This picture is 2 years old; replace it with a red jersey and you would have thought it was last night. Photo Andrew Harnik/washingtontimes.com
On his 100th pitch of what I certainly thought was going to be a 3-hit shutout masterpiece to resurrect this playoff series for the Nats, Jordan Zimmermann missed on a fastball up to Giants #2 hitter Joe Panik, issuing his first walk and just the fourth base-runner of the night.
I was not entirely shocked to see Matt Williams trot to the mound, but I also wasn’t happy. As my wife can attest, I uttered the following phrase: “I think he’s going to regret taking him out.”
Sure enough. Another Drew Storen meltdown, another blown 9th inning lead that led to the team snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
To be fair; this isn’t entirely about second guessing. You can quite easily make the argument to put in Storen as thus: Storen has been lights out for the entire year. The Giant’s most dangerous hitter (Buster Posey) was coming to the plate. You would rather have Posey going at a fresh Storen than getting his 4th look at Zimmermann (most starters’ third time through the lineup averages inflate wildly, to say nothing of their 4th). It was righty-versus-righty.
Well, sometimes you can over-think things. Certainly Tom Boswell feels that way, based on his column this morning.
On the other hand, if the following scenarios had played out, I’m not sure anyone would have argued against the strategy.
- After giving up the walk, Williams walks out to talk to Zimmermann, he stays in and gives up the Posey single, *then* Storen comes in and gives up the run-scoring double to Pablo Sandoval. You’ve yanked the starter after putting two guys on, and you’ve gone to your closer in the highest-leverage situation of his career and he got unlucky. That’s still harsh on Storen, but more understandable.
- After giving up the walk, Williams leaves Zimmermann in like a total old-school manager and watches him subsequently give up the single and then the double, all while his closer warms up in the bullpen. That would have led to the reverse second-guessing; why leave him in when you’ve got your closer ready to go?
Major league manager; sometimes you just can’t win. Williams had a quick hook last night. Don Mattingly had an excruciatingly slow hook two nights ago, letting his ace Clayton Kershaw give up *SIX* hits in the 7th inning of the Dodgers-Cardinals series before relieving him, and then watched his reliever give up a 3-run homer to turn a 6-2 lead into a 7-6 deficit. That’s “lose your job” kind of decision making (if the Dodger’s don’t get out of the NLDS).
You guys know what I follow and am most interested in; starting pitching. So you probably know what I would have done; stick with my starter. But sometimes it isn’t that simple. So I’m not going to kill Williams for last night. I do think Storen’s future with this team is in serious doubt; would you throw him again this post-season? Would you trust him going forward? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice …. and I see Storen in a new uniform next year.
I spent 6+ hours watching that baseball game (practically the first time all summer I have watched a game from start to end). The longer I watched, that more and more looked like it was going to be the inevitable disappointment, as Yusmiero Petit looked like the second coming of Roger Clemens and the Nats hitters looked like a AAA team at the plate for much of the night. A deflating end to a long night. Tanner Roark gave up the game-winning homer on a mistake (he missed over the plate while trying to hit the outside corner and Brandon Belt destroyed it), but the offense had more than their share of walk-off opportunities.
The Nats have a long road ahead; they match up with the Giant’s Ace next, have to win 2 straight on the road just to get it back to a 5th game. Lets see if they have what Tim Hudson implied they may not have: I can’t say it here in a PG blog but it rhymes with “Walls.” 🙂