Riverbrian

It is certainly understandable to fixate on the bullpen but you are going to fixate on it even more if one of our starters goes down... or two starters go down and this sort of thing happens all the time. We've been extremely lucky so far. I'm also fixating on that bullpen... fixating both directly and indirectly. Indirectly, I believe finding a starter is priority one and perhaps the biggest thing we can do to help the bullpen going forward. I believe we need a starter and bullpen and that may be the order. I'm reasonably certain the front office sees this and reasonably certain they will do something. I can't wait to see what they do. Fun times!

Keep working with him. But yeah... Arraez and Marwin can play a little 3B from time to time until he comes around. I watched him last night and never felt like he was going to put the ball in play. He was more off than normal.

General question for the audience If it was Adrianza or Castro at the plate in that situation. Is it OK to bunt then?

Bingo

It's a completely sensible take (as long as it includes the sentence... he should slide down in the pecking order). Temporarily... We don't have to Baby with the Bathwater Blake. Just give him some low leverage work as he works the kinks out.

Well... We have 8 relievers in the bullpen and the starting pitching still carrying the bulk of the water so nobody is being overused in that sense. But... you are right... He is simply not very good (as of lately). Parker has made 7 appearances in June. 8 appearances since spitting up a couple of runs against the Brewers (which was the beginning of his slide downward) on May 28th. He hasn't had a clean inning in any of those appearances with his ERA rising from 1.04 to 4.44 in a very short span of time. Those appearances have been high leverage primarily especially with Rogers down for a significant portion of the time. Prior to this downward slide... Parker had made 19 appearances... Not Allowing a run in 17 of those 19 appearances. These things happen from time to time and I'm not saying that we should just toss him aside for good but at the moment he is struggling so lessen his work load at least in terms of leverage (at least temporarily) and give those innings to someone else. Yeah... I know the big question... Just who is Baldelli supposed to turn to? I don't care... Anybody else not named Magill because Magill is in the same boat as Parker at the moment. It is not my job to staff the roster. It is the job of the front office to provide the manager with options who can (at the very least) perform better than a guy who has a 1.83 WHIP in high leverage and can't seem to find the zero to hang. . It's the Logan Morrison from last year argument all over again. Riverbrian: Quit Playing Logan Morrison everyday Others: Who else is Molitor going to play... We don't have anybody else to play. Riverbrian: I don't care... We are allowed a roster of 25 players just like everybody else. If we can't find a player to out perform Logan Morrison we have failed as an organization and we won't ever find a player who can out perform Logan Morrison if you don't play that player. I'm allowing the front office to choose who they roster without complaint... I am going to stay consistent with what I said I was going to do. That is watch deployment of that roster. It's June and I have for the first time reached the point of taking issue.

Dear Rocco, I'm lodging my first official complaint of 2019. You are overusing Blake Parker at the moment. I'm not saying that he should be cut, I'm not saying that you can never use him again but, you've got to back off on his usage at the moment. Sincerely, Riverbrian

Polanco made the decision to bunt. Rocco did not make the decision but he supported the decision. The decision was completely justifiable in that situation. Polanco is our best hitter but are we going to lose our minds because he gets on base 4 times out of 10 AB's compared to the other guy who gets on base 3 times out of 10. We were down a run in the 8th. The bunt moves two runners into scoring position with Nelson Cruz at the plate. Schoop was out at home on a contact play. He stopped because he was going to be out and a rundown allowed others to advance. Kepler did not advance... therefore Cruz did not advance. Kepler made the tough to explain mistake but this can be good because the Manager gets to talk with Kepler about it and hopefully Kepler gets better as a result. In the end, Kepler's mistake didn't matter because Rosario is awfully cold right now. Tomorrow is another day!!!

If you think about that some more. You won’t sleep much tonight.

If he bangs his elbow off his left ear three times. It's a fastball.

I like yours better than mine.

Parker only gave up one run that time. Progress is being made.

Awesome Screen Shot it when you are done and send it to me.

I don't know You'll have to watch the inning to find out if you should watch the inning.

Spring Training?

After getting the first two batters on... That half inning didn't go as planned.

8th Inning down by a run... Yep... Bunt

(True Story) That was a great AB by Kepler (True Story)

Or did the Red Sox hit like... umm... Sane Men.

I walked in the patent office and I said to the clerk. "This office is easily recognizable as an office... Clearly and obviously this is an office. Security threw me out. So Yeah... I'm a little jealous.

You are clearly copying me now... Working that hard to come up with nothing... just like I did.

John Randle had one hell of a splitter. Split a couple of QB's that year.

I've heard this said often and I believe it but I can't help but wonder each time... Is it Good Pitching or Bad Hitting. Or was it Good Hitting or Bad Pitching?