The worst move was to sub out Drew. I could care less about his bat. I want him in the field. I said it in the top half of the inning it was a mistake and it turned out correct. He makes that play to start the inning off.
Let's Talk about the manager -- The John Farrell Thread
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RedOctober3829 said:
Presumably part of this move was to get WMB's defense in. I would love to know how they ended up with him in such lousy position if they intended to use him that way.
Bringing Doubront in there isn't the issue. Taking him out when he was cruising is the head scratcher.Dummy Hoy said:
I agree, but he is a better 3B than Xander, and Xander may or may not be (he took a lousy route to Carpenter's ball) worse than Drew. And he is a better hitter right now than Drew, particularly against a lefty. So I can see making the move. I just (still) don't understand his positioning.
And yeah, he choked on the play too. Can't whiff there, at least you have to knock it down.
And yeah, he choked on the play too. Can't whiff there, at least you have to knock it down.
I trust Workman more than anyone left other than Uehara, and they need a bunch more innings tonight. Get past Rosenthal, then go to Napoli.
Edit, now I don't understand.
This may be the series whee the loss of both Bailey and Hannrahan finally bites them in the ass
Edit, now I don't understand.
This may be the series whee the loss of both Bailey and Hannrahan finally bites them in the ass
Farrell seems out of his element managing in the NL.
They battled like hell to come back and were on the verge of getting blown out, but the 7th inning two games in a row was costly.
Not sure why they didn't walk Jay to load them for Kozma and the pitcher/pinch hitter.
Do they go to Breslow again when it counts?
Most frustrating post-season loss since Game 7 of the ALCS in 2003.
They battled like hell to come back and were on the verge of getting blown out, but the 7th inning two games in a row was costly.
Not sure why they didn't walk Jay to load them for Kozma and the pitcher/pinch hitter.
Do they go to Breslow again when it counts?
Most frustrating post-season loss since Game 7 of the ALCS in 2003.
Yes, hope I never see a throw to 3B on a 50-50 play again. With Pete friggin Kozma on deck.
Having said that, why pitch to Jay with first base open and Pete Kozma due up?
There had to be some way to avoid having Workman bat, but yes, seems like a reliever short though when you get 4 innings from your starter, what can you do?
Having said that, why pitch to Jay with first base open and Pete Kozma due up?
There had to be some way to avoid having Workman bat, but yes, seems like a reliever short though when you get 4 innings from your starter, what can you do?
Farrell had multiple fireable moves tonight. His absolute worst game of the season. Mike Napoli not getting a chance in the 9th while letting Brandon Workman(?????????) hit is not acceptable. So is taking out Drew. His fielding positioning with WMB on Holliday's hit in the 7th. Not walking the bases loaded in the 9th to pitch to .550 OPS Pete Kozma.
I don't complain about this crap much, but there was move after move after move that made absolutely no sense. Get it together.
I don't complain about this crap much, but there was move after move after move that made absolutely no sense. Get it together.
I said this in the game thread- it seems like Farrell didn't fully prepare for NL baseball. Overall I like the guy but he looked like he was in over his head tonight.
@TomCaron: Farrell: "Held Nap back... In hindsight having Workman bat against Rosenthal was a mismatch. I recognize that."
Oh really, John? Recognize that now?
Oh really, John? Recognize that now?
This was my biggest issue of the night. I don't really care about the Workman call because they clearly intended on him going another inning, and you can save Napoli for WMB or a pitcher later.RedOctober3829 said:
What I don't get is the positioning of the corner infielders and outfielders in late innings. Middlebrooks playing that far out is crazy, and Nava playing basically centerfield in the 9th was fucking idiotic. What is the rational for this?
I don't utterly hate letting Workman hit then pulling him after one batter. He was hoping he could go longer, saw he didn't have much left and didn't compound his mistake by leaving him in. Uehara had NOTHING tonight.
Not walking Jay to set up the force is the just plain wrong decision that he should get shit for.
The one I'm personally mad at is Salty. That throw and the decision to throw were an abomination. Kozma on deck fuck me!
Not walking Jay to set up the force is the just plain wrong decision that he should get shit for.
The one I'm personally mad at is Salty. That throw and the decision to throw were an abomination. Kozma on deck fuck me!
I just hate that he brought in Uehara in the middle of an inning instead of giving him a clean slate. Koji hadn't pitched in five days and it's game three, you count on him to go two innings one way or another. Lots of baffling decisions there. If you're going to leave Workman in, then why remove Doubront earlier in the game when he did? I thought this was by far Farrell's worst game of the post-season.
Yeah, the thing about the Workman decision is that you were forced into putting yourself into that position with the earlier call to not let Doubront try and get you more outs. If you let Doubront pitch the seventh then you have all of your options available for the 8th and 9th. Yes, it was terrible luck that they gave up the two runs in that inning (combined with terrible play/positioning by WMB), but that doesn't change the facts all that much. In the same way that Salty's ill-conceived throw was only the impetus for the two bad things that happened afterward (missed catch and crap call) this decision caused the cascade that led to Brandon Workman batting in the ninth inning of a tie game 3 in the World Series.
And again, the Gomes PH is a problem for me not just because he did it at all. It's because he did it with Gomes, who is slumping as much as anyone on the team not named Drew, and he did it with two outs and nobody on. And he did it knowing that he needed to get at least 9 outs from his bullpen. If literally any of those factors were different I would buy the argument. But none of them were.
And again, the Gomes PH is a problem for me not just because he did it at all. It's because he did it with Gomes, who is slumping as much as anyone on the team not named Drew, and he did it with two outs and nobody on. And he did it knowing that he needed to get at least 9 outs from his bullpen. If literally any of those factors were different I would buy the argument. But none of them were.
I have no problem with stealing an out with Workman and handing Koji the ball with a man on 1st and one out with a tie game in the 9th. With the slowest man on the planet at 1st and Craig and Jay coming up, I felt like Farrell's bullpen management had put them in a good spot.
The game was lost by:
1. Salty's terrible decision to throw to third
2. Koji giving up a double to Craig
3. Not walking Jay
The game was lost by:
1. Salty's terrible decision to throw to third
2. Koji giving up a double to Craig
3. Not walking Jay
I'm surprised folks are ok with Uehara not starting the 9th. Managers that hold out their best reliever usually get grief. I can sort of live with it, and obviously once Workman hit, it's a non-starter, but if Workman gave up a HR to the first batter, I bet the outcry would be deafening. Having already burned through the key set up arms, I guess you had to try to squeeze another inning out of Workman. But then he's lifted after one batter...hope the accelerates the learning curve for Farrell.
Throwing the ball around was not Farrell, given. Seems like they should have talked about that after last game. However his removal of Doubront when he was clearing baffling the Cards set in motion some soon to be felt events. Breslow looks over his head the last two times out then we all saw the cascade of bad things.
Throwing the ball around was not Farrell, given. Seems like they should have talked about that after last game. However his removal of Doubront when he was clearly baffling the Cards set in motion some soon to be felt events. Breslow looks over his head the last two times out then we all saw the cascade of bad things.
Have to think Morales as frightening as the prospect is, might need to be an early option given St. Louis' relative performance vs. LH. Doubront could go another 25-30 pitches I guess, but how many times has he had to come back after throwing 25 pitches like tonight? And what can you expect from Workman again since he threw 30 pitches. Just hoping Buchholz can summon the strength a la Pedro in 1999 to give them 6 strong innings. A 4 or 5 inning outing two nights in a row would be very difficult to manage especially with the pitcher having to bat.
Really worried about game 4. This is as must-win as it gets, but the Sox cannot count at all on Buchholz for much of anything, never mind the ideal six or seven. Farrell has to manage the pitching aggressively and lean on Jon Lester to give the pen a breather on Monday. I just don't have much faith in his decision-making right now.
Pete Abraham @PeteAbe12s
Farrell admitted he should have double switched Salty out after the 8th inning. Letting Workman hit was a mistake.
Farrell admitted he should have double switched Salty out after the 8th inning. Letting Workman hit was a mistake.
Paul M said:
Doubront gets maybe a batter, but is probably better used behind Lester in Game 5. Dempster is the man after Buchholz for tomorrow, apparently.
Farrell is right about one thing, the Sox can't win with Nava starting.
Dempster is the first man? Oh boy...we're f*cked barring Clay dealing a miracle. St. Louis hits RHP very well; Ryan Dempster was horse-crap vs. RH hitters like Holliday, Molina, and even Freese. Maybe out of the pen he's more effective, but you can't expect a very effective multi-inning performance. So, lifting Doubront arguably prematurely for Game 4 is not a rationale. Relying on Dempster for the 5th-7th innings is just too risky. It's also just harder to get one of these performances in a close game in an NL park.
I fail to understand how anyone can argue that not walking Jay contributed to losing the game. Jay hit a ground ball that was fielded, a play was made at the plate, and there should've been 2 outs and runners on the corners. That's pretty much exactly what you are hoping for in that situation (it's not much different from a strikeout or pop up). Now, it may have been the wrong decision, I certainly won't argue that. Especially considering Uehara's command, it's hard to argue against setting up the double play. But, the decision, even if wrong, was not a factor in losing the game. The factors in losing the game were Salty making a terrible decision, Middlebrooks not coming off the bag to make sure that ball stays in front of him, and the umps decision to call obstruction. As for that last point, we have a thread on the subject already, and it probably should stay out of this thread, but it can't be ignored as a factor independent of the question of if it was correct.
Not walking Jay just baffles me. How could you not want the force and possible DP? How could you not want to pitch to Kozma and his .548 OPS?
That was quite the combination of poor decision making combined with not catching a single fucking break to get bailed out of a poor decision. I thought each tactic was probably defensible, but they fit together into a fucked up strategic whole.
Ultimately the players decide the game. However, the following moves are Ron Washington level bad:
- Taking Felix out when he was clearly dealing
- Burning his bench in the 7th
- Yet, letting Workman hit
- Not using Napoli, esp in Workman's spot
- Not walking Jay to get to Kozma
The last is easily the worst in my mind. Just indefensible.
- Taking Felix out when he was clearly dealing
- Burning his bench in the 7th
- Yet, letting Workman hit
- Not using Napoli, esp in Workman's spot
- Not walking Jay to get to Kozma
The last is easily the worst in my mind. Just indefensible.
Yep, walk Jay allows you to pitch to Kozma and with Molina on 3B you could almost play the infield back or not quite so far in and get the lead runner, and also with Molina you can afford to play the outfield a little bit closer to normal. First base was open and the run meant nothing. Uehara has walked, um, no one all year. It's impossible to offer a defense to that move.
And the more I think about Doubront not being able to pitch much tomorrow (game 4), you're not exactly conserving anything by lifting him. Their chances of winning were greater if that happened. In a game where they came back from 2 down twice and had some big-time tough outs and ABs, they pissed it away with poor managing and a couple bad on-field decisions.
And the more I think about Doubront not being able to pitch much tomorrow (game 4), you're not exactly conserving anything by lifting him. Their chances of winning were greater if that happened. In a game where they came back from 2 down twice and had some big-time tough outs and ABs, they pissed it away with poor managing and a couple bad on-field decisions.
JakeRae said:
This is a really strange post... you sort of answer your own question. But let's start with Jay's AB. He didn't hit a routine ground ball to Pedroia. Pedroia made a hell of a play. If we're going to play the alternate reality game, then there are lots of alternate realities where the winning run walks to the plate on a GB through a drawn in infield. There's also an alternate reality where Kozma hits the same ball Jay did and they turn a double play on him to get out of the inning with the infield at medium depth. Anyway, to come back to your post, I don't see how you can say that the fact that Pedroia managed to field the ball would mean that the decision didn't cost us. We don't get to see the world where JF does the right thing and walks Jay, but I feel pretty confident it doesn't end exactly as this did. Maybe this is all semantics, if you're just trying to say that the game wasn't irrevocably lost at that point, then sure, but I'm not sure what that really changes.
To me, this is just basic strategy. In the bottom of the 9th as an away team, the runner on first is completely irrelevant. Unless the disparity between the hitters is large, you ALWAYS put the man on and create a force situation. Hell, if Salty only has to force at the plate on a ball similar to the one Jay hit instead of tagging, that's likely the difference between turning the DP at first or getting the runner on the way to 3rd (assuming a better throw). The only legitimate reason to pitch to Jay is if for some strange reason you think Uehara is far better in a matchup versus Jay than he is against Kozma, or, even worse, you think Kozma is a significantly better hitter than Jay. I honestly think this is nearly indefensible, "hunch" managing. You have to put the runner on base.
Similarly, the entire sequence that led to Workman batting was a disaster. Farrell has admitted as much, but I'm completely flabbergasted that they seemingly didn't understand the mechanics of a double switch enough. You can argue that maybe they didn't know they wanted more out of Workman until they saw that he was pitching well, but deferring the pitcher/pinch hitter decision when strikeout machine Saltalamacchia was up was a relatively basic maneuver. I'm almost certain Matheny would have done it. Especially since it was setup so well with the end of the order spot, this was pretty much the textbook for it.
Pinch hitting Gomes was also a complete waste. Maybe they wanted to save Doubront, or they felt Doubront had given them all they had. At least I hope that is true. With 2 outs they were really forcing it and were far too aggressive. Gomes hasn't been hitting and you need him to hit a double for that to work out at all, and realistically you need him to hit a HR, because even a double didn't guarantee anything. In a lot of ways, they played the situations backwards, as others have pointed out, and left Workman in when they should have made a move, and were too quick to pull on Doubront, burning Gomes in the process. When the time to take a lead came up, they were once again stuck with Salty at the plate and very few PH options.
This game was easily the worst managed postseason game I've ever witnessed. The comedy of errors by Farrell is deafening, and I can only hope the team rallies around the idea of an injustice rather than notice the incompetence of a manager to compete in an NL ballpark. It's like Farrell took a day off.
I rarely criticize a manager. Tonight's game was a head scratcher early and often. The umps didn't blow this game, JF did.
I rarely criticize a manager. Tonight's game was a head scratcher early and often. The umps didn't blow this game, JF did.
It's also worth noting that WMB's positioning on the Holliday 2B is probably something Farrell has to answer for as well. I have to assume Taz missed location badly given WMB's positioning, but this isn't the first time this year that the fielders and pitchers haven't been on the same page with the plan of attack. I realize that Holliday golfed a pitch way out of the strike zone and maybe that was a set up to induce weak contact on pitches on the outer half of the plate, but it still seems odd.
And yes, I think the right move would have been to try and leverage Doubront for as many outs as you can. They are going to need 12 outs from the bullpen tomorrow most likely. Would have been nice to avoid work for Breslow or Workman or both.
And yes, I think the right move would have been to try and leverage Doubront for as many outs as you can. They are going to need 12 outs from the bullpen tomorrow most likely. Would have been nice to avoid work for Breslow or Workman or both.
Agreed. Farrell started shitting all over this game from the moment he filled out a lineup card with Salty's name in it til' the 9th. Just horrendous all aroundbrs3 said:
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