5/14 GAME THREAD vs Philly (Randa batting...gulp...3rd)

[Caveat Emperor]

Oh, BTW, I liked this lineup fairly well tonight. (Even though Dunn should certainly be higher)

Yeah, this leaves no doubt in my mind that the correct strategy is to trade Casey for whatever can be had. Get out from under the $8 million next year, get some prospects in return.

[oneupper]

Don't buy that 90-100 pitch count stuff that has been bought into hook line and sinker by so many. Harang is showing the ability to stretch it out, plus you are talking 115 pitches over 8 innings. There are more factors than the number of pitches. For instance, he was not in trouble much tonight, in fact other than the Abreu cheapy in that bandbox of a park, Aaron was in control the entire night. I am impressed that he has been able to get that number of innings out of a relatively low number of pitches. That is a sign of effectiveness. Milton and Wilson are hitting the 100 pitch mark in the fifth as they get knocked around the field.

No, I agree with you on that. If we had been up 1, 2, 3, 4. I'd say...let him pitch. But with an 8 run lead (yes, BP and all), the need wasn't really there.

There's a lot of baseball from here to October.

[oneupper]

Yeah, this leaves no doubt in my mind that the correct strategy is to trade Casey for whatever can be had. Get out from under the $8 million next year, get some prospects in return.

I agree, but Dunn will need A LOT of work at 1B.

[KronoRed]

Harang's in the crucible right now. He's gone 110+ pitches three games in a row. It's probably the first time he's had this kind of workload. I'm sure fatigue is one of the reasons he was a bit flat tonight.

For a guy his size and age it's a workload he theoretically can handle, but it's still new territory for him.

I hate to see him go so many pitches, but really with this pen it's hard not to ask him to

[ochre]

Grande called tonight a "great" pitching performance. Have the baseball standards of greatness plummeted so far? It was definitely a good outing by Harang, but the use of the word "great" so freely drives me nuts. Not quit as bad as Marty claiming the offense is equally responsible to the pitching for the Reds suckage so far this year, but bad enough.

[Chip R]

Grande called tonight a "great" pitching performance. Have the baseball standards of greatness plummeted so far?

You have to remember that Grande announces games for the Reds, not the Braves. Compared to the others on this staff, he looked like Cy Young tonight.

[oneupper]

For those who liked the WPA analysis (both of you)...here's a summary of the "turnaround" seventh, in which the REDS Win probability went from 15.1% to 94.5%.

               WE	WE	
Event          Before	After	WPA
			
Freel Singles	 0.151 	 0.190 	0.039
Freel Steals	 0.190 	 0.207 	0.017
Flo IFH     	 0.207 	 0.276 	0.069
Randa Singles	 0.276 	 0.380 	0.104
Griffey HR     	 0.380 	 0.799 	0.419
Dunn HR     	 0.799 	 0.883 	0.084
Kearns 2B    	 0.883 	 0.901 	0.018
Jimenez 2B   	 0.901 	 0.945 	0.044

[Hoosier Red]

This is the kind of an outing that can send a message to the entire staff. Harang has been up and down today, but he's battling and he's made it through 8 innings. He'll pick up a win (which he should've gotten the last time he pitched), and carry the confidence of being able to go deep into two ballgames in a row.

That's the big thing to me especially because he has struggled historically in his last inning of work. There have been a lot of times where he hasn't had the endurance to go past the 5th or 6th inning, so to gut his way through 8 innings has to be a big confidence booster.

[Hoosier Red]

Another thing to keep in mind. The Reds have an off day on Thursday, so he'll have a whole 5 days to rest as opposed to coming out on 4 days rest.

[Mutaman]

13 pitchers on the roster and you let your best young pitcher go 119 pitches. Absolutely ridiculous.

Who are the 13 pitchers on the roster. I count 2, maybe 2 1/2.

[SirFelixCat]

Great win today. Gutsy effort by Harang and the offense stepped it up. Good team win today. Love to see it catapult this team to a few wins now. Hopefully the rest of the rotation took notes tonight



And does this mean I'm hired for the pbp?

[PuffyPig]

13 pitchers on the roster and you let your best young pitcher go 119 pitches. Absolutely ridiculous.

It's called stretching him out.

A starter in the majors ought to be able to go 115-120 pitches per night routinely.

But you got to get there gradually. Harang's pitch count has been slowly going up. He was pitching to accomplish this.

And anytime a pitcher hits twice in an inning, you gotta love it.