I'm accusing him of leaving the starter in too long. Whatever...it was just a question. We know how the blame game works.
Well I suppose Mills is entitled to his share of mistakes too. That being said, Paulino did have a nice outing... casting aside a disastrous 7th. So positives from Norris, positives from Paulino, another L in the loss column. Life goes on.
Thing was Paulino's pitch count wasn't that high after 6. Was he shaky heading into the 7th or something? Because otherwise I see no reason not to put him back out there.
He was at 86 pitches. Maybe he shouldn't have been pulled...but it seems like he should have been pulled earlier in the disastro inning when he still had the one run lead with one or two men on.
I sort of remembered it this way and I checked and it seem what I remember is somewhat accurate. I recall that last year I thought he might make a good closer/reliever because he could never reliably go more than four innings (and he had the heat you expect from a closer). I was very disappointed when it turned out that he was even worse out of the pen. Last year, after the fourth inning his ERA took a significant hit, and it continued as you go further into games. He only pitched into the 7th twice last year, but both opportunities were disasters. My opinion is that he is a guy that you don't try and push deep into the game unless you have a big cushion. Mills wasn't here last year, so I appreciate he may not feel this deep down and I don't blame him for leaving him in. But IMO until he proves otherwise, you are playing with fire each inning after the fifth (really last year after the fourth).
I agree 100% with this assessment. Paulino has serious command issues that come forth in about 9 out of every 10 outings, regardless if it's as a starter or in relief. If he isn't hitting his spots with his fastball, his effectiveness quickly goes down the drain. There is also very little movement on his fastball so hitters get adjusted to it quickly despite the velocity. His only decent secondary pitch is his slider but he has a tendency to lose command of that pitch as well and start leaving them up in the zone or not being able to find the zone at all. Basically, when he hits those bouts of command issues, everything falls apart for him. He's not young, either. I don't see him ever getting the kind of consistent command of his already flat fastball or developing strong enough secondary pitches to be even a passable end of the rotation starting pitcher. Quite honestly, I'm not sure that Norris is too different than Paulino. Like Paulino, his only concrete ML quality pitching attribute is that he throws the ball hard and like Paulino, he has command issues and a lack of truly effective secondary pitches. At least he's a little younger than Paulino. Paulino struggled mightily in relief, as you said, but he probably has a better chance of figuring it out in that role than as a starter. He also only threw about 10 innings. That is a somewhat significant number but probably not enough to draw too many conclusions, esp. when he hasn't proven himself to be a capable starter, either. He was also going back and forth last season as a starter/reliever so that may have been a factor in his struggles. Either way, if he can't be an effective reliever, then I don't see any role for him at this level. At this stage of his career, I don't see him ever getting consistent enough command of his fastball or developing good enough secondary pitches to make it through orders multiple times, especially against above average lineups.
And it came after an outfiled blunder by the Cubs with 2 outs that would've ended the inning. Byrd had a gimme play on the ball but Fukudome ran right into him even with Byrd clearly calling for it. Even Johnson's triple was attributed to another Fukudome mistake, as he misplayed what should have been nothing more than a single. He was probably trying to make up for his error on the previous play. He's lucky that he didn't get tagged with 2 consecutive errors. Feliz also cost us by trying to make a play on a bunt that was going foul. That contributed to the Cubs' big inning as did Quintero's failure to take advantage of Soriano's baserunning error.
On a positive note, both Bourn and Lee had several quality at bats and were driving balls all over the place. Unfortunately, they just kept going right to Cubs outfielders. Lee's only hit to end his slump came on an ordinary single up the middle with the shortstop playing out of position. Chris Johnson, welcome to major league pitching! This ain't spring training no more. He took some awful, awful swings today, including one of the worst I've seen this season on a ball that came out of the pitcher's hand a foot wide of home plate. His ST was the biggest of big time flukes. His years and years of minor league numbers translate to a very poor ML hitter who strikes out with the best of 'em. He likely won't even approach Blum's abilities at this level. He has very poor plate discipline and big time holes in his swing.
My opinion on it is that he's your 5th starter for a reason. He pitched fantastic for 6 innings and got you the lead. Let the pen do it's job and finish it out. It's not like Lyon and Lindstrom have gotten that much work with a lead. There was no need to save the pen when, in theory, your top 2 starters are in line for the next 2 games. It's their job to go deep.
JR Towles with the blast for a HR. Maybe he is waking up? Roy is on fire. I hope it lasts. Good game so far. Keep it up!
