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If Rondon goes 2 innings last night, can he pitch today for the series win if it's a 1 run game?

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That's the predicament Hinch is in.

Is it better to pitch Rondon 2 innings today and not have him tomorrow if it means not having to put Devo in today and pitch him 3 days in a row.

Just think he needs to use the fact that guys like McHugh, Peacock, and Devo can all work 2-3 innings at a time. That's a weapon and it needs to be considered when managing the BP.

Beat40 said:

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WelchAg said:

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I'm also generally fine with our BP right now. Let's see how the next month goes. My only gripe is how Hinch uses them sometimes. I felt he stepped out of his comfort zone in the playoffs and rode the hot hand. It paid off big time. I want to see less by the book utilization of the BP and go with what you see on the field.

I'm still upset he didn't put Rondon back out there. I know some of you disagree, but as soon as Devo came out I feared he would struggle. I don't like going with guys 3 days in a row. Rondon had just pitched one of the best 1-2-3 innings we've seen from a reliever all year and only had 10 pitches with a taxed BP.

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The other thing - it's May. If Rondon goes 2 innings last night, can he pitch today for the series win if it's a 1 run game?

I would rather not stretching guys past what they are conditioned to do in May. We need that stuff for critical games in September/October.

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You're acting like it would be some monumental feet for Rondon to go 2 innings. It may not be what he does often, but relieves go 2 innings all the time. He pitched 2/3 inning on Sunday and didn't pitch on Monday. You also don't make decisions on the next day based on availability of Rondon. He isn't that kind of reliever.

Ag_07 said:

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Quote:

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If Rondon goes 2 innings last night, can he pitch today for the series win if it's a 1 run game?

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That's the predicament Hinch is in.

Is it better to pitch Rondon 2 innings today and not have him tomorrow if it means not having to put Devo in today and pitch him 3 days in a row.

Just think he needs to use the fact that guys like McHugh, Peacock, and Devo can all work 2-3 innings at a time. That's a weapon and it needs to be considered when managing the BP.

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Opponent and where in the batting orders matters too imo. I have no problem rolling with rondom last night against a quality lineup considering he had only thrown 10 pitches.

Against the White Sox's in June up 2 runs...I'm okay with whoever is least taxed out of our quality guys.

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Opponent and where in the batting orders matters too imo.

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Yeah for sure. I'm not saying ignore it and always get as much out each arm as possible.

Just saying it's not alway best to burn through arms just to get an ideal matchup. Maybe sometimes it's best to go with a decent matchup vs and ideal matchup and let a guy go another inning to save an arm.

It's a critique of Hinch so far in 2018.

I'd rather see Davis in than Marisnick again. It was difficult watching him stand there and strike out last night.

The reality is, the best way to manage a bullpen is somewhere between "by the book" and "ride the hot hand". You can't always ride the hot hand. The idea that if a pitcher was sharp one inning he'll be sharp again just isn't as sound as we think. At the same time, by the book isn't always the right call. It really is up to the manager in determining when the right time to go 2 innings versus 1 is.

If you rode the hot hand all the time you'd likely have pitchers throwing 30+ pitches an outing. With more pitches they become less effective. Thus increasing the chances of runs being scored and increasing the need for another pitcher to relieve them mid inning. Which negates the whole reason for having a guy go more than one inning.

This is where Reddick on the DL hurts when you want to give George a day off.

In my opinion, I just don't think stretching a pitcher out is the way to go in May.

I also disagreed with putting Devo in because we're stretching him in May. Hinch obviously did it because today is a tough match up we had a chance to take the series yesterday, so he went with who he was most comfortable with even if it meant pitching 3 days in a row.

On one hand you're blasting him for not stretching Rondon out, but you're also not giving any sort of thought to him stretching out arguably the most reliable reliever we've had this year to wrap up a series win when the match up the next day is extremely tough.

Listen, at the end of the day it's the bullpen. We all have opinions on how it should be managed.

I don't think either of us are "right" per say, I just have my preference on how to use them in May.

At the very least, I've enjoyed the discussion.

Fair enough. I completely agree with not overworking our bullpen this early in the season, but from my standpoint I wouldn't have considered putting Rondon out there again putting undue stress on him, especially since he had only thrown 10 pitches.

I think we are both in agreement though that there needs to be a balance between protecting arms and going with what is working.

WelchAg said:

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Beat40 said:

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WelchAg said:

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I'm also generally fine with our BP right now. Let's see how the next month goes. My only gripe is how Hinch uses them sometimes. I felt he stepped out of his comfort zone in the playoffs and rode the hot hand. It paid off big time. I want to see less by the book utilization of the BP and go with what you see on the field.

I'm still upset he didn't put Rondon back out there. I know some of you disagree, but as soon as Devo came out I feared he would struggle. I don't like going with guys 3 days in a row. Rondon had just pitched one of the best 1-2-3 innings we've seen from a reliever all year and only had 10 pitches with a taxed BP.

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The other thing - it's May. If Rondon goes 2 innings last night, can he pitch today for the series win if it's a 1 run game?

I would rather not stretching guys past what they are conditioned to do in May. We need that stuff for critical games in September/October.

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You're acting like it would be some monumental feet for Rondon to go 2 innings. It may not be what he does often, but relieves go 2 innings all the time. He pitched 2/3 inning on Sunday and didn't pitch on Monday. You also don't make decisions on the next day based on availability of Rondon. He isn't that kind of reliever.

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so I looked up Rondon's career game by game stats. In 2013 he made quite a few appearances of 2 innings with mixed results (gave up at least one earned run in a few). Since then he's only gone over 1 inning on the rare occasion, BUT his stats on those occasions have been ok. The vast majority of his appearances over 1.0 inning from the 2014 season to now have been clean.

My beef last night was that Devo was pitching in his third straight day. I would have brought Rondon back out for the 9th with a couple of guys ready to go if he got in trouble - but then again I'm a big believer in letting a pitcher go if he's dealing.

Of course my real beef was with our piss poor batting with RISP last night. That game should have never been close going into the last inning.

What's the run down on McCann? I seemed to have missed the update.

*** ADDED: Knee soreness. Mostly precautionary it looks like. ***

https://www.mlb.com/astros/news/astros-place-brian-mccann-on-dl/c-278803334

Hinch said. "It's something that he's battled before and something that he's had to deal with, and as we talked to him after the game, we felt like we needed to send him back to Houston to get him evaluated further. We won't know the extent of any sort of issue until he gets to Houston."

WelchAg said:

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Fair enough. I completely agree with not overworking our bullpen this early in the season, but from my standpoint I wouldn't have considered putting Rondon out there again putting undue stress on him, especially since he had only thrown 10 pitches.

I think we are both in agreement though that there needs to be a balance between protecting arms and going with what is working.

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Definitely agree on a balance.

And for the record, I wouldn't have been that upset if Rondon had trotted back out there.

I believe we will tons of DL stints if there is any remote soreness. I know the Mariners are close but this front office and management don't feel like they have to force things to win the division. Keep guys healthy. Use the DL to keep everyone ready to go in October.

WelchAg said:

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I'm also generally fine with our BP right now. Let's see how the next month goes. My only gripe is how Hinch uses them sometimes. I felt he stepped out of his comfort zone in the playoffs and rode the hot hand. It paid off big time. I want to see less by the book utilization of the BP and go with what you see on the field.

I'm still upset he didn't put Rondon back out there. I know some of you disagree, but as soon as Devo came out I feared he would struggle. I don't like going with guys 3 days in a row. Rondon had just pitched one of the best 1-2-3 innings we've seen from a reliever all year and only had 10 pitches with a taxed BP.

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Hinch is a smart guy. If his bullpen usage looks a little formulaic right now, it's probab because he is trying to spread out the workload. Going into yesterday's game, Devenski had pitched 2.0 IP and only 22 P in the previous two days.

Highlight reel catch by Jake

Dallas getting stroked and can't throw strikes. When he does it's right over the heart

Nuke LaLoosh said:

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Keuchel is pretty easily our worst starter.

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Agree. Hope the bull pen is ready today.

Dallas up in the zone is bad news

Aggie8587 said:

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Dallas getting stroked and can't throw strikes. When he does it's right over the heart

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I swear he has a different pitching coach than the other starters.

Well that could have been way worse

Luckily got out of it down only 1. Could've very easily been 4-0 after the first.

I think it's just the style of the others where they use hard stuff up in the zone setting up power breaking balls doesn't translate for Dallas who is completely opposite.

I wonder if he's trying to be something he's not in trying to keep up instead of going back to what won him a Cy Young.

One of the reason the pen seams weak is that the rest of the team is so strong. We have an average bull pen. The Astros pen has converted 63.16 of their save opportunities, compared to an AL average of 63.68.

Need to check the stats, but it seems that no player is better offensively over last year and a number are markedly worse. Might be a similar situation in the bullpen. Geez, Sipp might be the unexpected exception, haha.

This game scares me so far.

Marvin said:

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Need to check the stats, but it seems that no player is better offensively over last year and a number are markedly worse. Might be a similar situation in the bullpen. Geez, Sipp might be the unexpected exception, haha.

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I looked at this two weeks ago and the only two improvements (offensively) were McCann and Springer. Now they're both in the middle of really bad stretches so I think it's down to 0

I think we've struck out swinging on about 5 hanging sliders

Yikes. Severino is on cruise control

Can't watch at the moment, but it appears DK has settled in nicely after a rough 1st.

28 pitches in the first. 22 total for the next two innings.

Fingers crossed the Dallas has settled down.