Transmogrified Tiger

Very insightful. It's the gist of the original post. There is some merit in the thought that it saves starters pitches, but Dusty has been given decent pens in the past and still abused his starters and relievers to oblivion. Obviously a good pen is better than a bad one, but is it any more important than the difference between a good starting rotation and a bad one? A good lineup and a bad one? No, in fact it's significantly less important. It's great that our pen has been solid so far and looks to continue to be that way, but it's no different(possibly worse) than if we were more skilled in other areas and weaker in the pen. I may be wrong on this, but I would think it would be much more demoralizing for a team to lose a lead late and have their bullpen blow it than to just have the starter pitch horribly. As I said, I may be wrong in assuming this and either way, a loss hurts, but personally I think that if you are going to lose, it's better to just lose early than lose a heartbreaker in the end. You tend to remember those heartbreakers more, at least I do as a fan. I'll never forget a Sunday Night game in 2002 I believe against the Cardinals where we were leading 9-4 going into the ninth and the Cards scored six runs in the bottom of the ninth, capped by a no doubt Edgar Renteria 3 run homer to win 10-9. Maybe that's just me. I do see your point though. My main reason for doing this was to separate the bullpen debate from the Jacque Jones thread. And I always appreciate insight from the Tiger. I don't think you're wrong. I think it's safe to say our loss to the Reds earlier when Rusch was crushed was much less painful than the Marlins loss to us last night. And as Brinoch said the bullpen makes up 26-28% of the complete team. That's significant. A bullpen probably throws about 35% of the innings, and does a minute percentage of the fielding for the team. That means that 65% of pitching, nearly all of fielding, and all of hitting are separate from the bullpen. There's something to be said for the high leverage innings that make up that 35%, but the point is they aren't evenly distributed. A pen loss may be more devastating, but you're likely to have less of them since they compose much less of the team.

Very insightful. It's the gist of the original post. There is some merit in the thought that it saves starters pitches, but Dusty has been given decent pens in the past and still abused his starters and relievers to oblivion. Obviously a good pen is better than a bad one, but is it any more important than the difference between a good starting rotation and a bad one? A good lineup and a bad one? No, in fact it's significantly less important. It's great that our pen has been solid so far and looks to continue to be that way, but it's no different(possibly worse) than if we were more skilled in other areas and weaker in the pen.

A good bullpen is better than a bad bullpen.

You know what would make it easier to fill out the lineup? Never considering Neifi to start.

We are awesome.

Is that why he doesn't give autographs? Wow, that's mind-blowing.

When you've just finished dominating a team in every facet of the game like Neifi did tonight, you deserve to let it show a little bit.

Why would you do that There's a very delicate mojo at work here

DeJesus: .352/.464/.512/.976 woot.

Jock is the new Alex Gonzalez

AB forfeit DP so close

AB forfeit DP

HE GAVE UP A HOMERUN TO MIGUEL CABRERA, NOT EXACTLY A ROOKIE. SO THE HELL WHAT!!! HE STILL GAVE UP 3 RUNS!! release Z plz

I threw 40 pitches the other day and felt pretty good. I even mixed in an overhand curve near the end. The speed wasn't great, but I actually hit the zone pretty consistently. For some reason, though, I've always been able to hit a strike zone painted on a wall better than a catcher's mitt. I think I'll stick with the 4-seamer at the game, though. :D Real men throw the knuckle curve.

He's struck out NINE!!!!!!! It's not about the strikeout. He's pitched poorly overall. I don't buy that this was a "quality start." He made some poor decisions on the mound and allowed himself to be beaten by their few good hitters (namely Cabrera). Like Meat&Potatoes with Ronnie, I call out your anti-Z bias! It's a quality start. 6 innings, 3 earned runs. I'll take it everytime. So you're okay with Z consistetnly with a 4.5 ERA? I'm not, not from him. There's a middle ground between being happy with the outing and being pissed off about it. No need to be upset with 6 IP 3 ER with the peripherals he has tonight.

Stop swinging you impatient schmucks.

He was Corey Patterson before Corey Patterson was.

I think Pierre's OBP is under .290 now.

He's Jock Jones

As opposed to bouncing it home? Yeah. That's the point. Ronny's not trying to 8 hop it to the plate, but you're supposed to keep it low rather than overshoot it. You can always pick a ball that bounces, you can't do anything with a throw that goes over your head.

whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, WHOA The goal is to get the ball to the player in the air? Huh.

hahahaha

Emphatic no to Vizquel being in the Hall.

It's true.

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