Masterbather

Make them pay!

That's it Vladdy.

Very nice inning. Back on track.

He's not a long guy. He's never thrown more than two innings. On a back-to-back he might not even do two innings. I don't think we have a long guy today. It'll be patchwork if a Max doesn't last. Let's just hope that Max gives us innings.

He threw 29 pitches. I don't think he's even available today.

Who's the long man now that Turnbull is gone? Hopefully we won't need one.

Turnbull DFA'd. Hardly knew ya.

Been a long time coming. I'm excited to see Max. Not expecting the ace he used to be obviously but I think he can still be very important. It may be a lot to expect that Max will be healthy and reasonably effective from here until the end of the season, but we can hope. The good news is that his innings will naturally be limited given the time he's missed and hopefully he can stay fresh. I'm sure they'll give him an extra day or two wherever the schedule permits. We've also managed to keep ourselves in a competitive position in the standings without him. But now we really need him, our rotation and bullpen both need him. Game on.

I really was not that troubled by the bullpen management today, I understood the logic he was trying to utilize, I might have swapped Schultz and Green, that's about the only difference. When the game became 6-1 there was no point in trying to force Fisher. He's become reliable and you might need him again tomorrow in higher leverage. He tried Fluharty in what was at that point a medium to low leverage situation to get him on track but he struggled. At that point you're trying to steal the last two outs without having to use a valuable arm figuring the worst case scenario is Green bombs and you still got the lead at least. It's a gamble. Green then bombed. Then you get the slam that brought the situation back to low leverage, you go to Schultz probably hoping he rides out the rest of the game but he threw a lot of pitches and was mediocre in one inning. So you decide you don't want to f*** around anymore and you put in a leverage arm for one inning to finish the game. All your leverage arms are still available for tomorrow. The only real cost of the game was 11 pitches by Rodriguez that you ideally would have liked to avoid. It's not disastrous.

Okay, decent depth move.

That ought to do it

Yeah, but I'll take my chances with ace pitchers any day of the week.

I never said they didn't have depth, the point was at the end of the day they couldn't win without a superstar. Besides, in the playoffs they were times where their depth didn't come through, but he did.

Exactly right, top three starters, top three or four relievers is what really matters in the postseason. We might have pretty good depth when it comes to our starting pitching once Max and Manoah come back, and that indeed may help us secure a playoff spot but then we're outgunned come the actual playoffs. I know basketball is a little bit different but it's reminiscent of all those years when the Raptors had great depth but no superstar. All that depth hit a brick wall when they faced a true star like LeBron. Then they got Kawhi, and the rest is history.

Yes I understand there is a very good chance we're not going to get what we need, I'm just saying if we're serious about trying to win a championship that's what we need and if we don't get it, our odds diminish considerably.

Very cute. Of course when you limit it to only qualified starters there's only 38 in all of the American League. Yes we have three pitchers that do a very good job of staying healthy, and that's nice. But when you look at actual quality of starters that may be healthy in the postseason, I say again, we don't have a true one or a two.

The problem is we don't have a number one or number two pitcher. Where are those coming from?

Yes the lack of offensive production cannot be lost in the conversation. Just not good enough.

Yankees did not get swept by the Angels. But it's true, that's baseball, that's why you don't act like beating teams or especially sweeping teams are some sort of foregone conclusion. We are still very much a flawed team, like most teams around us.

Well it starts with Little who, nasty as he can be, is walking way too many guys lately. Leadoff walks in a 1 run game are dangerous. I never felt good about him coming into the game with a one run lead. Then Hoffman just made a complete mess of things. He's been way too inconsistent since the first month.

Easy peasy. That's more like it.

Let's all just pretend yesterday never happened and enjoy the show.

That's more like it!

Well that's a much better start.

Pussy