Pointless Pinch-hitters?

[pudge]

Just wondering what folks on here think about some of the pinch-hitting decisions from last night. I know "platooning" is the "safe" thing for a manager to do, but I really think it gets over-used. Last night:

1) Lefty Embree on the mound with the bases loaded, Daubach gets pulled for Konerko, who we all know grounded into the DP. Daubach has been smoking the ball as of late, I personally hope he stays in the lineup full time. But anyway, I think every diehard Sox fan had a bad feeling when Konerko stepped up there. Why not let Daubach hit? (Because if Daubach grounds into a DP, then everyone jumps on Manuel for not batting Konerko - maybe true, but a manager needs some balls. I'd defend the decision by saying Konerko sucks this year and Daubach has been hot.)

2) Rios comes in for Olivo with a man in scoring position. Why in the heck would anyone think that Rios would have a better shot at driving in the run than Olivo? Olivo had the big two-out RBI earlier in the game. I like the way Olivo approaches his at-bats - he looks at a lot of pitches and has a nice swing. His AVG hasn't showed it yet, but he's gonna be a decent hitter. At any rate, Rios steps up and swings at the first pitch: weak ground-out to second base. WEAK ground-out. I don't think I've seen Rios hit a ball hard all season, and I've watched a lot of games.

Thoughts?

[voodoochile]

Originally posted by pudge
Just wondering what folks on here think about some of the pinch-hitting decisions from last night. I know "platooning" is the "safe" thing for a manager to do, but I really think it gets over-used. Last night:

1) Lefty Embree on the mound with the bases loaded, Daubach gets pulled for Konerko, who we all know grounded into the DP. Daubach has been smoking the ball as of late, I personally hope he stays in the lineup full time. But anyway, I think every diehard Sox fan had a bad feeling when Konerko stepped up there. Why not let Daubach hit? (Because if Daubach grounds into a DP, then everyone jumps on Manuel for not batting Konerko - maybe true, but a manager needs some balls. I'd defend the decision by saying Konerko sucks this year and Daubach has been hot.)

2) Rios comes in for Olivo with a man in scoring position. Why in the heck would anyone think that Rios would have a better shot at driving in the run than Olivo? Olivo had the big two-out RBI earlier in the game. I like the way Olivo approaches his at-bats - he looks at a lot of pitches and has a nice swing. His AVG hasn't showed it yet, but he's gonna be a decent hitter. At any rate, Rios steps up and swings at the first pitch: weak ground-out to second base. WEAK ground-out. I don't think I've seen Rios hit a ball hard all season, and I've watched a lot of games.

Thoughts?

You hit the nail on the head. Most of it looks pointless or like it was taken from a cookbook (step1: view pitcher choice of opposing manager. step 2: PH with a batter who hits from the opposite side of the plate to "improve the matchup"). The lack of originality is stunning.

For example: Why not use Graffanino to PH instead of Paulie? He's clearly hitting better this year. Why not try a suicide squeeze? Heck, anyone with bat control might have done better than Paulie did. A squeeze would have scored the run and put runners at 2nd and 3rd with 1 away, or left the bases loaded with one out if the BoSox got the out at the plate. Then they would have been forced to pitch to Crede.

There is NO original thinking on this team. The stunningly simple way the BoSox got out of that 8th inning jam was prime example number 1 of why JM is over his head. Any number of things could have made that inning better and made the game a blowout. EL might have even been able to finish if they scored a few more runs.

[pudge]

One more thing to add - a few days ago, I heard Hawk talking about how Olivo is batting over 100 points higher against relief pitchers. That seems like a weird stat, but maybe another reason why there was no need to yank Olivo.

[Chisox353014]

When even my girlfriend who barely knows anything about baseball is saying stuff like "why are they putting Konerko in? He's just going to hit into a double play!", you know Jerry Manuel is an idiot.

[maurice]

Well, JM brought Konerko in to face Embree AGAIN. Fortunately, nobody was on base this time, so Konerko just fouled out instead of GIDP. And once again, JM let Valentin hit from the right side instead of PH Graffy. This fool will never learn.