I would argue just the opposite, though I assume they didn't know Greinke would be available. The reason to keep Javier available was because they needed a Game 4 starter if things went poorly yesterday. If they knew Greinke would be an option, then they absolutely should have used Javier yesterday, knowing Paredes and Pressly would be available today.
That's a very good point. I guess subconsciously I'm trying to justify some sort of reasoning of why that buffoonery was done to blow a golden opportunity to close out the series to make me feel better about it.
agreed . However if Zach is limited to like 3-4 innings then it still makes sense to want to have Javier available
Sucks that we weren't able to close it out yesterday, especially given the fact that James had no business coming back in for a second inning. However, the pitching is set up pretty nice for today and tomorrow if it's needed. You've got Greinke starting today with Paredes, Pressley and Javier all available out of the bullpen. That should hopefully be enough to get you 9 innings. If it's not then that means things probably went south at some point. As far as a potential game 5 goes, not really sure who you'd have starting. Probably McCullers and maybe hope that Valdez would be available for a couple innings on only 3 days rest? All bets would be off in game 5 so who knows. Let's just finish this thing tonight.
We should all be praying for 4 good innings out of Greinke. He's pitching hurt, anything more is gravy.
If there's any sign he's hurt, Javier should be pitching immediately. It's going to be a nightmare scenario if they pitch Greinke, he gets bombed, and then Javier comes in but the team never catches up. You'll still have McCullers on short rest tomorrow, but its basically the worst possible outcome. I'd probably just pitch Javier today with Paredes/Pressly available. And then if that doesn't work, you have Greinke tomorrow with McCullers out of the pen. If it does work today, Greinke gets another several days to rest whatever his ailment is. Greinke just seems like a massive questionmark right now vs Javier.
I think we can all agree, today is a must win and the pressure is on us to win today. Yeah yeah 'blah blah blah we're playing on house money we got here with a losing record and half our players are injured' I wanna see this team at least get to the ALCS a 4th straight year dammit lol I think that's a somewhat acceptable stopping point for all the trash talk Carlos has said. So far we've backed it up, but it would be an embarrassment to choke it away to the A's after a 2-0 lead even with a worse record. We're still the defending AL champs and you gotta beat the man to be the man! If we gotta lose, I'd much rather it be the Rays than anyone else. Lol
He had not given up a run in a month. I am not placing blame on anybody, I just hate all of the b****ing whenever we lose from arm chair managers.
Yep. VERY short leash today for Greinke. Everyone says he feels good and looks good. I'm nervous as hell. This is as close to a must-win game as a non-elimination game can get.
why are there no off days between some of these games? are they planning on running through 7 games in a row the next series (if needed) with no off days?
It took a lot of bad Lidge for Hinch to accept him not playing in 2017. Win or lose, at least we've seen the last of James. Dusty would lose his ball club if yesterday were to repeat.
Pretty sure they are, and I have no ****ing idea why or how any team can deal with that. It's going to make for some bad baseball.
LCS is on consecutive days but the WS will have the usual off days between games 2 & 3 and 5 & 6. Don't really understand it either other than maybe they wanted to minimize the time the teams had to stay in these bubbles.
There were already scheduled events before MLB decided to expand the playoffs. MLB had to craft the additional games around those events.
And he pitched one inning successfully. when he pitches 2 innings out of the pen successfully, let me know... it was the wrong choice at the time no matter what the circumstance.