Last night, Livan Hernandez pitched five and two-thirds innings and allowed three runs and seven hits while walking two and striking out five.
Manuel pulled Hernandez from the game in the sixth inning, after he let up two singles, with two outs.
“I think I could have pitched more, but I don’t make the decisions here,” Hernandez told reporters following the game. “I felt I could finish and go seven innings, easy. I only had one bad inning.”
…like i said, i think i would have left hernandez in the game to face Jack Wilson, up 5–3 at the time, even though the Pirates had the tying run on base, instead of going to Bobby Parnell so early, despite wilson hitting the ball well his previous two at bats… of course, parnell did the job… it’s just, i trust livan’s instincts enough to see him through, the third time against wilson, keeping parnell available for later in the game…
Totally agree, felt like that was a quick hook there. I think jerry needs to be careful about falling in-love too much with the bullpen and let our startes pitch seven when they are doing well and hopefully 8 and 9 sometimes as well. This would keep the pen fresh and will serve us well later. I don’t want a tired pen in September.
I agree Matt, would probably have let him finish the 6th and at least let him start the 7th. If he got in trouble, the pen was there.
That was a pretty rough game to watch last night. Heres to hoping we can get the next three!
I don’t agree, he was getting hit harder and harder as the game went along.
Jack Wilson hitting the ball well his previous 2 times up shows that it was the right time to take Livan out.
The problem I have with the situation is going to Parnell when Putz is a mess, Brian Stokes never gets into games and has been very good, I definitely wanted to go to him in that spot, but Livan had to come out.
as long as he was throwing well, and the pen is having some issues (OK< Putz), giving him 1 more batter made sense. Plus the 7th IIRC would have been an easier part of the order for him.
But, this is going to moderation anyway, so know one will see it!
Livan has a rubber arm. I agree that he should have at least finished the inning. However, I had a bigger problem with Manuel not letting Parnell pitch more than a 1/3 of an inning.
I agree, he should have stayed in. It’s not like Livan is some rookie who’s in his first start and has never worked out of a major league jam before! That decision alone probably cost the game. Why in the world would you bring in a guy from the pen who’s been lights out in the six inning with a 2 run lead?? With a veteran capable of throwing 120-130 pitches on the mound, who while not an ace by any stretch, Livan still knows how to get it done on the mound! It makes absolutely no sense especially with the way Putz has been pitching! Jerry needs to stop managing with Putz’s confidence in mind and start having people pitch to WIN! To me it’s simple, if a guy is struggling the way Putz is, theres no way he should be pitching the 8th in a tight game. Rediculous!
I was torn on that, on one hand I thought it was silly that we got Parnell up to start the 6th. On the other hand I think when we ended up putting him in was a big at bat and I am not sure I would have wanted Livan to face that batter. I mean with 2 men on 2 outs and the game is now 5-3 a hit there could have killed us in the game. So I had no problem using Parnell in that situation.
It was a tough call, but the game was too close and could have easily turned on that batter, so I agree with Jerry there.
I would have preferred we let Putz wait a day with this new mechanics before immediately dumping him in, and if we were going to ahve him do that I did not want him in that situation with Feleciano eliminating any breathing room for Putz, but pulling Livan I agree with last night.
Putz shouldn’t be pitching in close & late situations, at least until he works out the kinks. Parnell, stokes, feliciano (for the most part) have proven to be reliable commodities, so lets go with them until the big guy fixes whatever’s ailing him.
I think at some point you have to let your starter fail before getting right to the bullpen formula.
My motto would be give me six unless you are dead.
Looking at it short term, yes, I do believe probably Livan could have gone another inning and maybe we win that game then – and if the season comes down to one game as it has the last two years, that would be tough. BUT looking at it long term, at that moment I agreed and was relieved by Jerry taking Livan out. OK, he’s Livan and maybe he would have no problem after throwing over 130 pitches last outing, tossing 120 or so last night, but Livan has been really good lately and I also was not in favor of chancing it. Keeping Livan healthy and like the “old Livan” would probably win us more games than us winning one game last night and Livan getting hurt in the dog days of summer when we need him. Jerry has been doing a good job of resting his players when he can and felt it was necessary. I’ll remind everyone that I wanted Jerry and Omar fired, but right now, while they are doing well, I must say that I have agreed with a lot of Jerry’s decisions and even though they lost last night, I was hoping he’d pull Livan after I saw he was up to over 100 pitches and was glad when he did.
I think Jerry was willing to spend the bullpen last night in hopes that Johan can gives him 7 or 8 tonight. Sometimes you have to manage knowing whats on deck.
The team had a 5-0 lead slip to 5-3. Obviously you do not wan to let a game slip away. 8 out of 10 games, we probably hang on to the lead and win. I guess its just baseball