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Last night, the Pirates tied the game in the ninth against Billy Wagner, with help from a throwing error by 
Jose Reyes.
Wagner, talking to reporters after the game, said:
“It’s gonna happen sometimes…At least I was able to keep the game in line for us to win, and that’s all that matters.”
…correct…that is all that matters…no worries, billy…
…by the way, the one run he allowed was unearned, so, technically, he still has a 12–inning scoreless streak going, during which he has also struck out 12 batters…
Not to be picky, but it’s not a scoreless streak if someone scored ;)
He still has not given up an “earned” run, but he has been scored on :)
Beat me to it.
Regardless, Wagner has been the rock that we need him to be this year. He’s still gonna have his bad days, but man is it fun when he’s locked in.
He still has a 0.00 ERA. Thats all that matters.
Thank you for pointing that out Old Backstop…geez…
BTW, the “geez” was directed at MC…not at you….
Picky…picky…picky! LOL. :0)
This actually reminded me of what my little brother said when he was around six and playing in-town soccer. He was on a terrible team who lost most of the time, but they ended up somehow beating the top team that at that point had not lost a game. Afterward, he said, “We beat the undefeated team! Now we’re the undefeated team!”
Just made me smile.
The thing that worries me is Willie is mismanaging this bulpen. He is wearing these pitchers out. We should not need 7 pitchers every night to get a win. I understand you have lefty and righty specialists for certain situations but we only have a limited number of guys and having two throw a combined 7 pitches is not gonna cut it come September.
I think that Willie handled the bullpen perfectly last night. What else could he do?
So you think using 7 plus pitchers every night is going to make for a well rested bulpen come September? I would not of pinch hit for Pedro last night. There were two outs the chances Easley was going to start a rally was remote. Let him go back out and start the inning. He threw 3 pitches.
I sure hope we don’t go 11 innings every night.
for last night it was the right thing to do. You obviously cant do it every day, but after a rain out, and with a travel off day coming up. It was the way to go.
If the game was tied earlier on, you could talk about trying to save guy by having pitchers throw 2 innings at a time, but they had a lead to protect.
It was one of Willie’s best games that I can recall, imo.
With a 2 run lead, what did you want him to do?
He tried to let Santana finish the 6th, but couldn’t so he brought in Feliciano. He was pinch hit for, so now it is the top of the 7th with a 2 run lead. He brought in Heilman to start the inning and he couldn’t finish it, so Sho came in and finished the inning without giving up any runs. Then Sanchez pitched the 8th and Wagner pitched the 9th. You’d like the game to be over at that point, but it happened to go into extras. Wagner pitched another inning and then somebody else had to come in, and it was Sosa.
I see no problems. If you want to nitpick, be like everybody else and complain that Heilman was pitching again.
I would not of pinch hit for Feliciano and let him come out to start the 7th. Not like the Pirates are killing the ball and he couldn’t have done worse than Heilman.
I don’t think you let a relief pitcher hit in a 2 run game. Especially when the team was rained out on Monday and is off on Thursday.
Could he have done worse than Easley did? could he have made more than 1 out like Easley did?
I think the right move, at least to win that one game, probably would have been to double-switch Delgado out for Anderson, which would have allowed Feliciano to pitch the 7th. If there is one aspect of Willie’s bullpen managing that’s particularly puzzling, it’s his underuse of Feliciano — he doesn’t seem to trust him against righties, even though he’s solid against righties (though much better against lefties). He’s had a lot of one-or-two-batter appearances.
That said, Willie’s obviously reluctant to switch Delgado out of games at this point because he wants to get his bat going. At this point, that’s probably the right long-term strategy — I’ll count myself among the people who wanted to DFA Chavez and Valentin early in 2006, but Willie stuck with them and they improved significantly, so it’s probably best to let Delgado see if he can snap himself out of this. But at a certain point, if Delgado doesn’t improve, there has to be a willingness to switch him out of games when the situation calls for it.
Could he have done worse? No. But Easley had a much better chance of getting on base and scoring on a Reyes double.
We are going to have to disagree on this one. It sounds like you have a chip on your shoulder and want to attack Willie. When your starter only goes 5.2 and the game goes 11 innings, 7 pitchers is common.
No chip and until about two weeks ago I was the biggest Willie supporter he had. Just I am at a loss as to why willie’s go to guy seems to be Heilman. And when he started to give the win away I will admit some unkind words did go Willies way. Everything last night worked out fine and I understand an extra inning game all bets are off but we are just wearing these guys out and especially Heilman.
Jim,
I’m certainly glad you are not managing the bullpen. Its a 2 run game…Feliciano threw 3 pitches..so..you’d think hes good for today too.. Schoe shouldn’t have pitched in a perfect world, and you never know Schoe or Heilman’s status for today. Sanchez pitched the eigth as he should…Wagner had to go till the 10th and Sosa pitched the 11th..
i mean…If Easley comes up in that situation and knocks a homer, or as someone mentioned and gets a double and then gets knocked in by Reyes, its another run. You go for the kill, something the mets haven’t done, but you have to try for extra runs late. That happens by pinch hitting for a RELIEF pitcher no less.
Wow
I disagree and think we are wearing these guys out. we used the same approach last year and they had no gas left in the tank come September. Actually Heilman is on pace to shatter his innings last year and he stinks so far. But I guess we shall see.
Jim,
Yes we are, but you have to remember the situation of the game, that they had a day off (finally) the day before and they get another day off tomorrow. Plus it appears Wise is coming back this weekend, which unfortunately or fortunately, depending how you see it, means Smith will go back to the minors and get normal work again.
You need to allow Heilman to work to get back to normal, or hope he can…PLUs if Heilman is your big worry, he didn’t work Sunday or Monday. He did get time off, and Willie can not give him the Sosa treatment and not use him for a week, he needs his work to get back to normal
What if you leave that pitcher in and we lose the game and then lose the division by one game. Anyone can play the what if game. Willie is damned either way. He did a good job last night based on how people pitched.
As for going to Heilman, I guess you could have used Smith there but you still would have used 7 pitchers and now today you may need Smith because of Wagner going 2 innings last night.
Heilman has to pitch to snap out of it. Willie is not the only one saying it. Peterson has said it. Ronnie, Keith, Mazzilli, and Reynolds have said it. If all these professionals are saying it, why blame Willie for using him? At least he’s using him early in games that if he does screw up, they still have time in the game to get it back.
Oh, and for dontstopbelieving, he did switch out Delgado for Anderson, just a couple innings later.
I think Heilman is super cool.
The only aspect of the Willie’s decidsion regarding the bullpen to me was whether or not to bring in Wagner in the eighth, and see if he could get 5 outs. With Sanchez struggling a little last night, I thought with the rest Billie has had this year that it would have been a good thought to bring in Wags for 5 outs and relieve Sanchez early
good point, compounded by the use of Wagner for a second inning. If he could pitch the 10th, why not the 8th?
eh, i disagree, I’d rather give my closer a chance to come into a clean inning and you need Sanchez to experience getting through that….its gonna happen
If your closer cant come into someone else’s jam then you dont have a closer…
I agree Wags should be able to come into that situation Sanchez created and get two outs…followed by a strong ninth. On the other hand I also agree Sanchez needs to be experience and I’m glad he got to against a a weak hitting Pirates team instead of a hard hitting lineup. Unfortunately, for me, I think even if Billie came in in the 8th i bet the Bucs get at least one. It worked out and Sanchez probably now has some added confidence. good work willie and these are Wins that we must get.
and you also need your eighth inning guy to be able to work out of a jam
Come on. You want to use Wagner for a five-out save in April against the Pirates? That’s ridiculous.
on the topic of closers an interesting story from atl today about smoltz who is currently on the dl:
“Smoltz willing to rejoin Braves’ bullpen”
That would be great for the Braves and bad for everyone else. The best part about the Braves for us right now is the terrible BP.
moving Smoltz to the bullpen is not great for the Braves – it’s actually a terrible situation for them. It significantly weakens them. By moving Smoltz to the bullpen they’ve lost easily 100+ quality innings from the starting rotation and those innings need to picked up by someone else and they don’t have anyone to pick up that slack.
with jurrjens pitching so well that could definately be true.
The braves most recent closer, Acosta, has been pitching well. Soriano is going to return sometime in the near future. I dont understand removing Smoltz from an already thin and injured rotation, but if they want to do that, go ahead, better for the Mets.
i’m just glad they have a lot of question marks.
Yeah but then they’d lose their 2nd best pitcher (I think, right now, Hudson is their #1). And with Glavine about to embark on a string of 5 and 6 inning games, it should be fun to watch their bullpen go ragged.
As for Wags, you really cannot be happier with his performance so far this season. Also, it is quite impressive to see a guy who for his whole career pitched out of the stretch go to the windup and succeed so quickly. Kudos.
Off topic on Heilman. Despite giving up a base hit and a walk triggering the boos. I was actually clapping for him and cheering him on when he got that pop out. That was good work for him eventhough he shouldn’t put himself into that position. I thought the Shea faithful should have cheered a little for him since he didn’t give up any runs and got that big out before Feliciano closed the dea.
Heilman is going to have to keep pitching to get him out of this funk. It’s no different that a basketball player in a shooting slump. The only way the ball is going to go in is if you keep shooting it. The only way Heilman is going to start striking guys out again is if he pitches.