Dusty's performance last night was inexcusable but probably didn't cost them the game given the offense's disappearance. I think you could argue his inaction cost the Astros game one, however. He's been badly outmanaged all series.
He should've made the change going into the 3rd. Urquidy could easily have gotten the team 4 innings and then normal pen usage from there. It was clear he was flat, even with the 2 good innings after the 2nd. It was a mistake leaving him in there and I've been a Dusty defender most of the time. This was a mistake. Leaving Verlander in too long was a mistake. Leaving Framber in for the 7th was a mistake that luckily didn't cost us game 2. These are great pitchers and you want to give them the benefit of the doubt. But now they are in a position of must-win and that mistake can't be made again.
Remember the NLCS Game 4? Neither starter made it past the first inning. Hence, neither gave up 7 runs. You pull based on how they are pitching not just for number of pitches.
Verlander in game 1 should have been pulled as soon as 2 men were on base in the inning before he face Realmuto. He should have had a guy warming up between innings. Dusty didn't have anybody warming up forcing JV to face Realmuto. That's on him. Game 3, I would have pulled LMJ as soon as he gave up the 3rd HR. Remember he also left Lance in way too long in the Yankees series, it didn't hurt us thankfully but IIRC Judge almost got a hold of one. Dusty got lucky. He left Abreu and Montero in too long in games 1/2 of the WS, as well. It's a common trend for Dusty, he always leaves pitchers in too long and they get shelled, or he gets lucky on balls that are hit well straight to the defense.
Dusty is 847 years old and has been in the game forever. If you are counting on him learning anything between now and then you are going to be sadly disappointed. He's more fully formed than maybe any manager in my entire lifetime. That's not a bad thing, per se, just an acknowledgment that almost nobody changes, and especially people that are really old and have been doing it there way for 3 or 4 decades sure don't change.
That's true. And everyone knew that was going to be the problem and what beat us all year if we didn't get over the finish line. I will be much happier to see the back of Click than I will of Dusty.
I liken him to James Harden. As much as you would hope to believe it's not really him. It's really him. Baker can't by happenstance have blown it so many times in the post season. It stops being a coincidence after a while and just becomes part of the fabric of who he is.
That's easy to say now, but Urquidy hadn't pitched in a month and was terrible in September. His last outing, coincidentally, was against Philly and he gave up 2 HRs in 2 innings. He could just as easily have gotten blown up and not made it past 2 innings, and then you've blown your bullpen in a loss. And just to clarify, I'm not arguing that keeping LMJ was the right move. But the Astros didn't lose the game because of it, given that they didn't score. And the end result is that they saved the bullpen from being wasted in a blowout loss and might be helpful later in the series. They lost the game because their elite SP got blown out and the offense did absolutely nothing. No moves Dusty could have made last night was going to get them a win.
Don't how Dusty can justify playing Diaz who has never hit Nola in his career and doesn't have 1 hit this post-season over Hensley.
Dusty has some stupid ass beef against Chas all season long. Hardly ever played him consecutive games. He never showed he had trust in him. I'm surprised Chas took it without complaining.
And We have guys like Urquidy and Brown and Garcia who can give you multiple innings The one huge advantage we HAD in this series was the depth of our quality arms, dusty rendered that meaningless
At the very least you get one of those guys up in the pen at that point, he didn’t even do that It was Lance or bust He just isn’t a good tactician at all, and never has been
5 LOBSTERS. It was a terrible decision. Just like giving LMJ 2 starts (potentially) and Javier only 1 if it goes 7.
