Blue Jays (Lauer) vs Dodgers (Glasnow): 8/10/25, 4:10pm

[Jonn]

That series was utter dog s***. But considering how they somehow salvaged one and the Red Sox didn’t actually gain any ground. You almost gotta take it as a W.

I don’t even understand how you allow a reliever to walk 5 batters. 

[Brownie19]

4 minutes ago, Jonn said:

I don’t even understand how you allow a reliever to walk 5 batters. 

I thought that was explained yesterday by someone on here quite well.  The 3 batter rule plays a huge role in it.  You either had Nance facing Ohtani, or you hoped Hoffman found his release point (which RPers often do).

I mean - pick your poison.  Easy to criticize in hindsight.

[Stangstag]

19 minutes ago, Brownie19 said:

I thought that was explained yesterday by someone on here quite well.  The 3 batter rule plays a huge role in it.  You either had Nance facing Ohtani, or you hoped Hoffman found his release point (which RPers often do).

I mean - pick your poison.  Easy to criticize in hindsight.

You said this already but it doesn't make sense.

Hoffman starts the inning, walks Pages. Should have absolutely been pulled there.

The next 3 batters were Muncy-Freeland-Call. Could have put in Fluharty or Nance there, even if you use Nance you could switch to Flu for Ohtani.

3 batter rule had nothing to do with it. Schneider straight up goofed and we are lucky Fluharty locked tf in and won us the game.

[Brownie19]

1 hour ago, Stangstag said:

You said this already but it doesn't make sense.

Hoffman starts the inning, walks Pages. Should have absolutely been pulled there.

The next 3 batters were Muncy-Freeland-Call. Could have put in Fluharty or Nance there, even if you use Nance you could switch to Flu for Ohtani.

3 batter rule had nothing to do with it. Schneider straight up goofed and we are lucky Fluharty locked tf in and won us the game.

I don't think I already said this previously?  

But yes, if you make that move after the first walk in the 9th, then I agree.  Was it painfully obvious he ought to have been pulled there (I didn't watch the 8th or the start of the 9th)?  Obviously some feel that it was, but he's supposed to be your horse, so I'm not sure everyone is pulling him after a leadoff walk (even if you do have the 2 walks he allowed in the 8th in the back of your mind).  After he walks the 2nd batter - that's when the 3 batter rule becomes a major factor.  Do you pray Hoffman finds it, or put in Nance, knowing that means he has to face Ohtani (if he doesn't get a DP).

There's also a phycological aspect to this that plays some role.  I believe most managers will give their "closer" more rope to instill that confidence in them.

Anyway - I'm glad it worked out.  I also just realized that Nance actually has reverse splits for his career, so maybe you do pull Hoffman after the 2nd walk and ride or die with Nance, even if he has to face Ohtani.  Nance has been great this year, but he's a career journeyman.  Journeyman or one of the best arms in your pen who on adjustment away (to find his release point) from being nasty again - that's the dilemma I guess.  Fans aren't always going to agree with the manager in that situation, nor is a manager always going to get that decision right. That's baseball IMO.

Even when he does make the change - and it works - and we win - the manager still takes sh*t from fans.  Fans far too often believe they know best.

[Terminator]

The other factor is that after Hoffman we only had two pitchers left in Nance and Fluharty. If you use them both in the 9th then you are asking Fluharty to finish out the game which might include extra innings.

Someone is going to say "ignore that you go for the win!" but severely reducing your 50/50 chances to win in extra innings wouldn't be great IMO.

I suppose where Schneider probably could have done better is that he could have let Yariel finish the 8th instead of bringing Hoffman in. But Yariel has been bad lately and was struggling.

 

[Terminator]

Ohtani crushes pretty much everything but cutters and sweepers against lefties (what Fluharty throws). He's still very good against those pitches with really good power but does not have good xBAs and whiffs a lot.

Nance throws slider, sinker and curveball and Ohtani crushes all of those. So Fluharty was the guy we wanted.

Buck pointed out that Ohtani was wanting to swing the bat and be the hero and Fluharty's 9th and final pitch was a work of art.

It wasn't that close to the zone so it would have been very hard to make solid contact but it was also still competitive to where Ohtani felt he had to swing. It was a work of art.

[Laika]

Every pitch Mason Fluharty threw was perfect for the situation 

I still can't get over it 

He executed more pitches against those two batters than Jeff Hoffman has executed since June 1st

[Laika]

Jeff Hoffman has horrible command and almost always has. It's just been masked by whiffs from 2023 to present. 

He has a 3.00 K/9 even after last night, somehow. 

His location+ is a 92 though. That's like 30 grade command. And it was that bad from 2020 to 2023 as well. 

2024 was his only outlier command year with a 99 location+.

Most of the homers he gives up are command based. Middle-middle misses, hung splitters... 

He has fundamental issues. 

[Laika]

Between Little, Seranthony, and Hoffman, a good chunk of the Jays pen is just scattershot up there. 

Varland is a nice counterbalance to that though. Historically Yimi has been great so hopefully he gets back this year. 

[Orgfiller]

23 minutes ago, Terminator said:

The other factor is that after Hoffman we only had two pitchers left in Nance and Fluharty. If you use them both in the 9th then you are asking Fluharty to finish out the game which might include extra innings.

Someone is going to say "ignore that you go for the win!" but severely reducing your 50/50 chances to win in extra innings wouldn't be great IMO.

I suppose where Schneider probably could have done better is that he could have let Yariel finish the 8th instead of bringing Hoffman in. But Yariel has been bad lately and was struggling.

 

This. The main reason Hoffman wasn't pulled has nothing to do with this nonsense about "he's your horse and you gotta trust him", you just simply can't burn another reliever there if the game might go to extras and you only have one more pen arm remaining. Hoffman walks the first guy in the 9th and you're cringing a bit but there really isn't much you can do, you have to hope he pulls it together. Luckily the Dodgers inexplicably gifted us an out, at which point you kind of have to hope either Hoffman pulls it together or you save Fluharty for the lefty. John Schneider was in a very s***** spot once he pulled Yariel and Hoffman didn't have it.

[Terminator]

The pitches against Betts were beauties too. 

• Pitch 1: ball that wasn't close
• Pitch 2: perfect pitch on the high outside corner
• Pitch 3: another perfect pitch high and inside corner. Game over

[Orgfiller]

1 minute ago, Terminator said:

The pitches against Betts were beauties too. 

• Pitch 1: ball that wasn't close
• Pitch 2: perfect pitch on the high outside corner
• Pitch 3: another perfect pitch high and inside corner. Game over

And even with pitch 1, Fluharty has such excellent tunneling that pitch 1 doesn't rule out the possibility of him following it up with a backdoor sweeper that starts identical but moves a few inches more to clip the corner. Betts being jammed is totally a result of this kind of tunneling and the guessing game, you'd almost never expect that an inside pitch won't just be a sweeper that dives inside off the plate. This was especially evident from the previous AB where Ohtani looked totally overmatched anytime Fluharty threw the "hard" stuff inside and followed it up with nasty sweepers low and away.

[Stangstag]

15 minutes ago, Orgfiller said:

This. The main reason Hoffman wasn't pulled has nothing to do with this nonsense about "he's your horse and you gotta trust him", you just simply can't burn another reliever there if the game might go to extras and you only have one more pen arm remaining. Hoffman walks the first guy in the 9th and you're cringing a bit but there really isn't much you can do, you have to hope he pulls it together. Luckily the Dodgers inexplicably gifted us an out, at which point you kind of have to hope either Hoffman pulls it together or you save Fluharty for the lefty. John Schneider was in a very s***** spot once he pulled Yariel and Hoffman didn't have it.

This is a stupid thought process. They were leading. You dont plan to go to extras.

Just as stupid as Showalter saving Zach Britton for the "save opportunity"

[Stangstag]

The fact that multiple people here are still defending John Schneider allowing Hoffman to continue pitching to the point he walked 5 batters is mind-boggling to me.

I don't want to hear any fking complaining from you lot when JS pulls this s*** in the playoffs and it costs us a game. Im going to bookmark this thread and bring receipts.

[Orgfiller]

22 minutes ago, Stangstag said:

This is a stupid thought process. They were leading. You dont plan to go to extras.

Just as stupid as Showalter saving Zach Britton for the "save opportunity"

Sorry, but did you think Tommy Nance was a better option after the leadoff walk in the 9th? I don't know about you, but I'd probably take my chances that Hoffman figures it out over praying that Tommy Nance somehow dominates the Dodgers lineup with men on in a high stakes situation. Just because Hoffman totally s*** the bed with his command doesn't mean he might have been one mound visit away from being by far the best reliever we had available. Once Ohtani's spot became a guarantee to come up, you had to ride Hoffman out until you could use the lefty, it is what it is.

Here are the possible alternatives:

1. Hoffman walks leadoff hitter. Bring in unknown Tommy Nance with a runner on over hoping your ~second best reliever with strikeout stuff figured it out. Total hindsight move. Much higher chances that Hoffman pulls it together and dominates from here than Tommy Nance not blowing it up.

2. Hoffman walks first two. Bring in Nance, guaranteeing Ohtani comes to bat with a very favourable matchup and at least one runner in scoring position. Reminder that Dodgers would gift us an out, but would take the possibility of a double play away in doing so. Lose-lose situation either way whether you keep Hoffman or bring in Nance. At least in the latter situation, you could bring in Fluharty to face the lefty when necessary.

3. With the likely possibility of the Dodgers at least tying the game, you're now down to one reliever in the bullpen entering the 10th, your odds for winning the game crater at this point.

[jaysblue]

Yeah the one concern I have going into October is the management of the BP by JS. 

 

[Stangstag]

9 minutes ago, jaysblue said:

Yeah the one concern I have going into October is the management of the BP by JS. 

 

No feel for the game. Spreadsheet/pre-game plan or bust

[Terminator]

The bullpen management in the playoffs will be interesting for sure.

The pitching staff, both rotation and bullpen, doesn't really have ace starters or relievers but we do have a ton of #2s through #4s in the rotation and a ton of 7th and 8th inning-caliber guys in the bullpen.

They will definitely be following the spreadsheet/pre-game plan. Hopefully it works!

 

[Brownie19]

1 hour ago, Stangstag said:

This is a stupid thought process. They were leading. You dont plan to go to extras.

Just as stupid as Showalter saving Zach Britton for the "save opportunity"

Sorry dude, but that's not a good comparison at all.  Those 2 situations aren't even remotely close.

[Brownie19]

1 hour ago, Stangstag said:

No feel for the game. Spreadsheet/pre-game plan or bust

I'm not saying that managers shouldn't have a "feel" for the game, but I'd be curious to see which managers (if any) are consistently correct when they go with their "feelings" instead of playing the odds (ie, the spreadsheet).

My gut tells me most aren't actually very good at it and they probably cost their teams as much as they help them.  Likely no way of testing this though unfortunately.

And of course, it's one thing to go against the odds, when the odds are 48% v. 52% or something marginal, v. going against the odds when they are 30% v. 70%.  I wonder how many decisions like this they make per game...interesting topic.

[Brownie19]

2 hours ago, Orgfiller said:

This. The main reason Hoffman wasn't pulled has nothing to do with this nonsense about "he's your horse and you gotta trust him", you just simply can't burn another reliever there if the game might go to extras and you only have one more pen arm remaining. Hoffman walks the first guy in the 9th and you're cringing a bit but there really isn't much you can do, you have to hope he pulls it together. Luckily the Dodgers inexplicably gifted us an out, at which point you kind of have to hope either Hoffman pulls it together or you save Fluharty for the lefty. John Schneider was in a very s***** spot once he pulled Yariel and Hoffman didn't have it.

To be clear, I wasn't suggesting the primary reason Hoffman wasn't pulled was "because he's your horse and you gotta trust him".  I was just suggesting that's a secondary consideration.  I do agree that depleting the bullpen and screwing yourself over should the game go to extras was also a factor.  That's a good call.  I agree with your detailed post below.

[Spanky__99]

On 8/10/2025 at 5:04 PM, hanton said:

whatever it is it's selfish 

He's been great this year, grades well defensively, and gunned down Mookie and Ohtani, are you alright?

[Spanky__99]

21 hours ago, Omar said:

Walks killing us

I'd say, that was rough late, lol. Fluharty was a boss.

[Spanky__99]

21 hours ago, Jays24 said:

And its on our front office to think Hoffman was good enough to remain our closer.  The whole world except a few posters knew he's not

Hoffman suxxxxxx Chicken Little... 😜

They won, s*** happens, JS should be called out for not using the guy for as long as he had. Guys need work to stay fresh.

[Spanky__99]

21 hours ago, hanton said:

I don't think this is on Schneider at all in fact I thought he did a great job managing the pen this game.  Bringing in Varland and going with high leverage relievers was a great move

Yeah, he did everything right up until letting Hoffman pitch for the 5th BB, Yariel and Hoffman just did not have it last night, same for Lauer.

[Spanky__99]

4 hours ago, Laika said:

Between Little, Seranthony, and Hoffman, a good chunk of the Jays pen is just scattershot up there. 

Varland is a nice counterbalance to that though. Historically Yimi has been great so hopefully he gets back this year. 

Yes, Yimi and Sandlin would certainly help.

[Spanky__99]

On 8/10/2025 at 4:42 PM, gruber9292 said:

Yup, time to maybe turn this s*** off 

 

On 8/10/2025 at 5:05 PM, gruber9292 said:

They had Glasnow on the ropes a few times but let him off the hook and now he's found it. This game is over unfortunately. 

End rant.. 

Hah! 🦤

[Masterbather]

I have no concern about Schneider's bullpen management, I have more concern about bullpen personnel.

A lot of talent mixed with a lot of variability and we just have to hope that enough guys are on their game enough of the time.

I'll be interested to see how Yesavage factors into the mix. 

[Masterbather]

18 minutes ago, Spanky__99 said:

Yes, Yimi and Sandlin would certainly help.

Yimi, yes, Sandlin can stay as far away as possible. I'd rather any of the guys we have now over him.

[Spanky__99]

21 minutes ago, Masterbather said:

Yimi, yes, Sandlin can stay as far away as possible. I'd rather any of the guys we have now over him.

You could be right, I don't think this FO traded for him to ride the pine. These things usually work themselves out anyhow.