Monday, July 4, 2011

Is my frustration with Roenicke misplaced?

I attended today's game and my dad had to calm me down a couple times.  I wasn't booing Kameron Loe (I don't boo Brewers unless they blatantly show a lack of effort or are just outright terrible).  My frustration was with Ron Roenicke.  To my eye, he deserved hard questioning of his decision-making.  Why was Loe brought in AGAIN when Arizona had a slew of left-handed hitters due up?

Roenicke claims initially it was because Arizona had a bunch of right-handed bats on the bench.  Really?  They were going to pinch-hit for 3 or 4 hitters to "force" Roenicke to bring Loe in?  Ridiculous.  In the post-game press conference, we find that Braddock "has been dragging a bit" due to his recent workload.  Well, if he's just "dragging a little bit" that doesn't sound like "unavailable" to me.  He's a professional baseball player and I'm sorry, but even a little tired, Braddock is most certainly a better option vs LHB than Loe.  (Braddock for the year has an oppBA of .167 vs LHB...and Loe has an oppBA of .267 vs LHB).  And on the "he's dragging" point, Loe has been worked a lot harder than Braddock anyway, so if one of them is going to blow up vs the LHB, it's more likely to be Loe regardless.  Shockingly, this is exactly what happened.

What about Saito?  Speaking only in a generality, he was signed to be the set-up guy before his injury anyway, but Roenicke wanted to ease him back and use him in the 6th or 7th inning.  WHAT??  He's been pitching in the minors for 2 weeks and on Saturday night, he pitched in the 8th!  Sure, it was 7-4 at that time, but he faced 3 batters and only threw 10 pitches, 9 for strikes.  Absolutely no reason at all for him to not pitch today in the 8th if Braddock really wasn't available.

Roenicke is supposed to use advanced analysis when researching an opponent.  (It's how they how set up all defensive shifts).  So why doesn't he have a plan for match-ups like this?  How does he not know who is and isn't really, really available?  I refuse to outright blame Loe for today's performance in the 8th.  He's overworked and not well matched to LHB.  He was set up to fail.  His manager needs to know better and he needs to improve HIS performance.

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