Doakle

Well if its mid august, it may as well be september as then they won't have to make a roster move. Of course they will have to have a spot open on the 40 man for him. I know Mitre isn't popular here, but he still has a decent fastball and could make a good relief pitcher. Going into spring training, how many people here thought that Logan Kensing or Randy Messenger had any value?

I agree with the principle, but Nolasco struggled yesterday because he couldn't locate his curveball. It was a question of execution, and that is the other big factor with young players; the ability to stay consistent over the course of the long season.

Our young pitchers are bound to have bad spells and we'll probably see a few of them shuttling between the minors and the majors for the rest of the year. Josh Johnson has struggled with command for almost a month now, to his credit he does a great job of working out of jams and so he has gotten away with it. Nolasco meanwhile with his overdependence on his curveball for outs has suffered.

Something I was just thinking and wanted to share... with all this All-Star game talk lately, I can't wait until Joe Girardi manages one... :mischief As long as he isnt wearing a Yankees uniform at the time.

Really, as a club our win/loss situation comes down to whether our starting pitchers are able to go 6+ innings on a regular basis. When they do, we win a bunch of games, when they don't and the bullpen gets overextended, we lose a bunch. Pretty simple really. It hard to agrue with the stats and theres a BIG difference Its coincidence, mainly. Yes Reggie's production has not been very good, but the whole idea that the play of our CF is the sole deciding factor in whether the whole team wins or loses, is absurd. He simply isn't able to consistently lose games by himself over such a large sample size as the OP suggests. Whats going on here is common in fandom. Its more palatable for fans to identify a scape goat or two and blame them for the problems of their team, then to accept that there are wider issues affecting numerous players on the squad. The fans can then comfort themselves by thinking that if the team just dumped one particular guy they'd win their games, make the playoffs, cure cancer, etc. It happens in all sports, all the time, and in a way its understandable; it is though utterly incorrect. I think it can make a difference. Having a black hole (7-8-9) can be very devastating. See: Marlins (2004) And Reggie is typically right at the middle of it. Fortunately for Reggie, pretty much everyone in the lineup has undergone prolonged slumps with the exception of Uggla and Cabrera. So everyone else (except Uggla and Cabrera) has undergone prolonged slumps, but its only Reggie's performance that is causing the losses? Why can't people see that when our starting pitching is good we tend to win, and when its bad, we lose. When we run 2-3 bad starts together, suddenly our bullpen becomes stretched and its performance drops. Those are the crucial factors (along with the mental/defense errors being made at times by ALL of the rookies, not just Reggie) when it comes to us winning and losing ballgames. Don't get me wrong, we are getting poor production out of the CF position this year. What gets me is that people see this as the primary cause of our sub .500 record when its really just one factor amongst many, and one factor that pales in importance next to consistent starting pitching.

Really, as a club our win/loss situation comes down to whether our starting pitchers are able to go 6+ innings on a regular basis. When they do, we win a bunch of games, when they don't and the bullpen gets overextended, we lose a bunch. Pretty simple really. It hard to agrue with the stats and theres a BIG difference Its coincidence, mainly. Yes Reggie's production has not been very good, but the whole idea that the play of our CF is the sole deciding factor in whether the whole team wins or loses, is absurd. He simply isn't able to consistently lose games by himself over such a large sample size as the OP suggests. Whats going on here is common in fandom. Its more palatable for fans to identify a scape goat or two and blame them for the problems of their team, then to accept that there are wider issues affecting numerous players on the squad. The fans can then comfort themselves by thinking that if the team just dumped one particular guy they'd win their games, make the playoffs, cure cancer, etc. It happens in all sports, all the time, and in a way its understandable; it is though utterly incorrect.

Really, as a club our win/loss situation comes down to whether our starting pitchers are able to go 6+ innings on a regular basis. When they do, we win a bunch of games, when they don't and the bullpen gets overextended, we lose a bunch. Pretty simple really.

Well he is a business guy. The Dolphins work for him money wise so he is happy to support them. The nasty side of it is the way he is still making money from the Marlins to this day without incurring any costs, which isn't particularly nice, but he really doesn't seem to care about baseball. Everyone who works for him on the football side, including South Florida sports hero Dan Marino, say Huizenga is a great guy. With my Dolphins fan hat on, he has been a wonderful owner. It just seems that when decisions are to be made, the bottom line matters most. The biggest thing that gets me is that he just put up $250 million of his own money to improve the club level at Dolphins Stadium Yet he didn't have the cash for a baseball stadium. Of course its good business as it helps attract superbowls and other events. If only he saw a way for baseball to make him money too

Even if he gets somewhat healthy next year, he should stay somewhere in the minors and take it very easy. Best fit would be to send him back to Jupiter in the FSL so he isn't far away; he has pitched there before so he should be comfortable. We can then hopefully see him healthy for the long term in 2008.

Vargas is up to provide another reliever capable of pitching multiple innings, as we have another DH coming up. In the long term I think Vargas' future is as a reliever/spot starter, so hopefully he can pitch well if called upon in the Mets series.

we could use the mike jacobs type treatment and put willy in front of cabs.. seemed to work for jake Actually the one guy i'd really like to get a shot at 3 is Hermida.

This is what a really young team is like, streaky. We'll get stretches of bad and stretches of good. When we're bad, we'll probably be awful and annoying like the last few games. Also remember before people start hanging Joe Borowski dolls, not only has he been excellent for most of this year, he also got us out of a bases loaded one out situation in the 8th. Big positive today : Olsen is going to be very good indeed.

So the three pitches down the middle that got hit for homers, accounting for 6 of the 9 runs, had nothing to do with it? Was Abercombie supposed to reach up to the upper deck and steal one from Guillen?

Well with Pinto already up we had enough starters to cover the DH, but i'm guessing the idea is to have the extra guy able to go as a long reliever in case of trouble. So whether its Sanchez, Pinto, or Petit who doesnt start, the extra guy can step in and pitch multiple innings if one of the others gets roughed up. I'd kind of like to see both Petit and Pinto get the starts actually, as neither has had that opportunity yet.

This game is a good example of why Reggie will continue to get a lot of chances.

I think they had a little celebration for Uggla making the all star team, they actually all look hung over.

Why the need to even discuss this now? It's like starting a thread on whether Jacob Marceaux should be slotted to start or relieve. These things play themselves out. Marceaux should be slotted to relieve

News so far.. http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2508432 Kind of predictable, with the main note for us being the Washington Nationals making a big signing. Their new ownership and president is apparently committed to building through prospects (I think their aim is to be more Oakland than Florida in approach tho), and spending $1.4 million on a 16 year old SS is certainly commitment to that cause.

It's cool you mention the start before last with the 3.82 ERA...when the start before the start with a 3.82 ERA he had a 4.56 ERA. So he was improving before he got hurt?

Its hard to say if we have any budget available to compete with the other teams, but we have shown some interest in Pena so its possible. Personally i'd like to see a draft for these guys, although one where you can trade the picks.

I'd like to see him get a shot as a reliever, although I realise that would mean we're following the same path as the Cubs. His fastball does have decent movement, and the stuff is there. If you look at the way Logan Kensing has been coached and changed to be a more effective reliever I think its wrong to quit on Mitre at this stage.

The team overall are. Willingham is in a slump, Jacobs crazy hot streak cool down, our clutch hitting is dying. Going into today Willingham had at least one hit in 10 of his past 11 games, 3 of which were multi hit games. Then today, he got on base 3 times. What slump?

Could this "slump" today have anything to do with Wakefield? I know some hitters kinda slump after they face him. We got 9 hits, there wasn't any slump. We just had a bad day with RISP as mentioned by others above. Some of our young hitters didn't take the best approach at the plate in some key spots, but we watched Mike Lowell spend an entire year doing that last year, and he is doing fine now We faced down the AL East in interleague play and came out of it very well, I think we should proud.

Yep however frustrating it may be to throw away chances and lose the game ourselves, lets keep some perspective. We just went toe to toe with both the Yankees and the Red Sox, beat both of them once, and came close to winning each series. This with a the smallest payroll in the major leagues, with a bunch of rookies. The idea that we could even make it a contest is frankly astonishing, and we really are watching a pretty amazing group of young players. The way Josh Johnson stuck to the task after a couple of mistake pitches today, and rebounded to shut down one of the best teams in baseball over 7 innings is enormously encouraging. He has struggled with his location early on in his last few starts, yet has fought back and worked through the problems like a 10 year vet. We've seen a lot of very talented young pitchers blow up in similar situations over the past few years, and in terms of mental approach Johnson is ahead of where they all were at the same career point. Really folks, we're so lucky. The chances of getting a group of young players this good this quickly is a once in a decade (or two) type of thing. Go look up the stats of guys like Derek Lee in their first year, and go compare Todd Dunwoody to Jeremy Hermida if you need a reminder. Derek Lee and co ended up winning a world series, and we're way ahead of them already. This team is wearing out. They are running out of gas. MUST-REACH-ALL-STAR-BREAK-BEFORE-ITS-TOO-LATE We lost 2 out of 3 against the Red Sox, thats all. Did Josh Johnson look like he was running out of gas?

Pinto is pitching well in AAA, so i'm not sure how much more ready he needs to be to justify as not being rushed. I think Sanchez though needs more time in the minors, but that seems to be a minority opinion around here.