Baseball thread No. 7: Somebody slip the pinstripers a Mickey

In other words, the pussification of starting pitchers causes teams to lose games

 

Oh, and speaking of pitch counts and babying starters ...

The Braves' season may have turned around because of Kenshin Kawakami's 125th pitch last night: a strike three past pinch hitter Mark Loretta with the bases loaded to end the 7th inning. Got Clayton Kershaw out of the game with the score still 0-0. The Braves won it in the 10th, then went on to win the series in L.A. today, moving 4.5 games behind the slumping Phillies in the NL East.

Clutch, clutch pitch.

 

Buck,
And that from a guy who's had trouble getting through six innings on occasion this year.
Great job by KK on Saturday night.

 

Why is Bowden not up?

 

Right. Which makes it even more remarkable that Bobby trusted him to stay in to face Loretta.

Not that it's unusual for Bobby to trust his starters to get out of jams -- especially over that gawd-awful bullpen he's got -- but Kawakami hasn't given him much reason to do so.

 

eh, don't give up so fast. The Tigers and their stellar 23-33 road record come to town starting Monday.

 

Anybody know why the name Wandy -- as a boy's name -- has become somewhat prevalent in the Dominican Republic of late?

There have been <a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/player_search.cgi?search=wandy&sourceid=Mozilla-search">five professional baseball players named Wandy</a>, and all of them have been in this decade. Including, most prominently, the Astros pitcher Rodriguez.

Can't find anything via a Google search (most sites seem to presume it's a girl's name and the only thing I can find for boys are European references to "from the Vandals," which doesn't seem to match up with all these players from the Dominican.)

Figured somebody here might be more versed in Central American culture than I am ...

 

Oh, no. 125 pitches? He is ruined for life. Cox is destroying that poor guy.

 

Kawamaki's 34 years old. Nobody would argue that you can't push a 34-year-old to 125 pitches occasionally.

 

Anyone care to wager how long it will take Girardi to overmanage to a loss in the post-season?

 

That, and the decision to make a rookie the set-up man just because he throws hard. To be fair, though, Bard had been dominant for over a month before stinking it up this past week.