VDesai wrote:I dont think Hughes is coming out of the pen in the postseason. If he was I think he'd be in the pen right now in anticipation. I dont know if the Yanks would throw someone into a new role that quickly. If they did he'd probably be pitching as a long man. They already skipping his start this week to keep him under the regular season cap. I don't know if they had a postseason cap as well.
The starting rotation is weaker than the bullpen and needs more help right now. The bullpen has several guys with ERAs below 4. Out of our pitchers whose inning totals qualify for ESPN's ranking, we have only one with an ERA below FIVE!
Also, Javy has looked outstanding in his 9 1/3 relief innings this season. That's obviously a small sample but I'd like to see what we could get out him as a reliever since he sucks as a starter.
Bonn1997 wrote:Finestrg wrote:HUGE HR today by Swish. HUGE win. Kim Jones getting some pie in the end was AWESOME!! Got Rays/Red Sox coming on now on ESPN..I can't believe I actually might be rooting for the Sox in this game...Crazy!! 
Someone threw a pie in her face?!
Nah, she caught a little residual splatter and took it in stride..Very funny..
TMS wrote:VDesai wrote:TMS wrote:where Jeter bats in the order is the least of our problems... we need a reliable setup man in the bullpen & another reliable starter if we want any chance of repeating this season... if Hughes goes back to the pen that solves 1 problem but opens up another.
Joba has really been excellent for the last month and a half or so. He might have hs mojo back for that role. And Wood has obviously done well. I hope Logan is up for the task because he's gonna need to get all the tough outs Marte got last year when Marte was randomly lights out. The weird thing is last year the setup guys who were so great in the regular seasons weren't all that great in the playoffs, while a guy like Marte was huge. Sometimes your just lucky.
Whats gonna kill us is if Pettitte doesn't get healthy. We are 1 deep in the rotation right now and everyone else is an unknown variable.
i think Hughes will be our setup man in the postseason because of his innings cap... if Andy doesn't come back healthy we are in a serious bind w/no one other than CC a reliable starter right now other than maybe the kid Nova... our offense is going to have to carry us this postseason because we are not nearly what we were last year in our pitching.
Andy coming back will be key. I agree 100%..If he can't make it back we're in a little trouble...As for Hughes, they're already skipping his next start in favor of Mosley with this innings cap in mind, so maybe they're just saving him for the post-season..I said it in the beginning of the season -- I wanted them to finally straighten out the whole Hughes/Joba situation once and for all and it looked like they did, but now who knows. He very well may be going back to the pen for the post-season..I'm leaning toward what Bonn talked about though -- the pen's been fine--starting pitching is definitely the greater concern...Look at AJ's last start against the Birds -- Joe went to the well 1 inning too many with this guy and he coughed the game right up after we battled back a second time to tie it up. You can make an argument that if he had removed AJ in the tie game there the pen could've held it down giving our offense a chance to come back eventually and take that game...I feel Hughes serves us MUCH BETTER as a starter. He hasn't been the same in this second half but all in all, he's still probably our 2nd best SP behind CC, not counting Andy...Yanking Hughes outta the starting rotation is a gamble esp. in such a tight pennant race..I guess they feel that even if we lost the division we're still in, having more than a leg up on Boston and Chicago at this point for the wild card..If that's their reasoning, I don't care for it at all to be honest...First off, if they skip the remainder of Phil's regular season starts and he resumes starting in the post-season, he won't be going into those important games in any kind of a groove -- he might be rusty and out of sync...Not to mention I wanna win this division now..We didn't come all this way to settle for a wild card berth..They may have mis-calculated this a little bit -- if they were gonna skip Phil over to conserve innings, they should've done it already and had him fresh and ready to go right now..This business should've been over and done with already earlier this summer. It's really not something we should be thinking about right now..
I know it won't go down like this but as of right now if putting ourselves in the best position to win games is the goal, my post-season rotation without Andy would be CC, Hughes, AJ (I might actually flip flop Hughes and AJ and have Phil start the first road game) and then Nova if needed (I actually might prefer Nova over AJ to be quite honest -- you know that won't happen though).
If Andy's healthy and pitching effective obviously we're in much better shape: CC, Andy, Phil, AJ and Nova if needed. Let's hope this is the case...
No way I'm entrusting a post-season start to Javy Vasquez and his 86 MPH BP fastball against one of these top AL teams. That's just asking for disaster. He just hasn't earned it..Dude won't be back next year anyway so I'm not worried about hurting his feelings. All he'll have to do is look in the mirror at what kind of season he had for us. This kid Nova's very much in the mix for a post-season start though on a need basis. I've seen enough already in his limited time to know he's quality.
jimimou wrote:
I think Nick Swisher is honestly becoming one of my favorite players. Very fun to watch for a baseball purest.
Wow..Two horrible losses in a row here back to back. As if Friday night's extra-inning loss wasn't bad enough, I feel like I just got kicked in the teeth with the way this one ended.. I mean WTF man -- Texas doesn't even have Hamilton available this series..And tomorrow we get Cliff Lee back off the DL against Mosley..Awesome. Meanwhile TB's feasting on Toronto. Hopefully we snap outta this funk soon. We're leaving so many guys on base it's friggin' sickening. A-Rod looks fresh and strong coming back off the DL so at least that's a plus. So does Berkman..Outside of those two though, we're really not getting anything from anyone..So many of our key guys are struggling - Jeter, Posada, Robbie's cooled off the past few weeks, so has Swish, Tex just had a great series at home against the As and now he's cooled. And the pitching's been so damn uneven, even the bullpen which has been such a strength the whole year. Now all of a sudden the bullpen's coughin' up games. What next??? Don't even know what to say man. Doesn't look too good right now. Normally I'd say now would be a good time for Jete to call one of his player-only meetings to rally the men but how can he? Dude's hitting .260 and it feels like he hasn't done a thing himself in weeks.. This is really tough to watch right now. I feel like they're just pissing this division away. They better find it quick.
An awesome pitching effort by CC laid to waste. I am scared about our pitching in the post season.
classic pitching duel... shame CC couldn't get a W for that effort, but Price was just as amazing.
WTF is Gardner doing getting thrown out at 3B to end the inning late? i love the guy's hustle but sometimes he seriously makes some boneheaded baserunning plays.
TMS wrote:classic pitching duel... shame CC couldn't get a W for that effort, but Price was just as amazing.WTF is Gardner doing getting thrown out at 3B to end the inning late? i love the guy's hustle but sometimes he seriously makes some boneheaded baserunning plays.
Awful play, I agree. No need to steal 3rd right there. This dude's one of the fastest guys in baseball -- he's already in scoring position..He scores on a single right there. There was no need to push it like that. And with 2 out no less. Horrible. With 0 or even 1 out, maybe I can see the logic -- if he got to 3rd he could then score on an out, but even then I don't like it. Bonehead play but that wasn't even my biggest problem...
My big thing with last night was Joe's complete misuse of the bullpen..I got the feeling he was trying way too hard to conserve his bullpen last night, almost going out of his way to do so. I guess I can see the logic a little bit -- we've got a lot of important games coming up against good competition but come on man, there's conserving and then there's going way overboard. If he was trying to give Joba & Robertson a blow last night for whatever reason (why I'm not too sure--this is crunch time now against our main competition), OK fine, then you lean hard on your next best guys to get the job done..I don't feel like he played to win the game..Maddon certainly did though--he had no problem going with his closer top 9 in a tie game at home, did he not? Ya think he wanted that game??? Maddon even said before the game to reporters that winning the division is top priority for the Rays, nothing else...I'm sorry Girardi, but you play to win that game last night at all costs. Trying to keep guys fresh down in the pen is one thing but I'm not thinking too much about the next game or the game after that last night in the 11th inning there to be honest -- I'm playing to win that game at all costs and to do that I'm going with my top available arms for as long as I can before going to a guy like Sergio Mitre..Keeping TB down in the standings should've been priority numero uno right there...I mean why Wood for only 1 inning? I think he only threw 11 pitches and his stuff looked electric. We couldn't have gone to him for another inning? Even Logan -- dude's become a damn good pitcher for us, one of our top guys down there. We couldn't have squeezed out a couple of more batters outta Boone right there? Please...And then Chad Gaudin -- yeah, he walked a tightrope there for a sec. but he got out of it throwing 93-94 MPH. He's one of your long men anyway for Christ's sake -- here's a guy that should have no problem going another inning or two...And imho, Gaudin's a much better pitcher than Sergio Mitre who hasn't pitched in what feels like forever. What did Joe expect to get out of him right there? Quality length?? If he wanted that, he should've stayed with his much better long man..I'm sorry but he waived the white flag when he brought Mitre in right there.
Going back to last year in the playoffs -- Joe's got to realize that you stay with your top available bullpen arms for as long as you can and if you get beat, you get beat with one of your top guys. Then nobody can say shit..You don't get beat with Sergio f'in Mitre in the 11th inning in the most important game of the year thusfar..Maybe in the 15th or 16th inning..Mitre was in that game way too early.
I agree with you. I can't believe Joe was willing to beat with Gaudin and Mitre in a game where we're playing for first place in the AL. Would've had Joba or Robertson on the mound there. I don't like when he throws Logan out there for 1 batter in a game destine for extra innings either.
It was weird last night to not have Joba or Robertson come in. It was like the Rays were playing to win and we were playing it safe. I wonder if Girardi is assuming that he'll have to use Joba and Robertson a lot these next few games and was therefore playing it safe last night.
So, what's our rotation for the post season?
Apparently Tex has been playing with a broken toe for the last two weeks.
This batting order makes no sense. Our first two hitters the 2nd and 3rd *worst* on base percentages in the lineup. You usually want guys who get on base to be early in the lineup so your power hitters can knock them in.
What a ridiculous game. We blow a 6-0 lead, tie it back up, Jorge hits a pinch hit bomb, and Golson throws out Crawford at 3rd base to win it. Back in first, losing streak snapped.
You see the rocket of a throw? That was money and clutch.
last night it was Brett Gardner making a bad baserunning play to cost us the game, tonight it's Carl Crawford making one to cost TB, tho in this case it wasn't as much a bad running play as it was a tremendous throw by Golson to get him out at 3B... that throw was Ichiro-esque.
& what a play in CF by Curtis Granderson to rob an extra base hit in the late innings... that was a definite web gem.
Jorge w/a clutch HR & Cano w/3 RBI's just keeps hitting like he's done all year.
good to finally snap the losing streak... now we need to take the rubber game.
Yeah I don't know how boneheaded it was for Crawford to try and advance - I think Golson made one of the best throws I've ever seen and Crawford was only out with a perfect throw on that play. A lot of special plays at the end of that game. Granderson's diving catch was amazing and Jorge's HR was an absolute bomb.
tough loss last night... Jeter w/the acting job, he better watch out he might be plunked for real the next time he gets up to bat vs. the Rays... thought we would take this one after Granderson's bomb but Rays fought back... these 2 teams are going to be in the ALCS this year.
Nightmarish road trip for us. We gotta sweep Baltimore.
Need Swisher back in the lineup. I think that makes a big difference.
losing 8 out of the last 10 really hurts... this team needs to get back to its winning ways & we need Andy P back w/the quickness
