JFC..."a real man" Who are you, and where did you come from, and when are you going back there and bringing the normal other one of you back to reality?
Jeez.. leave it to this place to suck all the fun out of a win by bickering for 2 pages regarding who should have been the “8th inning guy” in a random regular season game in June against a non-divisional/non-league opponent for a series that was already won despite only scoring 4 runs to that point. I believe Abreu was not available yesterday. Hader not available today. Hence why he shifted the presumed 7th inning guy (King) to the 8th… etc. etc. If King’s pitch count yesterday was prohibiting, the only other “shoulda woulda” option was Sousa (who was warming). Not a huge fan of trying to overextend Brown…. He’s on pace for well over 200 innings this year. Not sure there’s an overwhelming “better” option vs. having Abreu go 2 innings. King has good numbers on the season heavily skewed by that one outing… and he summarily came in the following appearance and had a shut down appearance (no mental issues). He pitched well enough yesterday and got some unlucky bounces… but yes, he could benefit from a K pitch when he gets ahead of the count and ultimately didn’t do his job today. Of course, wasn’t that long ago that he should have “stuck with King” and not gone to Abreu (on one of his “off nights”). I’m also for the continued smattering of high-leverage situations to “other” guys as the season goes on (and hopefully the larger division lead maintained)…. This team has zero deer-in-headlights guys. They’re all ready to lay their nuts on the opposing team no matter the situation. Wherever that moxie is deriving from (even if it’s entirely self-driven) has given this bullpen a personality.
It was his 4th sub par outing in a row. He hasn’t been sharp recently. He loaded the bases and threw 23 pitches last night. He wasn’t a good choice. Nobody cares about the one awful game he had against tampa weeks ago. No one even brought that up.
I missed the game: at a funeral. The Astros are on a serious roll. They will need the momentum given the upcoming schedule.
That's the issue - he shouldn't be the "7th inning guy". With our current bullpen, there shouldn't be a set 7th inning guy - it should be the hot hand. On that note, King has been shaky lately - it wasn't just one outing. He had allowed runs in 2 straight outings before last night where he barely escaped after loading the bases with 1 out. All that said, if there was going to be a "7th inning guy", Sousa has been the better pitcher all season and he has better stuff than King as well. Over his last 9.2 innings, he has allowed ONE hit - he's been absolutely dominant. He's got a 1.71 FIP on the season and has multiple times pitched in the 10th inning without even allowing the ghost runner to score. It's pretty obvious he is the better choice to protect a one run lead today. Once again, this wasn't a hindsight call - you can go back to my post before King even went out there where I said Sousa should be coming in and pretty much everyone here was in agreement.
It's fun that you can look at the schedule and say..."well, somebody's gotta lose" Sea/Min, Tor/Cle, TB/KC
And if the rationale is that he pitched yesterday… before that he last pitched Sunday. The plan had to be that he could go back to back days if needed. If Sousa needs to be the new 7th inning guy, so be it. I don’t think Espada has shown a penchant to be robotic or afraid to throw any of these guys into a leverage situation. But King is still one of their better (if not 3rd best) bullpen guys… had a 1.93 ERA in June… and has been able to give more than one inning on occasion. I agree would be nice if he was a strikeout phenom… but I also don’t think he’s another Ryan Stanek per se (gaudy numbers but not effective in playoff or overwhelmingly high leverage AB’s).
And he had him warming as well. Maybe he likes Sousa better (given his veteran status) and he’s working towards being that guy…. They’re going to need all the stable of lefties with a touch of Ort to bridge the gap come (hoepefully) the playoffs. There’s still a ton of season left and I agree this team is devoid from set roles (in a good way) minus the last two.
Last time a team gave up 5 runs in a 3 game series and lost all 3 games? 2014 Minnesota Twins June 16-18 @ Boston 0-1 1-2 1-2 So we collectively scored 6 runs in our series, 1 fewer than that Twins series. So now the question is when is the last time a series netted only 5 runs collectively?
I agree it will work itself out by the end of the season so I'm not necessarily worried about it. That said, the fact he had Sousa warming and then didn't just use him doesn't really help Joe's case.
Buck (copernicus) did. He was hell bent on defending the use of King because "5 of the runs came in 1 outing". A nothing to see here type mentality. Again, I think he's come around now to more sound rational thought. I could be wrong. I'll let copernicus speak for himself.
