It’s just really uninspired baseball right now. You’d like to think that against perhaps the worst team in the sport, you might turn things around. Instead, got our ass whipped.
Starting pitching was something we could have won with. The bullpen, bats and CF defense are a disaster.
Only the astros can make the dregs of both leagues look like contenders.
Pulling Garcia was questionable, using Smith anywhere near a close game was highly questionable, but pinch hitting Toro instead of Alvarez with two outs in a one run game was just malpractice.
At least the Tigers are trying. The Rockies aren’t even pretending to try.
Lol, postgame invoked Maxwell Smart. My evening is complete and fulfilled
I said this several times during the pandemic season, but Dusty Baker is a shitty manager. This is going to be a long season.
Nice pile on rant, but Straw is not a “converted infielder.” He is an OFer who Luhnow wanted to learn to play SS. He has been bad on defense, but playing out of position is not a reason.
ETA: what I came to realize, perhaps for the first time, watching the Express during the first season is how narrow the funnel becomes as players move from HS stars on their hopeful way to MLB. Casual fans think the transition from AAA to MLB is routine and expected, but the reality is the transition is a huge jump. Straw may be one of many who is unable to make the jump, but even as bad as he has been, it is too early to tell. Cedeno also was pretty awful at the plate early on, but at least he could play defense.
I don’t think Dusty is a bad manager most games but when he has a bad game it is easy to see why, as a manager, he has been fired 4 times.
I really miss Hinch. I miss his personality, his optimism, his candor with the press. He seemed like a guy in control. Baker seems like a guy hoping his team will take him to that championship that has evaded him.
I think Dusty is at his very best a good player manager, but he’s a terrible game manager.
I don’t think Dusty is going to wring every last drop of talent from a mediocre group of players, but he’ll take a very talented group and not get in their way.
100 percent this.
He seems like a genuinely nice guy, and the players do seem to love him. But I think he makes bad in game decisions and generally just seems like he’s hoping for the best instead of knowing what decision puts him in the best position to win a lot of the time.
Just being not-an-asshole seems like it should be a job requirement (hi Terry Collins!) but if people are your specialty then you better have a damn good bench coach.
Not coincidentally, Hinch had Cora in 2017.
In short, he’s a slightly more successful version of Phil Garner. The players loved Garner personally, and respected what he did as a player, but he was consistently out managed. Dusty is desperately pushing buttons hoping they are the right ones.
For the second time in a week (McCullers), Dusty played a man last night who was not game-ready and it cost us a win. Again.
If only we had someChazone who could have played CF last night.
A little known side effect of the Covid vaccine is an inability to judge fly balls.
This description of Hinch was my impression too, but I think it is a false one. Someone in control would not have allowed his team to break a known rule.
Dusty Baker signaled a marketing change from the regime whose lead staff was summarily fired shortly before his hiring. He had longevity and a sterling reputation, and put a different face on a franchise which had become the target of envy and rage. Baker’s managerial competence is a secondary concern. For all of his ability, AJ Hinch either gave up or accepted Cora and Beltran’s system to persist and make Baker’s stopgap hire a reality
The power structure swung far away from the manager long ago.
First to the players, and now between the players and the GM/FO.
The my way or the highway manager does not exist in today’s game.
As of last night’s game, Myles Straw is now in the 5th Percentile (!!!) in Outs Above Average defensively. He isn’t “bad,” he’s a fucking traffic cone with a glove sort of stapled to the side of it.
Ahhh, I miss Jack Cust.