Torre Getting Ripped

Apparently, the LA media is predictably all over Joe Torre for his decision to leave in 21-year old Clayton Kershaw for "too long" in last night's NLCS opener in what would become a loss to the defending champion Phillies.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-plaschke16-2009oct16,0,1346275.column

There is Bill Plaschke's (of Around the Horn fame) article.

There was wildness, whiffling, waffling, a proud kid being whittled into an absolute wreck.

Clayton Kershaw walked the pitcher on four pitches. He walked the third baseman on four pitches. He put one on a tee for the catcher to crush into dark blue oblivion.

Did I say he walked the pitcher on four pitches?

With a 21-year-old sophomore bumping and staggering through a roomful of boos, the fifth inning Thursday contained every element of a textbook youthful playoff meltdown except for one.

An adult to stop it.

My problem with Plaschke here is that a) his writing is divisive - the first thing he says is that he walked the pitcher. Well, first off that was after the three-run homer. b) While I understand that he felt he should have taken him out before Rollins - HE GOT ROLLINS OUT. AND THEN STRUCK OUT VICTORINO. He was sstill flashing bits of wildness, but no manager actually wants to pull his pitcher in the 5th inning. On top of that, from what I understand, Jeff Weaver was suffering flu-like symptoms and wasn't available. I can't believe I'm admitting it, but Jeff Weaver is the only type of pitcher you want to go to in the 5th inning of game 1, no matter how good your bullpen is. Yeah, you want to have a quick hook with your starters in the playoffs, but you also don't want to use up your entire bullpen. With the way Cole Hamels was pitching there was no way to predict if the Dodgers would even score again. Could you imagine if he pulled Kershaw after apparently settling, getting Rollins out and then striking out Victorino - and then the Phillies won anyway? The same writers (cough * Plaschke * cough) would be killing Torre for "using up the bullpen." The fact that he looked un-hittable for the first 4 innings, and possibly settled back in before facing the heart of the order is just the icing on the cake..nothing Joe could do here but sit back and hope.

Look, I'm not opposed to questioning a managerial decision. And believe me, I used to kill Torre on some of his moves when he was with the Yanks. But this is your classic second-guess. Were there signs Kershaw was in trouble? Certainly. Did they have a better option to face Utley and Howard, with the added bonus of not having to use up their bullpen in game 1 (a game they were already trailing)? No, probably not.

It was an exciting game 1. The Dodgers got 3 of the 5 runs back in the bottom half of the inning and still had every chance to get to a questionable Phillies bullpen. Bottom line is this - the Phils wheeled out Chad Durbin to help work out of a jam (he kisses men, on the lips!! come on! that was him right? I thought so, but didn't re-check). They used JA "never thrown a strike in my life" Happ.
They brought out Chan Ho Park who worked a perfect scoreless 7th right through the heart of the Dodgers lineup. But I suppose we should also kill Joe Torre for that?

And I do find it funny how much Plaschke pushes the whole kid thing. After four innings he probably had written his lede sentence as "Clayton Kershaw is still a kid by major league standards, but last night he was a man among men." Oh wait, that's probably not poetic enough for baseball writing's own poet laureate, Billy P.