that makes every pitchers sack shrivel when they have to face him. Perhaps Bregman reels in his bullsh*t and takes his MVP performance into the post season. Lot of stuff to look forward to with this team. Thanks Astros for a hell of a ride. We sure as hell are not going to get that from Toyota Center this year. So here's to the start of the 2020 campaign. Tick Tock.
Those are practice pitches. That's completely different from making real in game pitches. Teams that use starters in relief have weak or unavailable bullpens. It is a backup strategy, not your primary one. You posted in the other thread that no data shows that using starters in relief has any negative effect. I am not sure what you are talking about. ALL the data shows that using starters in relief has a negative effect on their pitching performance.
[...] In short, Greinke was pitching well enough through six to get the seventh inning. A rule that probably should have been modified given the circumstances prevented Cole from pitching the important eighth inning. The rules were weird, but I’m not convinced it’s what caused the Astros to lose the World Series. Pulling Greinke mid-inning (and not scoring more than two runs) probably bears a greater responsibility when it comes to missing out on another championship.
What data shows that? Everything else being equal, you would expect a starter to perform better in relief given that they can throw harder for 20-30 pitches than they can for 70-100 pitches. Here is a good article from a few years ago examining this issue. When looking at the entire sample of starters relieving on short rest in the playoffs, the starters actually had a lower RA/9 when reliving on short rest than they did in their other postseason starts (3.95 vs 4.16). https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-history-of-starters-relieving-on-short-rest/
