- Posts: 922
- Joined: Wed Feb 05, 2014 6:55 am
Tampa Bay has a system that they stick with. It is well-known that starting pitchers overall struggle the third-time during the order. So they have set up their team to avoid that. (I am not sure what data they had with Snell with regard to that.) And they believe that kind of thinking got them to the World Series. Probably in the intensity of the play-offs that may be more of a truism.
However, Snell is their star pitcher and had dominated the Dodgers in two starts and it's not as if their relief pitchers had shut down the Dodgers. It was an example of rigid thinking getting in the way of the facts at hand; on the other hand, I'm sure they might counter once you start going with intuition or your gut where does it end? I think in this instance it was the wrong decision (not in hindsight but at the time), though. Dodgers showed no sign of figuring Snell over 2 starts and the primary reason that pitchers struggle the third-time is that the hitter has seen all their stuff and made adjustments on how to deal with it.
But Snell has the assortment of stuff that when he is on all his pitches the hitter still has problems locking in the third time around. And he was on. The other thing is fatigue but he had only thrown 72 pitches. Again, I dont know the figures on Snell once you get past a certain amount of pitches but I think whatever it was they needed to ride that horse as far it could go. So, a poor decision but Tampa Ray is a very-well managed team I think without huge stars and it's interesting to see how they went wrong.
However, Snell is their star pitcher and had dominated the Dodgers in two starts and it's not as if their relief pitchers had shut down the Dodgers. It was an example of rigid thinking getting in the way of the facts at hand; on the other hand, I'm sure they might counter once you start going with intuition or your gut where does it end? I think in this instance it was the wrong decision (not in hindsight but at the time), though. Dodgers showed no sign of figuring Snell over 2 starts and the primary reason that pitchers struggle the third-time is that the hitter has seen all their stuff and made adjustments on how to deal with it.
But Snell has the assortment of stuff that when he is on all his pitches the hitter still has problems locking in the third time around. And he was on. The other thing is fatigue but he had only thrown 72 pitches. Again, I dont know the figures on Snell once you get past a certain amount of pitches but I think whatever it was they needed to ride that horse as far it could go. So, a poor decision but Tampa Ray is a very-well managed team I think without huge stars and it's interesting to see how they went wrong.