Post of the day. Not what any of us want. To be fed a **** sandwich after having to stay up and be disappointed once again.
Hard to blame the manager when every established reliever on the roster consistently melts down. Jose Abreu is a non-competitive player and if I were looking for something to address it would be him. Playing him every day sends the message that winning games isn’t it purely the number one priority and that has to be affecting clubhouse culture. Start there and see what happens.
The more the team truly believes they are losing due to "luck"... the less likely they will fix the underlying issues.
When you pull your effective relievers unfathomably too early (Seth) or let them rot on the bench (Scott [in earlier games] and Dubin)... you can for sure as **** blame the manager.
You just named 3 guys with minimal track record; Dubin is essentially a rookie. If he’d left Martinez in and Martinez had given it up, he’d be getting roasted for throwing a low leverage guy across multiple high leverage innings. If he’d gone with Dubin over Montero he’d be getting roasted for that. Bottom line is that if Pressly, Hader, Abreu, and yes even Montero can’t consistently hold leads, this team is going nowhere. Espada is right to say he has to trust those guys.
It’s like one of those old SAT questions….Bad teams find a way to lose……The Astros find a way to lose…..The Astros are a bad team
I would have bet the farm that J Abreau was not going to get a hit in that situation, not pinch hitting him just shows that either you are dumb or your hands are tied, whichever scenario it is, is unacceptable. Bad managing on your relievers and bad managing on your pinch hitters........your just telling us you're not serious about winning. And the icing on the cake is the manager saying he stuck with Abreau because he had "confidence " in him and in the same breath saying you thought about pinch hitting for him makes no sense. A wasted outing from my man spaghetti and another L for the Stros.........the more this goes on like this the more I think its just not our year, Espada and Abreau should be gone and I think we will see a sale at the trade deadline, not necessarily a fire sale but someone is about to go, I could see Breggy being dealt
But the manager should put the players in the best positions to succeed. Some of his bullpen management has been laughable at best.
The results have been laughable. The decisions... on paper... have been defensible to a point. But when the same patterns of pitching keeps happening with the same guys out there (mainly talking about B. Abreu/Pressly/Montero), and nothing is getting better, then its on the manager to get into them or figure out what the problem is with them... or if they really need it at this stage, re-motivate them to do the jobs they're getting paid quite well to do. The simplistic view is to just play the other guys that aren't ******** the bed... but like was said earlier, Martinez is "just a guy", Taylor Scott was on the hapless A's last year, and Dubin is a rookie. They may all turn into super elite high leverage guys at one point, but as soon as they fail, people will turn on them and the decision makers that put them in those situations. Most fans are going to go with the "back-up QB is the best" type managing as a natural defense. Should he use Martinez more per appearance? Maybe. Chances are the game goes exactly how it goes yesterday regardless of that (plus he's trying to keep him available to use almost everyday as no pitcher besides Framber is going past 5-6). They weren't going to have Taylor Scott pitching to get the game to extras. They weren't going to run out Abreu after he's thrown 60 pitches the last two days (totally inefficient appearances). Should have used the same logic with Montero. But if the guys getting paid more than $10 million a year to throw relievers work aren't mentally checked in or doing everything they can to get better... or put all the blame on themselves... and the manager can't get through to them... then scrap all of it. The Astros aren't going to go far with Pressly/Montero incapable of doing their job, Brian Abreu being jekyl/hyde within innings (that limits his already excessive usage), and an expensive Ferrari at the back of the bullpen that has to pitch more in tie games than save situations because the team can't figure out how to get him save situations.
The most frustrating thing is that this team has wasted almost a full month of some of the best starting pitching in all of baseball. The lineup was to blame at first... now the bullpen (that was never blameless all year) is doing the same stuff they did in the very first Yankees series. The rotation being excellent... and having two more reinforcements back within a month.... this team should have been at least .500 and ready to make a charge.
Nobody in their right mind would've questioned throwing Martinez multiple innings. Abreu and Montero had already pitched the two previous days, Pressly is sucking. The game was tied. Martinez has played very well this season. Astros needed the bullpen to eat innings. Espadumb showed zero foresight. In the end, Montero still pitches his 3rd game in 3 days (when Hader could've pitched 2 innings) and he blew it. Espadumb made other bad decisions too -- playing Abreu... not PH'ing for Abreu... pitching Montero... not relieving Montero. This loss is mostly on Espada. Point blank, period. Another dumbass loss. Joe needs to be stripped of his in-game managerial powers..
