19 New York Mets (Wheeler) @ Philadelphia Phillies (Nola)

andyb 2019-08-31 13:58:22 UTC #121

Hard to pin all this on bullpen management. Step back and right now our 8-man bullpen has 2 reliable pitchers in it - Neris and Alvarez. Alvarez is used a lot and is mostly a 1-inning pitcher. Now he only threw 5 pitches yesterday so maybe you get 4 or 5 outs from him, but there is really no guarantee of that and he might be needed today.

The new guys (Morin, Hughes, Parker) are probably the best we have after our top 2. One needs more than 2 pitchers so Kapler needs to use them. It is not his fault that Morin is one of his high leverage guys. That was actually the proper choice even if Morin is more suited to be the 6th or 7th man in a bullpen. It is what we have.

Philsmania 2019-08-31 14:16:24 UTC #122

Run support for him has been lacking, especially of late. In 13 of his 29 starts (I included last night since four of the Phillies' runs came in proverbial garbage-time), the Phillies have scored three or fewer runs. If the Phillies' offense wasn't so urine-poor, he would be zeroing in on 20 wins now. Reminds me of Schilling in the '90's and Hamels post-2011. So many much-deserved wins they didn't get.

zambonir 2019-08-31 18:30:13 UTC #123

And if he had and Alvarez had given up a lead-off home run you'd be ripping him for that. And what evidence is there that Alvarez could thrive in a two-inning outing, or even four batters?

The pitching is what it is. I also truly don't understand why we wouldn't want the manager to make his decisions based on all the available data, much of which we don't have (because it's never just about lefty/righty). If the numbers said one guy has an 80% chance of success and another guy has just a 60% chance wouldn't you make the first choice? That the 20% scenario could still happen doesn't change that. For sure you still want a manager to decide in the moment and occasionally go with a hunch or something about the situation, but you'll get burned doing that too.