You know what I like about Dusty? His patience. Dusty doesn’t worry about one game’s lineup, he doesn’t worry about one player’s string of 5 games, or 10, or maybe even 20, good or bad. He wants to see his players, and to give them time to be seen, even if in any given game it may not make sense.
You know that string of games three years ago when we were convinced Dusty was mismanaging the bullpen? I’m convinced Dusty was using those games to figure out what his bullpen could do, and that he didn’t really worry too much if it lost one game, or two, or six. In the end, when it mattered, he managed that bullpen brilliantly.
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It’s certainly hard to argue with the results the team has had so far this season. And he absolutely managed the hell out of that pitching staff last October. I may always agree with what he does but I gotta say, he’s been a pretty good manager at the macro level if not the micro level.
I still like AJ Hinch better but Dusty has done a fine job. Agree that he really managed the pitching very well last postseason. Really hope we can win a championship for him. The man deserves it.
Either this is some performance art I don’t get, or you truly don’t understand that you’re not required to put every thought in your brain out onto the site.
Dusty and his pitching coaches have managed the bullpen well beginning last postseason, imo, and they have done so again this season. I no longer have any major problems with him, although many of us sometimes question specific in-game decisions as we would with any manager. His lineups and players’ days off, though, still are his “WTF?” decisions for me. I am not at all surprised to learn some, maybe all(?), are middle of the night brilliant ideas scribbled on a bedside note pad. I used the same system in law school too, and some, but not all, were good ideas. Of course, my nocturnal brilliance was not affecting anyone else.
ETA: Someone in the dugout deserves a kudo for the lineup maneuvering yesterday in the 9th which resulted in Dubon’s being the runner at second in the 10th, not Maldy.
Dusty leaves me scratching my head more than I would like, but I think we tend to overlook perhaps his most important trait: he is very even-keeled, and rarely, if ever, launches into a diatribe or gets on anybody in public. That has to go a very long way for player peace of mind, especially over a long, six-month season. Much better than having a ferret on fire in the dugout, like Terry Collins.
Nice piece on Dusty by Rosenthal. Maybe behind paywall. Among the nuggets - he was thinking of JR Richards (and his slider) late in the game. JR is who I’ve associated with the what-could’ve-beens for 1980.