On an ugly loss, Ray's run, Ray's disaster, Vlad's moment, Judge's power, a late hook, dominance from Pearson, offensive woes, grim hopes, Jays vs. Baltimore, scoreboard watching, and more!
Pulled up the statcast for all the balls called in the game. Six, and possibly seven, all to Robbie Ray that ought to have been called strikes. Three of them came in the 6th. One to DJ might seem inconsequential, except he makes the adjustment and puts it a little higher to Stanton...still a ball instead of strike three. The Yanks had exactly one like this each.
Despite the result I can't cast any serious doubt on not pulling Robbie Ray. Hudson was awful, and his terrible strike zone affected far too much of this game. In the walk to Stanton that followed he threw a 2-2 slider that ought to have been called strike three also. He'd been calling a low zone all game and then suddenly a pitch that actually caught the zone is a ball. You add that to the terrible call on Rizzo's AB and this inning never happens.
While it certainly happened to the Yankees too we also had other ABs where early strikes that were 4 to 6 inches outside put Jays hitters behind and left us right where Kluber wanted us. A pitcher working us away with 6 inches of extra strike zone to work with.
I can't hang it all on Hudson of course. We got plenty of cookies we didn't hit too, but coupled with terrible umpiring in the Twins series I do get incensed about the outsized roles some umpires have had in mucking up game outcomes.
And also in the Rays series last week! Bad umpiring has definitely been noticeable in a way lately that it just wasn't all season. Maybe that's a factor of the stakes being so high and every pitch being so important, maybe it's something else, but I'm probably more ready for robot umps right now than I've ever been!
Oddly enough I'm still divided on the robot umps. I keep thinking that if the players can have performance metrics applied to them, then why not the umpires? Young guys with excellent eyes that call balls and strikes well should be preferentially put behind the plate, especially in important games and series'.
And to be fair I only say younger because the metrics show that many of the younger umpires call balls and strikes better. I'm not saying fire older umpires or anything, but maybe they shouldn't be behind the plate, and yes, at a certain point, maybe they should be consulting or training umpires rather than calling games.
Good recap of a very painful evening! I think you nailed the Ray situation. It is not hindsight to have wanted him out before facing the Yankee sluggers a third time. Ironically I feel like Ray having a Cy Young season actually hurt the team in this situation in the sense that he mistakenly had an extended leash in a must win game. I think almost any other starter with those numbers 3rd time through the order would have been pulled after the Rizzo homer (especially considering Judge had one moonshot already). The way Pearson was throwing (this IS for sure hindsight) they had him, Richards and presumably Mayza and Romano for 11 outs, so I think the bullpen was in decent shape to finish that game. I don’t think these decisions last night were especially egregious but they do point to an overall theme I’ve felt this season where the team isn’t optimizing their chances to win like they could be. I hate to always bring up the Rays but you see the way they manage that team and it doesn’t seem like a fluke how often they win. Whether its bullpen management or lineup construction, they’re giving themselves the best chance to win every game using the incredible amount of data available. It feels like the Jays have dipped their toes into this management style with shifting differently with 2 strikes, 4 man outfields, etc but still aren’t fully committed. Overall I would love to see the Jays fully commit to trusting the numbers and I’ll live with the results
You make a lot of good points, because the Jays definitely feel like they're not where the Rays are with that stuff. That said, I don't think Tampa is quite as great as their reputation among Jays fans suggests, so I think we need to be careful getting TOO overly impressed by them. Especially since some of their labour practices are just so bad for the game. Like, if they weren't an absurd 18-1 against Baltimore this year the AL East would be a whole lot closer -- though credit to them for getting it done against a team they should beat.
As for the bullpen, I think people would have rightly criticized going to Pearson in the seventh in a crucial tie game if they had used Richards in the eighth. The ideal guy to have gone to would have been Cimber, seeing as he's a right-hander who keeps the ball in the ballpark, but I guess he wasn't available after pitching on a back-to-back. Maybe he should have been, but that to me points to the fact that it's really more on bullpen construction than decision-making. He pitched Tuesday in a tie game because the stakes were too high to turn to someone less reliable. Just one more reliable arm could have made the difference back there, and maybe we're finding out it's Pearson, but it's coming a little too late. Just too many bullpen solutions that didn't work all year -- Yates, Chatwood, Dolis, Phelps, Hand, Soria. Really hard to give your team the best chance to win when you're so thin back there, and I think that's the lesson of this season more than anything.
I definitely agree, the bullpen construction/injuries have had a much bigger impact on the season than the management of the bullpen (but also please can we not treat 1-2 run deficits like we’re down 7?). And I’m definitely not a fan of some of the Rays labour practices. But I am a fan of something as simple for example as hey Yandy Diaz has great numbers against this starter, he’s gonna lead off and get as many at bats as possible. The concrete 1-5 batting order again is nothing egregious, but I do wonder in 5 years are we gonna look back and laugh at how outdated lineup construction was. Last point on Ray would be yes Pearson in a tie game in the 7th doesn’t sound ideal, but going by the numbers its still a heck of a lot better than Ray facing Judge again. I guess I just wish the data won out more often when trying to balance gut feel vs data. Not an easy job! Anyways, appreciate having a place to share my thoughts and hope you’re able to still have some exciting posts on the weekend!
When Kevin Cash pulled Blake Snell in Game 6 of the world series last year, I wondered to myself -- What would feel worse? -- pulling your starter and then losing, or letting him pitch and then losing. I thought at the time that 'letting and losing' would feel worse. Now I know that I was right about that -- at least about my feelings.
Yeah... it was pretty awful for Ray's season, and the Jays', to potentially go out that way. Thankfully the Orioles gave them a life line! But it ain't much.
Pulled up the statcast for all the balls called in the game. Six, and possibly seven, all to Robbie Ray that ought to have been called strikes. Three of them came in the 6th. One to DJ might seem inconsequential, except he makes the adjustment and puts it a little higher to Stanton...still a ball instead of strike three. The Yanks had exactly one like this each.
Ugh. That's brutal!
UmpScorcards thought differently though, for whatever that's worth: https://twitter.com/UmpScorecards/status/1443946693955751945
Despite the result I can't cast any serious doubt on not pulling Robbie Ray. Hudson was awful, and his terrible strike zone affected far too much of this game. In the walk to Stanton that followed he threw a 2-2 slider that ought to have been called strike three also. He'd been calling a low zone all game and then suddenly a pitch that actually caught the zone is a ball. You add that to the terrible call on Rizzo's AB and this inning never happens.
While it certainly happened to the Yankees too we also had other ABs where early strikes that were 4 to 6 inches outside put Jays hitters behind and left us right where Kluber wanted us. A pitcher working us away with 6 inches of extra strike zone to work with.
I can't hang it all on Hudson of course. We got plenty of cookies we didn't hit too, but coupled with terrible umpiring in the Twins series I do get incensed about the outsized roles some umpires have had in mucking up game outcomes.
And also in the Rays series last week! Bad umpiring has definitely been noticeable in a way lately that it just wasn't all season. Maybe that's a factor of the stakes being so high and every pitch being so important, maybe it's something else, but I'm probably more ready for robot umps right now than I've ever been!
Oddly enough I'm still divided on the robot umps. I keep thinking that if the players can have performance metrics applied to them, then why not the umpires? Young guys with excellent eyes that call balls and strikes well should be preferentially put behind the plate, especially in important games and series'.
Someone was arguing for an age cut-off the other day -- after the Joe West debacle -- and I can definitely get behind that!
And to be fair I only say younger because the metrics show that many of the younger umpires call balls and strikes better. I'm not saying fire older umpires or anything, but maybe they shouldn't be behind the plate, and yes, at a certain point, maybe they should be consulting or training umpires rather than calling games.
Good recap of a very painful evening! I think you nailed the Ray situation. It is not hindsight to have wanted him out before facing the Yankee sluggers a third time. Ironically I feel like Ray having a Cy Young season actually hurt the team in this situation in the sense that he mistakenly had an extended leash in a must win game. I think almost any other starter with those numbers 3rd time through the order would have been pulled after the Rizzo homer (especially considering Judge had one moonshot already). The way Pearson was throwing (this IS for sure hindsight) they had him, Richards and presumably Mayza and Romano for 11 outs, so I think the bullpen was in decent shape to finish that game. I don’t think these decisions last night were especially egregious but they do point to an overall theme I’ve felt this season where the team isn’t optimizing their chances to win like they could be. I hate to always bring up the Rays but you see the way they manage that team and it doesn’t seem like a fluke how often they win. Whether its bullpen management or lineup construction, they’re giving themselves the best chance to win every game using the incredible amount of data available. It feels like the Jays have dipped their toes into this management style with shifting differently with 2 strikes, 4 man outfields, etc but still aren’t fully committed. Overall I would love to see the Jays fully commit to trusting the numbers and I’ll live with the results
You make a lot of good points, because the Jays definitely feel like they're not where the Rays are with that stuff. That said, I don't think Tampa is quite as great as their reputation among Jays fans suggests, so I think we need to be careful getting TOO overly impressed by them. Especially since some of their labour practices are just so bad for the game. Like, if they weren't an absurd 18-1 against Baltimore this year the AL East would be a whole lot closer -- though credit to them for getting it done against a team they should beat.
As for the bullpen, I think people would have rightly criticized going to Pearson in the seventh in a crucial tie game if they had used Richards in the eighth. The ideal guy to have gone to would have been Cimber, seeing as he's a right-hander who keeps the ball in the ballpark, but I guess he wasn't available after pitching on a back-to-back. Maybe he should have been, but that to me points to the fact that it's really more on bullpen construction than decision-making. He pitched Tuesday in a tie game because the stakes were too high to turn to someone less reliable. Just one more reliable arm could have made the difference back there, and maybe we're finding out it's Pearson, but it's coming a little too late. Just too many bullpen solutions that didn't work all year -- Yates, Chatwood, Dolis, Phelps, Hand, Soria. Really hard to give your team the best chance to win when you're so thin back there, and I think that's the lesson of this season more than anything.
I definitely agree, the bullpen construction/injuries have had a much bigger impact on the season than the management of the bullpen (but also please can we not treat 1-2 run deficits like we’re down 7?). And I’m definitely not a fan of some of the Rays labour practices. But I am a fan of something as simple for example as hey Yandy Diaz has great numbers against this starter, he’s gonna lead off and get as many at bats as possible. The concrete 1-5 batting order again is nothing egregious, but I do wonder in 5 years are we gonna look back and laugh at how outdated lineup construction was. Last point on Ray would be yes Pearson in a tie game in the 7th doesn’t sound ideal, but going by the numbers its still a heck of a lot better than Ray facing Judge again. I guess I just wish the data won out more often when trying to balance gut feel vs data. Not an easy job! Anyways, appreciate having a place to share my thoughts and hope you’re able to still have some exciting posts on the weekend!
When Kevin Cash pulled Blake Snell in Game 6 of the world series last year, I wondered to myself -- What would feel worse? -- pulling your starter and then losing, or letting him pitch and then losing. I thought at the time that 'letting and losing' would feel worse. Now I know that I was right about that -- at least about my feelings.
Yeah... it was pretty awful for Ray's season, and the Jays', to potentially go out that way. Thankfully the Orioles gave them a life line! But it ain't much.