| | |
|
Brad Mills, You're No Titoby Cameron on May 14 at 8:39PM | comments (3)
[ comments (3) ] [ BallHype ] Let's start with a disclaimer: We're not awarding full grades today. Sorry. We're far too upset for that. After all, it's not every day that a Boston team on a three-game losing streak loses a lead in the seventh inning on a grand slam. That's painful folks, painful any way you slice it.  Instead, we're just going to grade the seventh inning devolution of the Red Sox advantage through the decisions of bench coach Brad Mills, who is serving as acting manager while Tito "We're sorry we undervalued you" Francona attends his mother-in-law's funeral. Think about it, not only does HE not want to be there, Red Sox fans DESPERATELY want him not to be there. OK, so with that disclaimer fully in place, let's take a look at Monsieur Mills' moves, shall we? In case you want the Cliff Notes version, let's just say that the man to the left isn't exactly a statistical Einstein. 1) Pull Jon Lester for reliever Javier Lopez: This would might have made sense, if it weren't for the fact that Lester was cruising. Lopez was starting with lefties, making him an ideal bridge guy, but Lester had kept the O's off balance for the most part. Sure, they scratched out a run in the sixth, but the way he struck out the final two batters of the inning made it clear he wasn't done. He wanted to put his stamp on the victory, and he never got a chance to. 2) Pull lefty Javier Lopez for righty Craig Hansen: Again, this might make sense on the surface, but it's clearly a mistake when you look deeper into the numbers. Lopez, intended as a loogy, got the first two guys out and should have retired the third, if not for a bad hop that Dustin Pedroia couldn't handle. Ughhhh. As always, a big inning ensues, but the way that Lopez was mixing his locations with his sidearm delivery, why give up on him as soon as a right-handed batter comes to the box? Making the case more intriguing is that, with recent exceptions emerging, Lopez has traditionally been equally effective against right and left handed batters. Seriously. So why pull him. AND, to pull him for a rookie who is FINALLY pitching with the confidence and authority the team expects ... BUT HAS YET TO ENTER AN INNING WITH RUNNERS ON? REALLY BRAD, REALLY? YOU SURE THAT'S A GOOD IDEA? MAYBE YOU SHOULD CHECK WITH JOHN FARRELL. MIGHT BE WORTH A CHAT, AMIGO. 3) Pull Craig Hansen for lefty Hideki Okajima: Anyone notice a trend here? Again, from a traditional standpoint, a set-up man like Okie might be a good fit for Jay Payton. Still, Hansen gave up a hit and then lost a true battle of an at-bat with Brian Roberts, who worked a walk after fouling off three or four pitches. If you're going to go with the righty power arm, why not let him wriggle out of his own jam? He was hitting 96-99 on the gun - at least according to MASN commentators - so it seems odd to pull him out after one good piece of hitting and another walk allowed an All-Star. And against Jay Payton. If he wasn't going to trust Hansen with Payton, why bring him in in the first place. 3A) Inserting Okajima with runners on in ANY SITUATION: Maybe we're missing something here, but isn't Brad Mills supposed to have access to the data that Terry Francona does? Because at this point we're reasonably sure that Tito has figured out Okie is HORRID in terms of allowing inherited runners to score. It's part of the reason why he tends to go with Russian Roulette choice that is Javier Lopez vs. Manny Delcarmen when runners are on during late innings. Yet somehow, Mills seems to be blissfully unaware that Okajima's rate of "inherited runners scoring against" is THE WORST IN THE AL!!!! That's right folks, he's almost impeccable when he enters at the start of an inning, and he's equally disastrous when he enters to clean up someone else's mess. It's hardly surprising that Payton took him deep on a second pitch, for karma's sake alone. So there you go. We're even going to eschew the usual systems of checks and minuses for a traditional grade for Mills today: F-. That's right, he didn't even flunk successfully. We'd give him a G for "grossly underqualified" but we understand that isn't really recognized across mainstream academic culture yet. Maybe it should be. In fact, let's just start it right here: When someone performs so horrendously that they don't even deserve a clean flunk, lets just give them a "Mills". That'll show them. In the meantime we'll try to stop channeling this third base coach for the South Georgia Peanuts. Because this really was WMYM's reaction when Payton made contact with that Okajima pitch, and we're not even kidding.
Tagged: Baseball
| Bullpen
| Dustin Pedroia
| Hideki Okajima
| Jon Lester
| Red Sox
| Terry Francona
Filed under: 3 CommentsFirst things first: Kielty is still off the 40-man because his 7 Day DL status is a lot more like a "first half of the season" DL status. The only reason why Brandon Moss, first, and now Jonathan Van Every are getting a run is because Bobby K is is still recovering. If he can prove he's healthy before the trade deadline, the Coco trade talk will definitely heat back up. As for Hansen, I really think you're dead on. Not only has his stuff been phenomenal - his heaters really were between 96-99 yesterday - he seems to get it: The only way people can really hurt him is if he lets his pitches rise in the zone. He's keeping everything down which, while it was largely responsible for the walk to Roberts yesterday, will always help him minimize any damage that comes. And I'm not sure he's even facing extra batters if he starts the inning. Clearly, he's not a mid-inning reliever. We saw that the first couple times he was in Boston, and yesterday should serve as more proof. But clearly, he's starting to hit his stride, which is impressive. As for Lester's sixth? He struggled early, giving up a run on a pair of hits with only one out. But that's when he clicked, striking out Adam Jones and the final batter he faced. Jones was shaking his head in the dugout, because Lester's change up totally crossed him up twice. Not exactly the finish of an inning that you'd want to pull a guy with, particularly when he's only thrown 86 pitches. 86. Come on. After that amazing catch: It's a good thing that front row fan in LF wasn't eating cheese fries. Otherwise Manny probably doesn't get the ball back in for the double play. |
|
|
| ||
what did lesters 6th look like? i didnt get to see the game.
after 6 lester had only thrown 86 pitches. that's his 3rd lowest of the season and in an outing which he was throwing well. even when he's pitched bad they've pushed him toward and over 100.
i dont have a huge problem with what mills did after that. i think the sequence was OK.. but premature.
i'm high on hansen (probably more than i should be) but he makes me nervous... i'm not sure how together he is between the ears. is he going to have to be babied? its like.. he had a ton of hype, struggled, struggled more, is throwing well but not getting the outs his "stuff" would suggest so is it better to let him try to get out of that mess and possibly give up a grand slam or watch someone else give it up knowing you helped create the mess?
who knows.. either way the worst case scenario played out and they just couldnt get guys out.
on a side note... is bobby kielty not on the 40 man b/c of his 7 day DL status or his he just not on the 40 man?