IGT 9/21 Bravos @ Los Mets "Get Back"

[dinosaur jesus]

It's the third inning Terry ought to be worried about, not the seventh. Once Niese got out of his usual third-inning jam last night, he was fine. Strategically, I'm okay with bringing in Reed, but psychologically I don't know. Niese can't be happy, and Terry's looking a little panicky.

It's a little weird how consistently Niese has been blowing up in the third. That's usually when he faces the top of the order again, which is probably a big part of it. But it hasn't been a pattern for him before this year. Maybe Terry could stash him out in right field and have Carlos Torres or somebody pitch just that inning.

[Ceetar]

Niese' worst innings by OPS in 2015:

6,3,4,2,7,1,5,8

Career:

7,8,6,4,3,1,5,2,9

Kershaw 2015:

4,3,7,8,9,6,1,5,2

[Frayed Knot]

Yeah, it's not the number of the inning that's the problem, it's that small things seem to turn into big things and that one big inning -- whichever one it is -- is enough to ruin an otherwise good day for him.

Last night it certainly looked like it would be the 3rd after his 8 straight groundouts were followed by an inexplicable 4-pitch/2-out walk to a sub-.100 hitting pitcher. That was then followed by a ground single by Bourn which was different than all the previous grounders only in that it became a 'tweener', and then by the error by Flores at which point Freeman is suddenly up with the bases loaded even though none of the first 12 batters hit the ball even remotely hard.
That Freddie's knuckling liner to CF found Cespedes's glove was as fortunate as the previous three batters had been unfortunate but that hasn't been the way things have gone for Niese lately.

[Benjamin Grimm]

The thing is, if he starts to unravel early in the game, there's a temptation to try to get him to work through it, because you don't want to go to the bullpen in the third inning. But if it's the seventh or eighth inning, you can pull him before things get too nasty.