Yeah I appreciate that this is a very difficult bullpen to manage right now. I just don’t like leaving lefty who has been all over the place, in his second inning of work, with men on, in a tie game in the 8th, and a string of righties coming up. Bringing in Scrubb or Garcia might not have worked, hell could easily have been worse but I think it would have been the right move
In reality I probably would have rolled the dice on Javier getting me through the 7th, 8th, and 9th despite the risk of not having somebody for a possible game 5
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This is totally crazy talk.
I wish I could find the quote, but after a series-ending loss Jim Leyland pontificated about decision making.
To paraphrase:
If a choice is clear cut, there is no choice. Otherwise there are pros and cons. Don’t act as if your choice would have been better than mine, or that the choice not made was clearly superior.
Alternatively, Machete shouldn’t have called for the gopher ball.
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Like I’ve told pitchers…“yeah, I called for that pitch, but I didn’t tell you to hit the bat with it”
Absolutely correct, Leyland. The experts sitting at home never make mistakes.
Was it crazy talk when AJ did that same thing repeatedly in 17? Or when Cora did the same thing in 18? Or Martinez last year? You have to take some risks sometimes to win it all and I would have taken that risk with Javier yesterday. We can disagree on that and that’s fine. But I would have went for the jugular brought in my best available pitcher to close out the game and that was Javier yesterday. In my opinion anyway. If I had asked you yesterday after the 6th if you would rather have Javier pitch 3 innings or have James/Raley/Scrubb pitch those 3 innings, you would have picked the trio?
Baker didn’t have many good options, yesterday. Paredes was not available, and Taylor was already used. Pressly had already pitched in both games 1 and 2 and was only likely available in a save situation.
Then, there was still uncertainty about Greinke’s availability for game 4 or 5. If he goes with Javier in the seventh and he fails to hold the lead, the Astros were potentially staring at a bullpen day for game 4. I understand Baker’s thinking. The only thing I would have considered was bringing Raley in as soon as Semien reached since the A’s had two lefties coming up in the next three hitters (La Stella and Olson), but after James found his groove in the sixth inning following a leadoff walk, it’s understandable that he was given another batter, and you aren’t bringing Raley in to face a right-handed hitter in Pinder.
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I would have picked Javier with that choice but not for three innings. That was Game 3 of five consecutive games with a bruised and battered pitching staff. James should have been able to go 2 or 3 innings, and when he could not, he destroyed Baker’s options. You simply cannot burn Javier in Game 3 without winning.