IGT AL Wild Card

[Ceetar]

bot 9. tied 2-2. I have sympathy stress for both of them!

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Pre- congrats to the Jays who got a leadoff double in the 9th.

[Ceetar]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Pre- congrats to the Jays who got a leadoff double in the 9th.

and walking EE so now it's 1-2 no outs.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

os need a triple play

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Bautista caught looking

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Ex Met Darren ODay induces the 563

[Ceetar]

and the Orioles get the DP without going to their closer and best GB% guy.

10.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Good game here

[Ceetar]

torn between watching and going to bed since I'll be out late tomorrow.

[metirish]

Excellent game, Ron in good form, less Cal I approve of.

[Frayed Knot]

And then there was the old water bottle which came flying out of the stands just as Baltimore's LF Kim while in the process of catching a deep fly.
Every once in a while, just when you think Canadians fit their rep for the most polite folks on the planet, the Canucks or Canadiens lose the Stanley Cup and suddenly the cities of Vancouver & Montreal are over-turning cars and setting them on fire.

[metirish]

A 3 run bomb ends this , wow

[Frayed Knot]

And now the Blue Jays and Rangers can resume their "pleasantries" left over from last year.
Bat flips anyone?

[metirish]

SHould make for a great series

[Frayed Knot]

I don't know what Buck said to his pitcher during the mound visit just prior to that bomb ... but it didn't work.

[Frayed Knot]

So the Jays were reportedly deciding between Marcus Stroman and Nelson Liriano for the start tonight and wound up using both - similar to the scenario being discussed in the other thread about whether Terry should consider using Bartolo out of the bullpen on Wednesday.
Of course most teams won't have as big a fall-off (at least by reputation) from their 1 & 2 starters to their 3rd & 4th as the Mets do, but they did what they needed to do to move on.


And the probable CY winner out of the pen for the O's never makes an appearance despite Buck using seven different pitchers.

[Gwreck]

Not using Zach Britton in that game (and he was not injured) is managerial malpractice. Especially since the game was played in the no-strategy league and there is no concern about having to pinch hit for him.

I don't agree, but at least can understand the argument about why one saves the closer while on the road for circumstances in which your team gets the lead.

But in an elimination game that went extra innings? There is no excuse for not using your single-best reliever.

[Edgy MD]

Frayed Knot wrote: So the Jays were reportedly deciding between Marcus Stroman and Nelson Liriano for the start tonight and wound up using both - similar to the scenario being discussed in the other thread about whether Terry should consider using Bartolo out of the bullpen on Wednesday. Of course most teams won't have as big a fall-off (at least by reputation) from their 1 & 2 starters to their 3rd & 4th as the Mets do, but they did what they needed to do to move on. And the probable CY winner out of the pen for the O's never makes an appearance despite Buck using seven different pitchers.

Yup, Buck went to the hill with less than his best.

[nymr83]

Why did Stroman come out after 6 innings/80 pitches in the DH league?

[metirish]

Nymr83 wrote: Why did Stroman come out after 6 innings/80 pitches in the DH league?

Ron was wondering that too, or more specifically he said he would have let him go 1 more inning

[Frayed Knot]

Yeah, I wondered about that too.
Not that I claim to know a lot about how Gibbons usually uses his pen, but I know enough to know that it wasn't all that good down the stretch* while the Jays were stumbling to an 9-16 September (before finally winning their final two) which makes one wonder why Gibbons seemed so anxious to get into it so early.


* closer Roberto Osuna just by himself had three games during a six outing stretch in mid-late September where he allowed multiple runs in an inning while trying to save games (blew two of them).
So naturally last night not only does he toss a perfect inning but the Jays pen overall pitched five perfect. The last Orioles hit was Machado's infield single in the 6th
O's pen was good too ... right up until Jimenez coughed up hits on 3 consecutive pitches culminating with the game-ending bomb.

[Centerfield]

A little disappointed by this. If it wasn't going to be the Mets, it would have been nice to see the Orioles win it all. It's a fantastic baseball town, and they've had their share of heartbreaks. They deserve one.

But you know, it totally is going to be the Mets, so it's all a moot point.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I have to say I was listening to the call on the radio when Encarnacion ended it and it was one of the worst renderings of drama of all time. Schiambi, or whatever his name was, never informed the listener whether Encarnacion had hit a home run, a single or what, just said "long drive!" and left it to us to figure it out for ourselves when he described him crossing home plate. There was a good 15 seconds where we knew Toronto won the game, but didn't know how.

[TransMonk]

[Benjamin Grimm]

Is it true that Showalter deferred using his closer until a "save situation" developed and he never ended up getting into the game?

It's nice to be reminded that Terry isn't the only manager who does that (it's one of my biggest pet peeves) and hopefully so much scorn will rain down on Showalter that managers will stop doing this. At least, that Mets managers will stop doing it.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Buck never leaned on that "save" explanation but instead framed it by saying he wanted to use the guys he used and was CAHNfident in their ability to get the outs he needed. It worked in the 9th and though not I admittedly know shit about the O's bullpen depth, it was pretty apparent after 2 solid hits to start the 11th that Jimenez wasn't having a good night and that if you weren't prepared to lose it then and there, something should have been done.

I think its generally hard on a manager hen a big-scoring team doesn;t score for you.

[Ceetar]

It wasn't so much that he didn't go right to Britton, but that he NEVER used him. Brach was in with the leadoff double and they walked EE to fight Bautista. spotty, but at least this season you are facing the lesser hitter, so fine. DP set up, and you need a DP and an out or a K and a DP. Brach excellent K rate. that's fine.

then you go to O'Day for the DP, which, while fine, is no where near as good as the extreme groundball pitching and elite reliever Britton. And not going to him after that, to go to guys like Duensing and Jimenez? That's real bad.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I'm not defending Buck but I think the O's generally won by outscoring the other guys first, then going to Britton and when they didn;t win that's not the formula, and last night they didn't.

[Frayed Knot]

Is it true that Showalter deferred using his closer until a "save situation" developed and he never ended up getting into the game?

Echoing much of what was said above: Buck never gave that as the reason why he didn't use his star closer Zach Britton -- he of the 0.54 ERA, the 0.84 WHIP, and quite possibly soon the CY winner -- but, yeah, that's what he wound up doing.
He had him warming up briefly in the 8th (I think it was) so he at least considered the idea of bringing him in prior to a save situation and he has done so before (including during this season in a game vs Toronto).
The problem then became that things fell apart so quickly in the 11th (2 hits on just 4 pitches) that he didn't have time to get Britton re-warmed again by the time the inning was in crisis mode and he desperately needed a ground ball (Britton is an extreme GB pitcher). Next pitch after that = Disaster.

[Frayed Knot]

Zach Britton is an extreme GB pitcher

Looking it up:
254 batters faced this season
Ks = 74
BB = 18
Ground Balls = 128
Fly Balls = 11
Line Drives = 21
HR = 1
Sac Fly = 0
BAA .162



And when the GW HR was hit there was one out w/runners on 1st & 3rd