I don’t know. Some guys have the problem of not being able to put guys away, but I don’t think that’s James’s problem. He just cant seem to put guys on the defensive. Seems he’s always in hitters counts.
There are hitters who seem like they come to the plate down 0-2. James seems like he starts every hitter 2-0. Hopefully Strom can work it out. Hate to waste that arm.
Good thing we didn’t need 3 innings from the pen.
I suspect that in a tight game McCullers would have gone back out for the 8th, and it certainly wouldn’t have been James in. A six run lead was deemed safe enough to try to get James some work in. It wasn’t.
I saw a comment where Maldanado says Lance shakes him off a lot and he asked Lance to trust his pitch selection so he can focus on executing his pitches and not worry about what to throw.
Oddly enough, the lone hit came off just one of three times that McCullers shook off catcher Martín Maldonado, who after McCullers’ last outing went awry asked the righthander to trust him next time around.
“Maldy came to me after the last start and said ‘I’m going to put in the work, I’m going to put in the preparation, You do your thing and trust me when I go out there,’” McCullers said.
“This game relied a lot on him and his ability to call pitches and the way the defense played behind me.”
Stop thinking and pitch, meat.