moonslav59

We might just hold onto Holt for one more year so he can be the 4th Of;er. We might give Lin that role. We might sign JD Martinez to be our new clean-up hitter/DH/4th OF'er. We might give Swihart a shot at a utility role that includes LF. We may do two of the above and hope we cover it enough. I agree, we won;t spend much on a 4th OF'er.

I'm not taking it for granted. It's not a slam dunk choice. Sale has been showing fragility that could very well be tied to fatigue issues. 8 innings and 111 pitches was not needed to improve our odds of winning the division at all. I'm surprised so many posters seem to be 100% dismissive of any concern of burning Sale out just in time for the playoffs. Look, I get the argument about winning the division comes first, but really, how much did keeping Sale in 1 or 2 more innings really improve those odds? To lower Sale's chances of being strong for the playoffs to gain maybe a .0001 better chance at winning the division is not "slam dunk".

lol! Now, we have "fire and desire!"

Well, you responded to my response about him pitching 8 innings to get to 300. I even ended the post with "3 freakin; hundred!" Personally, I wouldn't have even started him last night. I'd have spread out his last 2 starts by taking away one of his last 3 starts. I certainly would have yanked him after 5 or 6. & was pushing it. 8 was way wrong. I'm not worried injury, per se, but he has a long history of struggling in September. It may or may not be related to fatigue or a lack of endurance/stamina, but certainly it could be. The fact that sale was lights out over his first 20 starts, then had bad starts in 5 of 9 starts. That concerns me and should concern everyone. Is that concern enough to add to the risk of not winning the division? Maybe- maybe not. Yanking him after 5 or 6 or 7 last night had virtually no affect on the odds of winning the division. The only possible odds it affected are Sale fatiguing or burning out odds. Wrong choice. Obvious, to me.

I get your point, too, but to me, if the reason was "300" it's slam dunk wrong.

Something to watch, if we're talking 5 or 6 slot, but the 20 year old has 28 HRs this year!

You're missing the point. It's the managers job to make the call. Sure, get some input in a 1-0 game to see if your starter stqill has some juice left, but this game was over, and we risked burning out our ace, who had struggled in 5 of his previous 9 starts (24 ER in 25 IP) for what? 3 freakin hundred!

Worst reason of all.

Very easy to let a 3 game lead slip through 10 games. Very easy to win by 5 or 6, too. Yes, we can and could still lose the lead. Resting sale is a risk. I never said otherwise. Burning Sale out is a risk, too. It's weighing one risk/reward vs the other. IMO, it's not a slam dunk choice.

I never said there was zero chance of blowing the lead. I think the odds are about 8-10% now of not winning the division. How much do you think Sale pitching 2 more games out our 10 left instead of 1 affects those odds? (Just curious) I said improve the long run odds while sacrificing a little off the div winner odds.

There are countless examples of teams resting starters over the last 10-15 days of the season and going on to win it all. You can concentrate on worst case scenarios. I'm concentrating on improving our odds of winning a ring. Yes, I might sacrifice some tiny odds factor of us somehow blowing a 3 game lead in order to increase the odds of Sale being sharper for the playoffs and thereby (hopefully) improving our odds of bringing home a championship. Either way, it's not a slam dunk right or wrong choice here.

I don't want Devers below 6, so no bottom third. I agree with the first 4, but I'm okay with our HR leader (HRam) up 4th or 5th. Next year, I see Pedey dropping to 5 or 6- maybe 7. 1) Bogey 2) Betts 3) Beni 4) New guy 5) Devers, HRam or Pedey

Yes, and if you take the vacation, then there's an 11% chance your house blows up.

Also, if you triple Devers's OWAR to match Betts' games played, he'd be the leader at 3.9. Nunez would be second at over 3.6. Secondly, we have HRam (-0.1) and Moreland at 0.8 far away ahead of the anyone else batting 4th or 5th: PAs 4 + 5 slot hitters 457 HRam 392 Moreland 134 Beni 81 Young 67 Betts 66 Devers

Here are the numbers again... Here is Sale's record on various days rest: 3 days 5.40/ 1.80 4 days 3.10/ 1.08 5 days 3.25/ 1.03 6 or more days 1.88/ 0.98

Ding-ding-DING! It's... Chris Freakin' Sale!

Actually, I wanted to push him back a day or two starting 1 or 2 starts back, but Yes, I wanted him to be pushed back 1 game (which would have been 2 days). Then, we line him up better for game one of the playoffs. Someone says now that he has 300 K's we don't have to start him again. Really? Is giving him 2 extra days now and then 11 days off is worse than no extra rest now and 13 days later? Sale will get 1 more start. Pitching him last night gave us the choice to use him twice, if needed to win the division. Using him the last day of the season would not allow us to start him game 1. It's not a biggie, because he can still start 2 games in the first series (game 2 and 5). However, if we really wanted to set him up for game 1, we'd have given him last night off, 1-2 extra days before his next start and set him up for game 1 with 1-2 extra days off again. We'd lose one start but (hopefully) stregthen Sale's chances of being dominating in all of his next starts, including the one regular season start remaining in this scenario. It's not a dumb idea. It was not a non issue. There's strong reasons on both sides of the decision made. Now, there is little choice left but to start Sale once or twice and how much time it too much time before a playoff game.

There's like 18 pitchers in the pen now.

I "can see" why they started him, but why not use a game like that to give him even more rest than just tomorrow off day pushing his next start back a day? I know the O's can score a lot quickly, but have some faith in our pen. It's been very good all year.

Barnes has done better recently and is making a strong case for inclusion. I'd take Lin firstm then Marrero over Holt, but if it's up to JF, it will be Holt. If HRam is healthy, Travis might be out or on the bubble. Young has done very well as a PH'er, but maybe we want a PR'er more (Davis)?

Nothing wrong with uncommon sense either.

There was no reason to keep him out there, even for the 7th inning, let alone the 8th.

Right now: last week.

He has two schedule, if you count game 162. If we skip that start, we've essentially given him 4 extra days rest all at once-- something I'd think would have been better spread out- beginning with not pitching him last night. (actually, I suggested giving him an extra day or two his last starts, too, so he'd end up with just 1-2 extra days rest before Oct 5th's game 1..

24 ERs in 25 IP from 5 of his last 10 starts doesn't concern you at all? Do we want the Sale of the first 20 starts variety? Do we want the Sale from the last 10 starts variety? I know that nothing is for certain. We could have rested him 1-2 days extra for his last 10 starts and still see him get lit up game 1 on October 5th, but with his long history of fading late, I'm going to go with giving him some added rest and figure it should help.