Joe Girardi has been making moves this entire playoff run that have made me scratch my head. To this point, every move he made turned to gold. He got bailed out by the A-Rod home run Saturday or he was staring at Freddy Guzman (Hairston would have pinch-hit so Hairston I guess) and Gardner as his last hopes vs Fuentes. Meanwhile Sciosca brilliantly had his regular lineup in with the only change being at catcher with the defensive stop Mathis in for Napoli and Matthews in for a slumping Juan Rivera (Matthews drew a big walk and scored a big run). On top of that his pitchers went 7/2/1/1/1.1....Girardi's pitchers? 6.1/.1/.1/.2/2.1/1.1/.1/1.1 KISS. On top of that Rivera has now pitched in every game, most of which over an inning (over two Saturday)...he is amazing and has yet to surrender a run. But if he comes in one of these games, isn't sharp and gets knocked around look no farther than the guy in the dugout flipping around a binder for meaningless small sample statistics like "oh man, Howie Kendrick is 1-2 off Robertson this year, I better go to the pen and use another arm" like he did last night. TURRRIBLE.
Great game in Philly last night though it effectively ended the series in all likelihood. The manager formerly known as clueless Joe had to watch as his flame-throwing closer surrendered an improbable game-winning double to Jimmy Rollins with two men on and two outs in the bottom of the ninth. I will say this much - if that gets Jimmy Rollins going, whichever AL team ends up winning better get a little scared. With so much attention on the AL games there isn't enough talk that A) Ryan Howard is putting together one of the all-time post-seasons and B) The Phillies are every bit as good as the Yankees when their bullpen is pitching well and their lineup is going. People forget that the Yankees are going to be hurt when they have to travel to a National League park. They lose the DH and they don't have a very deep team. This World Series is far from the forgone conclusion many believe it to be. A big thing for the Phillies will be to see how Cole Hamels throws tomorrow. He's been pitching pretty well but always seems to have a rough inning when he gives up a three-run homer or just sees things fall apart. If he re-gains form here, this team is murderous.
Joe Girardi has been making moves this entire playoff run that have made me scratch my head. To this point, every move he made turned to gold. He got bailed out by the A-Rod home run Saturday or he was staring at Freddy Guzman (Hairston would have pinch-hit so Hairston I guess) and Gardner as his last hopes vs Fuentes. Meanwhile Sciosca brilliantly had his regular lineup in with the only change being at catcher with the defensive stop Mathis in for Napoli and Matthews in for a slumping Juan Rivera (Matthews drew a big walk and scored a big run). On top of that his pitchers went 7/2/1/1/1.1....Girardi's pitchers? 6.1/.1/.1/.2/2.1/1.1/.1/1.1 KISS. On top of that Rivera has now pitched in every game, most of which over an inning (over two Saturday)...he is amazing and has yet to surrender a run. But if he comes in one of these games, isn't sharp and gets knocked around look no farther than the guy in the dugout flipping around a binder for meaningless small sample statistics like "oh man, Howie Kendrick is 1-2 off Robertson this year, I better go to the pen and use another arm" like he did last night. TURRRIBLE.
Great game in Philly last night though it effectively ended the series in all likelihood. The manager formerly known as clueless Joe had to watch as his flame-throwing closer surrendered an improbable game-winning double to Jimmy Rollins with two men on and two outs in the bottom of the ninth. I will say this much - if that gets Jimmy Rollins going, whichever AL team ends up winning better get a little scared. With so much attention on the AL games there isn't enough talk that A) Ryan Howard is putting together one of the all-time post-seasons and B) The Phillies are every bit as good as the Yankees when their bullpen is pitching well and their lineup is going. People forget that the Yankees are going to be hurt when they have to travel to a National League park. They lose the DH and they don't have a very deep team. This World Series is far from the forgone conclusion many believe it to be. A big thing for the Phillies will be to see how Cole Hamels throws tomorrow. He's been pitching pretty well but always seems to have a rough inning when he gives up a three-run homer or just sees things fall apart. If he re-gains form here, this team is murderous.
Rivera uses spitballs?
ReplyDelete?? I have not heard this story or am I missing something?
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ReplyDeleteVery interesting. I will say I heard John Smoltz say the baseball he was throwing was not rubbed up properly and there have been a couple other pitchers complaining about slippery balls (pause on that whole section). I think there is a difference between spitting on a ball, probably to create a little more traction and grip than to spit on the balls just before throwing it. He does look around quite suspiciously though...I don't know what to make of this all.
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