Ennder

Whatever you think about the DH the simple truth is hitting is about repetition and pitchers just do not get enough repetitions to ever be effective hitters. Sports are moving towards protecting their players and one of the easier ways to cut down on injuries is to protect them by not putting them in a situation they can't possibly be ready for. This is even worse for AL hitters and even worse with the new system that spreads out their interleague games. At this point the pitcher hitting is just bad for MLB. Back in the old days a pitcher would get 100-150 PA a year so they could stay in some sort of reasonable hitting shape. An AL pitcher gets maybe 5 to 10 PA a year, it is outrageous to expect them to hit major league pitching and it certainly is not safe. An NL pitcher usually gets fewer than 50 PA which again isn't nearly enough. The game has changed and the rules need to change with it. I actually prefer to watch AL games because I find watching a pitcher flail away weakly or give themselves up with 1 out and a runner on 2nd etc to just be a boring part of the game. I tracked it once and it is under 10% of games that have an actual interesting managerial choice based on taking the SP out of the game. This talk of all the extra strategy is much more of a playoff or big game thing where managers are willing to yank a pitcher in the 4th etc. The biggest problem with the discussion is usually people responding to what they like and not what is actually best for baseball. What I enjoy really has nothing to do with my opinion on the subject, the league should do what is actually best for the game and that is pretty clear at this point. The same way the NFL is making the game 'worse' to many fans by limiting the big hits to protect their players. The pitching hitting is just obsolete at this point.

I look at it the same way I would if it had been Weeks. The guy gets hit constantly and doesn't react to it, if he does react to one there is probably something we don't know about that caused it. I highly doubt we have the full story of this history.

Segura looks like he might be a really good SS. Aoki is confirming that he is a very good player(I had my doubts to be honest). Peralta looks like a legit #3 starter or better and Estrada looks like he wasn't a fluke.

We could also be realistically be 5-3 right now with a few less infield hits and Axford pitching like he did in the 2nd half instead of the 1st half. That is the problem with judging a team after 8 games, you have a useless sample size.

Just 2 weeks ago people thought the bullpen would be fine, last year they thought it was a strength. The bullpen stinks and it was a bad bullpen going into last year. None of this is a surprise, we haven't been able to develop any pitching for years now and it has really taken the toll on the bullpen which is where you generally do build from within. Stop trying to blame it on nonsense like starting a MI at 1B after 5 guys got hurt.

You do realize nothing he says in these interviews has anything to do with anything right? He can't say Axford is awful and should be taken out back and shot even if he believes it. Judge him by what he did on the field (which was a bad choice mind you). The interviews after the game are worthless.

monty's posts have reached the point of just being absurd, I'm done responding to them.

He didn't throw a single strike to Castro who swung at 7 balls in a row? Rizzo is not that type of hitter. There is no excuse for putting Axford in there and definitely no excuse for leaving him in for another inning when the game was on the line. This is one loss that is largely on the manager even if the final result wasn't set in stone if they made better moves.

I disagree. His location was definitely slipping and he hadn't looked good at all vs lefties. Right decision, poor result followed by poor decision with good results with Axford.

Really, Axford?

Weeks shows pretty normal splits in his career in low, medium and high leverage situations. Hard to say he is awful in the clutch, probably some selection bias at work. He does strike out too much and he does pop up too much so he is probably pretty awful at productive outs which is exactly what we did need last night. I don't know that I would want him batting 4th but then again the top guys I'd want batting 4th are all hurt.

Players win jobs in spring training on all teams, to suggest that making marginal roster choices based on spring training is some sort of flawed thing seems pretty insane.

My guess is that when Green comes off the DL we drop Lalli and he plays 1B. I'm not a huge fan of Green but that at least would make this all make some sort of sense to me.

Weeks put up positive stats against fastballs last year. He was absolutely destroyed by cutters and sliders though. This year he is sitting right around his career norms in hitting so hard to say he has been awful, he just had a couple bad games after a few good games.

At this point I find it completely baffling that we aren't bringing Morris up. I was on board with it when Hart might be back by May 1st but if you know it is going to be 2 months you bring up a real 1B.

They're taxed. Yes. We are carrying more pitchers than we should be, and they're still overworked. Maybe, just maybe our manager is clueless as to how to manage a pitching staff? No, he just has a rotation that hasn't been able to go deep into games and the 13th pitcher is injured so can't pitch. This is normal for April which is why the article was so dumb. Teams carry 12 pitchers in April for a reason, we have a 13th because of an injury and not wanting to lose a player and the late signing of Lohse putting extra stress on the roster.

Well signing a FA 1B made no sense at all, you were going to get someone terrible and have to lose a player from the 40 man to do it. Bringing up Morris made some sense but they didn't want to for whatever reason. The whole thing is completely overblown though.

That was actually his 8th IBB. They tried hard to walk Gonzalez and finally managed it on what might have been a strike. They didn't want to take any chances with Yuni!

I don't think Narveson is fully healthy and they really didn't want to lose him. That is what messed up the bullpen the most. They can't send Fiers down and not have a long RP when you have Narveson not 100% and Lohse not stretched out. The one guy they could have sent down is Figaro I believe but they decided to risk having the 13th guy and it ended up hurting them because of the injuries. It does confuse me that through all of this we haven't brought up Morris. He is probably too old to worry too much about his clocks and with the newest injuries we could really use the depth.

I'm still confused by not bringing up Morris. I mean I kind of understood it before the last couple of injuries but now it just seems weird.

Don't forget poor fielding and just downright bad luck. If I'm going to list the reasons for the 1-5 start the 13th pitcher is like 20th on the list and there is a reason they went with 13 and it was going to be a short term thing. It was a slight risk if we happened to have some injuries and go to extra innings in a game and that is exactly what happened. This is like the announcers ripping on the Indians the other day when their starting C got hurt and they had to give up the DH to put Santana at C. The team knows they are assuming some risk but the risk is small so they accepted it. You don't carry a 3rd C just because of the slight risk.

What a bunch of crud. The 13th pitcher is not responsible for our bad start and there is nothing wrong with carrying 12 pitchers in April when starts are short and players aren't stretched out as much.

The intercostal issue he generally has every year is probably something he will deal with his entire career.

Limiting your worst starters from facing hitters a 3rd time unless they are pitching great is a smart idea. A true long man is a good idea too, the kind where you use a RP for 3 innings at a time just to rest the rest of the bullpen. I don't think you can plan it out quite as much as you suggest though.

Yuni wasn't related to 1B when we signed him. I think maybe that is the disconnect here. Yuni was a depth move after the 4th injury kind of pushed the issue. They did not choose Yuni over Hunter Morris because they thought he was a better player.