Ok, lets see. Why never gave VV the consistent time to develop him into a late inning reliever? instead, used as long reliever and seldomly used. Why not used Fiers, a good pitcher so far in the playoffs? Toronto used Price yesterday. If you pitchers in the bullpen are struggling, why not use Fiers? Why not use Olvier Perez for Hosmer in the 8th, or for Hosmer, Dyson and Mastoukas in the 9th? Like i said before, we need Neshek to be good against righties, if we don't have that we are not going far in this playoffs. What about using him against Rios and Escobar in the 8th? Then you bring Sipp against Zobrist. Why not use Fiers in the 8th? Against those 2 righties and he pitches good vs lefties also, so you could leave him to face Zobrist. If everything goes right, you can even use him with a 4 run lead in the 9th. Hinch is a problem, bullpen ALSO. Hitters, we are only complaining about 1, Gattis. i don't care if Castro does not hit, his defense is valuable. If you HAVE TO PLAY GATTIS FOR SOME REASON, at least take him out of the 5th spot.
It's obvious that I'm not one of Hinch's biggest fans, but personnel is still really lacking on the roster. The bullpen is just not good enough to compete for a championship. If this team continues to have a deep playoff run, it will be a very improbable playoff run. The moves made in the off season by Luhnow were to be competitive, not contend. He tried to make moves to contend at the trade deadline but when he didn't get a legit closer at the deadline I just felt it would be tough. Would have been good to groom one of the young heat throwers in the system throughout the year when it became apparent that the team was contending this year but it just didn't happen that way. Hoping for the best however long this playoff ride last but it was drilled home yesterday you just can't expect much with this current pen. No lead is safe with them. That can be very hard to overcome.
I think we all see the pattern. We get the lead in the early innings and the Royals are playing the STATISTICS GAME...can they win enough games in the late innings defeating the Astros bullpen or not. Just that plain and simple. Probably why Hinch said he's not surprised there will be a Game 5. HOWEVER, Tweak the bullpen throwing in a starter or Friers OR go straight to Sipp would be a nice change in Game 5. If I see Hinch pull the same move in Game 5 I might throw the TV out the window. How many games does it take to figure out the solution?
They had a four-run lead with 6 outs to go that would have clinched another round of playoffs. Why would you bring in Sipp, you best bullpen arm right now who has pitched in five consecutive games, to start what was a (relatively) low-stakes situation? That's revisionist bull****. You don't concede the inning by any means - but you have to be practical. And if you can give Sipp a day off (Gregerson, too) because you expect your bullpen to be able to protect a four-run lead, you do it. And as much as I recognize fans need to piss and moan, vent and scream - and it's just easier to zero in on the pitcher... let's be very clear: it was Carlos Correa's fault. Granted, they don't build the giant lead without him, but if he turns the routine DP, it's likely nothing more than a shaky inning they survive. The Royals have essentially won their two games on the back of two of the weakest singles in baseball history (game 2) and an inexplicable error by the Astros' best player (game 4).
Agreed... even though the game would still have been 6-5 with only 2 outs in the inning. Sipp giving up that hard hit to Hosmer (who up till that point was worse than Gattis) was pretty crushing. And as much as people rag on Gregerson, he gets the final 2 outs without allowing a hit (run scored on fielders choice). But not much else that Hinch could have done... Harris was not giving up terribly hard hits either.
How do you explain the Astros winning games 1 and 3? How do you explain the Astros winning the wild card game? How do you explain the vast majority of the Astros 86 wins this year? Everything you said above is pretty baseless... as both in the short-term and long-term, what has gotten them to this point is still getting them to this point.
Assuming 6-5-3 double play, yeah - 6-5, 2 outs, runner on third with Sipp facing lefty Moustakas. I don't *enjoy* shaky... but all that ultimately matters is getting it done. If you get out of *that* inning with the lead... you consider it a blessing.
why even take him out after giving up 4 "not terribly hard hits then"? did you disagree with that move?
No. The Astros went through this in game 2. The bullpen gave up three runs in three innings in game 2. A four run lead going into the 8th is nice, but not a guarantee. There needs to be a sense of urgency and you close out a team when you can. Hinch shouldn't have "assumed" that the Astros usual suspects would hold the lead, not after the last month of the season and game 2. You do everything you can to close them out in game 4 at home. Closing them out at home also lets you reset your rotation for the next round. Don't give me this BS about giving Sipp or Gregerson a day off, because they ended up pitching in the 8th anyway. They were available and should have been used if the manager felt they were better option. The "practical" thing to do is use your best players and arms to wrap up the series and rest for the next series to begin.
The 1st hit was hard... and the 4th hit was hard. Most pitchers giving up multiple consecutive hard hits or XBH's get taken out well before.... the "problem" with Harris' outing was that other than the Rios hit, the Escobar and Zobrist hits were not hard. The question is, if you wanted to take him out earlier... when would it have been? After the Escobar seeing-eye single? Or before Cain? And at that point, Gregerson would have been the better/only matchup against Cain, with Sipp possibly having to come in to close or face Hosmer/Moustakis if Gregerson was getting hit as well. The Astros bullpen is interchangeable... and still entirely matchup based. You want to blame Hinch for that sort of talent, fine... I just don't see a vast difference in any of these pitchers nor in the order of how you use them, unless you're specifically only doing things robotically (which we all know, he's not... if he was, he wouldn't have tried to pitch Harris over multiple innings).
No, they didn't. They had a 2-run lead, on the road, with 12 outs to go - that's not anything close to having a four-run lead, at home, with six outs to go. No, nothing is ever guaranteed - but the Astros' win probability when the 8th inning started was 98.4%. If you have a team running full-throttle for two solid weeks, you take every opportunity to find spaces to give them a rest. I'd much rather a shaky win without Sipp, who can then rest for four days, then a kitchen sink approach to a game that is not must-win. I thought Hinch managed the inning, post-Harris, with plenty of urgency. He put in Sipp and then his closer, neither of which, I'm guessing, was the plan when the inning started. They pitched because Harris imploded. I'm sure Hinch's best-case scenario was wrapping it up without having to call on Sipp, at the very least (Gregerson almost certainly pitches the ninth, even with a four-run lead).
You're contradicting yourself in these two paragraphs. Hinch has, for the most part. done things "robotically". Being willing to use Harris over multiple innings was an outlier. Hence, why your proposal of bringing in Gregerson to face Cain, with Sipp potentially coming in after him, is such a foreign concept. Because Hinch has never entertained such a thing. "Working backwards" is a muscle that he's never shown that he possesses. I'm not one who is irrational enough to say "FIRE HINCH" after every move that he makes backfires, but the Hinch truthers and apologists on the opposite side of the spectrum are no less irrational. Managers CAN make mistakes and cost games. This was the 8th inning of a closeout game of the ALDS. He elected to leave a reliever accustomed to working one inning in long enough to give up 4 hits to start his 2nd inning of work, and blow a 4-run lead. An awful, unheard of decision, in my opinion. This game was on Hinch.
The pen gave up three runs in the last three innings of game two, this coming off a solid six weeks where the bullpen had absolutely collapsed. You use your best pitchers and close the door so that the entire team gets rest and you get to move on and wait for the Rangers/Blue Jays series to end. The Astros ended up using a kitchen sink approach anyway, but with a loss. You mean after Harris gave up four straight hits? If they pitched, they were available and should have opened the 8th IF Hinch felt that they were a better option than Harris, and I am not sure that is the case. I think he believed in Harris and that was misplaced. Fiers should have pitched at some point in this series, he is a positive value that hasn't been used and it isn't because the pen is stout. At this point the hope is that the Astros win game 5 and magically the pen pitches well enough against Texas or Toronto.... and next year we dummy proof the pen so that it is less of an issue.
Also, my understanding from family members that still work for the Astros is that Hinch is very well liked by his players, relates well to young players and keeps everyone on the same page. He has handled Rasmus well when other managers have not and Hinch never throws his players under the bus. There are some things about him that are very good, however handling the bullpen and being creative have NOT been his strengths this season and it has made a big difference in this series.
Harris threw six pitches in the 7th; I think you could reasonably argue that, after the unexpectedly long B7, a new pitcher might have made sense - but let's not pretend he burned out in the 7th. But I think Nick's question is a good one - when would you have removed Harris, assuming you bring him in to start the 8th? A solid single, followed by two weak singles. The lead is still 4 and an inning-crushing double-play is still on the table... Once he gives up the stinger to Cain, Hinch yanks him - the lead is *still* three at that point... And I can't put the game all on Hinch when your reliver coaxed exactly what you wanted and your all-world SS botched an easy double play, allowing the tying run to score.
I hate this hindsight analysis stuff but I will just say this. The two games we lost were lost when the bullpen was in. Sure the one error that would have been a routine double play hurt last night, but lets look in the mirror here. No amount of "management" would have fixed our bullpen. It just isn't reliable in these high pressure situations. You can see it in their eyes, they cave under pressure and their lack of ability against the superior Royals batting management showed it.
It isn't ALL on Hinch. He didn't make his pen collapse. He isn't the reason Neshak has gone from dependable set up man to complete garbage. He didn't make Qualls age and lose movement on his sinker. Hell, some of it is even on Luhnow, he had opportunities to add to the pen and failed to do so. What is Hinch's fault is his handling of a struggling pen and his inability to be creative. If Harris and Neshak were pitching well, we wouldn't be discussing this because Hinch's robotic approach would work.
Did you agree with Hinch bringing in Harris in the 7th to relieve McCullers? At the time, it was a 1 run game... a far more pressure-packed situation... and a lefty in Gordon coming up (which Harris struck out). If you didn't have a problem with having Harris in for that inning... I don't see how its possible to have a problem with having him on the mound with an even bigger lead.
