I can’t believe the people ripping on Schneider. His done his best Kevin Cash impersonation all year, platooning and quick hooking what everyone thought was a 75-win team to within 2 wins of the World Series. It’s also probably the all time best vibes team in franchise history, and let’s be honest: that’s like 80% of the manager’s job.
They don’t really have those kinds of starters either. It’s a mid-tier pitching staff. People keep complaining about specific choices but the reality is that they’ve hit and defended their way here and the only actual solution to people’s complaints are to have more pitchers who are very good.
Like, you don’t have to squint very hard to justify the Little decision. I’m guessing the rationale looked like “If Raleigh hurts you it’s via the HR, and we believed that Little and his HR suppression was our best chance to get him out, especially in Seattle”. The big failing here was not having a Brash or Speier or Munoz to come on.
@Olerud363.354is 100% right. People trying to pin the loss on a single decision are missing the point: the bullpen isn't very good. The team is trying to get to the world series without any lockdown pen arms, and it just hasn't really come up before game 5 because the games haven't been close.
There were also a lot of people underestimating Seattle coming in, with everyone riding high because the Jays looked like world-beaters vs. NY. This was always going to be tough, because Seattle is a very good team. Throw in regular baseball stuff (bad batted ball luck in game 1 + a pitching implosion in game 2) and you have an 0-2 hole, but no one thing to really pin it on or be upset over.
Old fat guys everywhere on the internet the last 12 hours "why didn't Turang just overcome his instinct to not let an 85-mph baseball hit him in the knee"
It's obviously not over yet, but the Mariners have basically reset their pitching staff. They won't be using any more starters on short rest, and on Wednesday all of Munoz, Brash, and Speier will have only thrown 8 pitches in the previous 4 days.
Yeah. Kind of adds clarity to what they will probably be using the rest of the series:
2 - Gilbert
3 - Kirby (4 days rest)
4 - Castillo (4 days rest)
5 - Miller (4 days rest)
6 - Gilbert (5 days rest)
7 - Kirby (4 days rest)
Maybe Woo in for miller if they don’t use him in relief
Tigers are completely f***ed if they win. They only have two good starters, and they're both down for games one and two of the ALCS after today. Mariners have a lot more options.