What I liked most about Friday night though was that he's not locked
into the 'by the book' standard use of his closer. Whether there was a
message to Kim last night or not doesn't really matter. So long as
Grady doesn't revert to the 'he's the closer, he has to finish the game'
mentality. so long as he thinks on his feet nd manages by situation and
not by rote I'll be happy.
With the end of the pen it may be less a matter of going with he hot
hand as not depending entirely on the shakey hannd.
DON!!!
GO ALLIED TROOPS!!!
And all Americans not afraid to speak their minds AND accept the
consequences!!!
Excuse me? Grady's tendency to what?
Grady's biggest single weakness as a manager, and negatively re-inforced by
Tony Cloninger, is his inability to get a pitcher out before damage is done
rather than waiting too long. He's been a master of closing the barn door
after not only the horses, but the cows, sheep and half of the chickens, have
gone...
You are both right, sort of.
Grady is usually a master at removing a pitcher who is doing really well
because of pitch counts, alignment of the stars, or some other equally useless
reason. This has backfired on him over and over again. So I am also a bit
encouraged to see Grady finally letting his starters pitch longer when they
are doing very well. On the other hand when a starter gets hammered early in
the game Grady is slow as molasses to even warm up a pitcher, let alone get
the ineffective pitcher out before 5, 6, or 7 runs are scored. Pedro just went
9, Wakefield just pitched into the 9th and Burkett into the 8th. Both
Wakefield and Burkett were undermined and removed from the game largely due to
an error by the secondbaseman. First Walker, then Jackson.
I disagree. GL likes to get his starters out who have had a successful day
but appear to him and his pitching coach to be tiring. That is a good
strategy for pitching, just as it is a good strategy for investing in the
stock market --- always sell a little too soon. The downside generally of
going too late is much greater (the game out of reach) than pulling too soon
(you lose an inning from a pitcher who may be slightly better than the BP
replacement). Anyway, that was definitely the pattern early.
I am not addressing the tendancy of GL to leave struggling starters in the
game in the 2d and 3rd inning. That is done in hopes of saving the BP, and I
have no strong views on whether it is good or bad in general --- I think it
depends on the situation. In any event, it is a very different thing to
determine whether a pitcher is tiring (a good pitching coach should be able
to spot the signs) and determining whether a decent starter will get control
of his stuff at the start of a game. The downside of taking a starter out in
the 2d inning is pretty big in many cases.
--
McDuck
--
McDuck