BafflingBeerman

Join us next week for a brand new show on VHI: Fredi in Bullpen of Love. No matter his decision, it is wrong! Tough, heartbreaking loss. And I think we will need to use the BP again tomorrow. Unless Graham is 100% lights out, he will probably pitch 5, maybe 6 innings.

Wonder if tonight was the straw that broke the camel's back. Also, Hopper wasn't used at all since he's been called up, correct?

Yes, I always expected things to catch up with us. The series with the Nats, we were very lucky. Now we are falling, which is to be expected a bit, but we are falling faster than what I would like. Right now, we are bleeding badly.

I do have to scratch my head about using 3 pitchers to get 3 outs in a one run game. You are just looking for trouble with a new pitcher having to come in and warm up.

Well, he is 2 for 3 tonight, maybe this thread lit a fire under his...

I am not sure I like how some of our players are already nicked up this early in the season and are trying or tired to play through it with varying results. Miller, possibly Lindstrom, Hanley. I'd rather them sit a day or rest until they are 100%. I get the competitive spirit, but at times, it seems like "gutting it out" has cost this team a win. And it extends back to last year too.

Fredi's fault? Not Lindstrom's? Boy, that is some rot. Did Fredi tell Lindstrom to set every batter up with a nice 2-0 count? No - I think not. You don't wreck your NEW closer's already shaky confidence by taking him out just because he's dropped two runs and loaded the bases. You give him the chance to CLOSE the inning. That why he's the closer. He needs to learn HOW to close, and to do that, you give him CLOSE opportunities. Sheesh. How to close? How about go out there and get three outs. You also don't want to jeopardize your season by trying to coddle one of your relievers. There's nothing written in stone that says Matt Lindstrom MUST be our closer this season, and certainly not right away. I absolutely would like to see him win the job, but I'm not willing to lose games in order to "build up his confidence". He's a 29 year-old major league pitcher, if he doesn't have confidence go with someone else. This isn't some baby-faced rookie. After a double, a single, and two walks, he's out. Sure it's Lindstrom's fault. He stunk. So Fredi needs to pull him, simple as that. Throw him back out there next game. We're wasting that hot start. My thoughts as well. I am not opposed to keeping in your closer after he's given up two runs in a 3-0 game. But Lindstrom was wild and the bases were loaded. His confidence is shaky at that point. You leave him in and he gets the last out, good, but he already isn't on sure footing, mentally. You leave him in, and something like what happened last night happens, what little confidence he had, it is now lost. It would be different if it was 3-2 and no one on or someone on first. But you left your already wild reliever in the worst possible situations? Bad decision.

Any time your closer comes in and gives up 7 runs while being handed a 3 run lead, something went horribly wrong. Again, some of the blame has to go to Fredi for keeping him in there that long. After having the bases loaded with 2 runs in, that's when he should have been pulled. Or after the grand slam, at least. It wasn't like Lindstrom threw one bad pitch. I think the same "lesson" would have been learned if he left with the bases loaded and still up 3-2, then afterwards.

Were leeches unavailable?

JJ for the Win According to most of the posters Lindy is a Scrub an will end up choking when he's about to close it out I was going to say that JJ would set up the ending of the fight such that Lindstrom can easily take it, but Lindstrom gets distracted by a pretty girl ringside and takes himself out. That or Logan Kensing runs down and knock out Lindy himself.

oh well, tomorrow's another day, another fight! Is that comic from the UVA newspaper?

Worst part about our loss is now i cant watch mlbn or baseball tonight. I get so mad when we lose and cant bare to re live it. I'm the same way. I go into media blackout mode.

Fredi Gonzalez after the game "It's early in the season, we need to give Matty a chance, it happens. We are still early in the season, gotta give Matty and opportunity" last thing Fredi said "Matt Lindstrom is our guy" OH NO MEMORIES OF REX GROSSMAN WELL F*CK YOU FREDI, I MAY BE OVERREACTING, BUT I CAN TELL A WILD PITCHER WHEN I SEE ONE, AND LINDY IS A WILD PITCHER! Sounds Julio-esque. Small sample size and all, Lindstrom hasn't impressed me, but I am not going to storm his castle with a pitchfork quite yet. We have some great pitchers waiting in the wings. I just hope Fredi keeps that in mind and doesn't stick with Lindstrom if he continues to struggle. It is early, but wins in April and May still count in August and September.

I hope Hanley is benched tomorrow, and lindstrom is demoted. Time to go Manny Acta Is it too early (and/or too kneejerk) to send a message like that? I don't see it happening, because I don't remember Uggla being benched after his mistakes last year on the basepaths and we all know our original closers typically take a lot of lumps in the first few months before a change is made.

Hey, at least we scored in the first inning!

Karma's a, well, you know. Not ready to throw Lindstrom under the bus yet, it is more on Fredi, but the team's morale must be at an all-time low.

There has only been one fire sale in franchise history and that was before the current ownership. I hate how after the 2005 season it was called a "market correction", both were fire sales. Homerism clouds your train of thought. They called up the entire minor league roster in 2006, and in 1998 they did the same thing, trading all the stars for more and more and more prospects. I say what Spike says, with the current ownership, Fire Sales will never end. Its a never ending cycle of trading away players once they ask for the big money. I see us saving some players in the future and handing them big contracts, but this team will never become that team that has the same roster for 5+ years (meaning a core of players). Yes, I'M the one clouded by homerism. How many more times did the 04-05 team have to choke before they were given enough chances? Would another 2 years of September disappointment been OK? Maybe another 4 years of collapses before we're allowed to make a change? Please, if you are going to argue "market correction" vs "fire sale", how about you learn what a fire sale is? And weren't we already paying large salaries for most of the players we traded, and who weren't exactly living up to that expectation? Lowell is a good example, unfortunately. It wasn't like these guys were suddenly about to make good money, we were already paying them a fair amount, but the team wasn't performing. If ownership had made those moves in two consecutive off-seasons, I doubt people would call it a firesale. Unfortunately, the stars aligned and the front office decided that the best players were available then and the team needed a drastic shakeup. The team was performing below expectations. It is no surprise that McKeon was soon shown the door after, too.

I believe it was a day game and it was broadcast on ESPN.

I remember when Alex Gonzalez got into a fight with the Phillies in one of the first series following 2003. Alex sorta slapped at the glove of the catcher and it snowballed from there.

If our minor league pitching is really start to thin a little, perhaps we should go after a veteran pitcher, especially if Miller continues to struggle once he is off the DL, for this season and next. That way, we have a reliable, if not average, pitcher in our rotation, and we wouldn't be replacing a youngish pitcher with another youngish pitcher. Basically, you would have a spot filled automatically with a proven veteran (at a reasonable cost) coming out of spring training, so you wouldn't be looking at the minor leagues to fill that spot and you can let the waters quiet a little down there. And you would give someone like Andrew Miller some more time to develop. Of course, if there is an injury to a SP, then you will naturally look minor league way, so it really doesn't solve anything like the case we are talking about here.

I never took anything in Loria's ownership as a fire sale. I always knew that there we some players that were rising while on our team that we couldn't afford to pay, so we needed to get something for them before they fled. Some teams might try to hold onto those types of players, only to see them sign somewhere else and be left holding that bag. So that or that there was some alternative waiting in the wings that we could get a better per dollar value out of, hence, no need to overpay for the current player. The fact that Loria kept the 2003 championship team pretty much intact for 2 seasons, but attendance didn't improve that dramatically (it did rise though) and they didn't make the playoffs meant a change would be coming. I think you would see the same from any other team that had high expectations two years running that may have not been in a market that could support those expectations indefinitely (i.e. Mets, Yankees, Red Sox). With Huizenga though, well, we all knew about that, even before the series was over. That was a pure cost cutting, let's get whoever is marginally good, situation. Unfortunately, with that in our past, we will have this stigmata of moves being purely "cost cutting" when they involved a big named player for us.

Just don't let your wife or girlfriend answer the door if he is delivering your pizza.

So I read (online) in the Sun-Sentinel that Ricky is aware of his slow start and his remarks seem to indicate he will be taking a proactive approach in trying to solve that problem. That is encouraging, because he could have easily said "it is what it is" and think that it will sort itself out in the end. Which I believe would solve nothing. Or at least solve it slowly.

This is why I hate off-days after a bad series. I am eager to see them play again and see them win. I am hoping for 2 out of 3, praying for a sweep.

BTW, let's not single out Nolasco. Almost the entire pitching staff has been highly disappointing. Especially JJ's start against the Mets! Yeah because one good start is really indicative of how the staff is doing altogether. I'm not saying they can't do better. They can, and that is why I am disappointed. Yeah, they won 11 games, but the outcomes of some of those games don't tell the whole story. Do you really believe that our starters are pitching as well as they can? If not, you know where I am coming from. If so, you are wrong. I know I made the comment about JJ as if to rival your opinions but I am in agreement that our staff can perform much better. Both JJ and Volstad have won a couple of games and have sub-3 ERA's however Volstad has struggled both times against the Nats and likewise JJ got battered for 6 against them last time out, although he did settle down and finish strongly. My analysis of this is that JJ began the season with 2 outstanding games and so the law of averages suggests even aces get hit hard every now and again. And regarding Volstad, even when he was successful last year, he often got into trouble, but one of his advantages is being able to limit the damage, so his start to this season is easily comparible with last year - good results, achieved difficultly. Nolasco has not had a good start yet and we all know he can pitch 10x better. We need to give him another couple of starts where he performs poorly before setting off the alarm bells. Anibal has had 3 decent starts and despite being quite hittable early on, I am greatly encouraged by his performances. Finally Andrew Miller ??? Question marks sum him up perfectly. He has the ability but has not shown much of it at the Major League level and his 1 start this year was bad. The injury may have been playing a part so some patience is needed before fully evaluating him once he gets a few more starts in. All in all, its been a mixed bag for our rotation so far, but look around the league and you will see many other examples of pitchers who are struggling early on who normally dominate. I agree with you. Our rotation, while it has not been stellar, save for JJ's Mets game, has been serviceable, save for the last pass through. I hope the trend of giving up runs early ends, and it is only a momentary blip. In my opinion, they are still young, which leads to a bit of inconsistency. They all have a boatload of potential, and some, like JJ, harvest that potential more often than not. But there is still a learning curve. For instance, if slow starts are going to be a career trend for Ricky, that is something he is going to need to work on.