It’s my own. I only mean it’s the situation little kids dream about when they pretend to play baseball.
The final score is a 1-run win.
Actually, Alan Trammel did it too. Game details
Very cool for Alan. Ignorance fought. Was it a 3-2 pitch?
Yup. Scroll to the bottom of mhendo’s link.
Nice! Didn’t open “play-by-play” tab 1st time I looked.
I’ve been reading various criticisms of Mike Matheny’s managing of the Cardinals (and in particular their bullpen) during the NLCS—ranging from the mild (he was outmanaged by Bruce Bochy; in-game strategy isn’t one of his strengths) to the severe (he cost his team the series; he isn’t smart enough to be a manager; he’s gotta go). I’m not sure where I fall personally, but I can’t help but wonder how Tony La Russa would have managed this year’s postseason for the Cardinals.
Honestly, this isn’t Mike Matheny’s fault. I know everyone loves to blame the manager but Matheny has the team he has. Frankly I think it’s impressive the Cardinals got the the playoffs at all, much less won a round. Criticizing Matheny for failing to get a team this mediocre past he NLCS is nuts.
Look, honestly, at the Cardinals roster. It’s a hell of a manager that got 90 wins out of that squad.
Obviously you don’t live in St. Louis. There’s a cadre of LaRussa haters who angrily criticized his every managerial decision (he doesn’t use the bullpen right, he’s too cute with double switches, he plays his favorites, even when someone better is on the bench, he bats the pitcher eighth) even during the seasons when LaRussa was managing World Series winners.
Who have been replaced with a cadre of Matheny haters who make more or less the exact same complaints.
To be fair, a whole bunch of people in and around San Francisco were asking “Why the hell is Travis Ishikawa still in this game?!? Boche is an idiot for not putting Perez in there as a defensive replacement!” in the top of the 9th Thursday night. The fact that ‘it worked’ is what makes Bochy a ‘genius’.
I think the biggest legitimate gripe about Matheny has to do with his inflexibility regarding ‘the rules’ of managing his club, especially his pitching staff. When asked why he didn’t use his closer, Trevor Rosenthal, in the 9th, he said “We can’t bring him in, in a tie-game situation. We’re on the road.”
It’s that sort of inflexibility and inability to recognize that ‘playoff managing’ is vastly different than ‘regular season managing’ that is generating most of the criticism.
Stats folks have been criticizing managers for years over their unwillingness to bring in their best relief pitchers in high-leverage situations, even if it doesn’t happen to be a “Save” situation.
I’d be interested to know if anyone has been keeping track of the extent to which managers still do this, or whether their practices have changed over time. It seems to me, just from casual observation in the games that i watch, that the Closer role is still something that is treated as sacrosanct, and that there is still a reluctance to bring in the closer “early,” even when he’s the best relief pitcher available and the team desperately needs an out.
I don’t disagree with you here…actually, I think the biggest problem is not what Matheny actually did, but what he said. When asked about that 9th inning, I think most managers would have said something like “I felt he gave us our best change to win” or “Wacha has always come through for us, so I felt comfortable handing him the ball”, or some such statement…which don’t really ‘mean anything’, but they’re the sorts of things you say in that kind of situation. But instead, he basically said "I couldn’t bring our closer in, because the ‘rules’ said it wasn’t time yet, and then he wound up saving his ‘best pitcher’ (in theory, though there’s some doubt as to how effective he might actually be at this point) so that he could pitch in an inning that never got played.
So it’s not just that he made a ‘bad decision’, it’s that following the game he didn’t just own up to it. Instead he appealed to some unwritten rule that had to be followed, and I think a lot of people see that as making excuses.
And yet Bochy didn’t follow “the rules” in bringing Casilla in at the top of the 9th and the game still tied. To me, he was saying, “We’re going to shut you down in the top half of the 9th, then we’re going to win this thing in the bottom half so we’ll all go home.”
Casilla needed some help and the Cards did load the bases, but basically that’s what happened.
Bochy was a Chess Grand Master in the NLCS.
How is Buster Posey’s percentage at throwing out runners trying to steal?
Posey’s lifetime fielding numbers. 59 SBs this season to 25 thrown out, for 30% caught stealing percent - 2% better than league average.
No, bringing in your closer in the top of the 9th in a tie game is “by the book,” since a save situation will never arise in such a game.
It’s the bottom of the 9th that’s the questionable half-inning.
Ah yes, thanks. I was thinking of the other way around, being tied and bringing in the closer in the bottom half of the inning.
Is there any statistical analysis that shows if that’s a significant difference or not?
I’m not sure. I think the numbers may not mean much. Posey (and Perez for the Royals) are both excellent catchers, with proven arms. There’s a lot of selection bias in stolen base numbers, since runners typically only go against them when they really think they have a good chance. Also, the pitcher’s timing has a TON to do with the success rate, and isn’t reflected in those numbers.