This FO has a history of making guys they don’t believe in prove it over quite a long period and giving guys they do believe in a lot of rope.
It’s probably a good thing overall. In a very flukey streaky game, you need the courage of your own conviction.
In saying that, if they miss the playoffs because of pitching, it’s Charlie (and probably Pete Walker and every other coach) that is gone even though they probably don’t want to play Kikuchi. That’s just baseball. You get to fire a few coaching teams before your job is in trouble generally. Also why bitching about managers is pointless. 50% of their job is to be scapegoats if things go wrong.
I think Kikuchi gets another game btw.