First of all, we've been playing great for more than just the past several weeks. We've been good for going on two months.
My deal with the pitching is that historically, you're looking at getting ~5 innings out of a starter in the tournament. Sometimes you'll get a great performance like Willadsen had, but for the most part, against the better teams in the league, you aren't getting complete games from guys, at least not the type of guys we have right now. So that means that in order to win the tournament, you probably need 11-12 innings of good relief pitching over the next three games. Consiglio, Dudan, and Smith probably can't eat all those innings. So now without Marhon, who are the guys you are comfortable with getting you three or more outs? Are we going to freak out when Miralia or Scott come in to one of these games?
I have confidence our guys can get it done, but I'd be more confident if we had pitched a bullpen game last night, even if Ryan started, and we had him available (and yes, maybe he can give you something on Sunday, but our coaches aren't like UNCs who will keep running guys out there, we normally are pretty cautious). We could've done that and still won an 18-12 type game. I can see and accept the rationale for starting him, but I don't understand burning him in a ten run game. Also, I don't really see how what happened in 2019 matters. I can point to other times when we punted games and it worked, every year is different, every team and staff are different.
I will say, historically, our staff has been really good at pushing the right buttons, and so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on yesterday's decisions, I just don't think it's fair to be so dismissive of those who would've done it differently. The format of the tournament, and of post season in general, make all of these decisions so difficult. Just go win.
My deal with the pitching is that historically, you're looking at getting ~5 innings out of a starter in the tournament. Sometimes you'll get a great performance like Willadsen had, but for the most part, against the better teams in the league, you aren't getting complete games from guys, at least not the type of guys we have right now. So that means that in order to win the tournament, you probably need 11-12 innings of good relief pitching over the next three games. Consiglio, Dudan, and Smith probably can't eat all those innings. So now without Marhon, who are the guys you are comfortable with getting you three or more outs? Are we going to freak out when Miralia or Scott come in to one of these games?
I have confidence our guys can get it done, but I'd be more confident if we had pitched a bullpen game last night, even if Ryan started, and we had him available (and yes, maybe he can give you something on Sunday, but our coaches aren't like UNCs who will keep running guys out there, we normally are pretty cautious). We could've done that and still won an 18-12 type game. I can see and accept the rationale for starting him, but I don't understand burning him in a ten run game. Also, I don't really see how what happened in 2019 matters. I can point to other times when we punted games and it worked, every year is different, every team and staff are different.
I will say, historically, our staff has been really good at pushing the right buttons, and so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on yesterday's decisions, I just don't think it's fair to be so dismissive of those who would've done it differently. The format of the tournament, and of post season in general, make all of these decisions so difficult. Just go win.
Just a guy on the sunshine squad.
