Mound Talk

As you may or may not have noticed, I’m a Brewers fan. This year I wanted to do a little more Brewers blogging with an emphasis on looking at how the games transpired and what can be learned from them on a universal level. So while it will be based on the Brewers games, and I will certainly talk about the Crew, there is information that is applicable to all teams.

Last night’s game featured Jeff Suppan and Johnny Cueto squaring off for the Crew and the Red Legs. Suppan, the veteran with a series of very pedestrian pitches, and Cueto, the rookie with deadly stuff, created a great clash of pitcher styles. Suppan threw 7 innings of brilliant baseball. He allowed one run on six hits and walked two batters. He struck out one, recorded 12 ground outs and seven fly ball outs. He mixed his pitches well and induced weak contact. Even several of the hits could have been turned into outs if Rickie Weeks were a more sure-handed defender. Nonetheless, Suppan turned in another good start. Cueto on the otherhand threw 6.1 innings striking eight batters while walking none. He allowed two runs on five hits. One was a home run to Bill Hall. He recorded five ground outs and six fly outs. Several of the fly outs were balls caught on the warning track. Overall, Cueto was dominating Brewers hitters. There are two major issues that came out of last night’s game aside from the pitching matchup: Dusty Baker’s use of the bullpen and Ned Yost’s lineup.

Dusty Baker decided to leave Cueto in to bat in the 7th inning with the Reds down 1-0. Joey Votto was on second base and there was one out. At this point in the game, Cueto gone six strong innings but was getting up there in his pitch count. I believe the count was 85, give or take a couple and he had just given up two deep fly balls in the previous inning, although he did strike out Prince Fielder. Cueto grounded to the shortstop and advanced Votto to third. In terms of Win Expectancy the Reds lost 6% on that play. Corey Patterson singled to right on the next play and Votto scored. However, it is likely that he would have scored from second anyway and he certainly would have been sent with two outs. Cueto ends up going back out to the mound and giving up a home run to Bill Hall to lead off the 7th. He struck out Corey Hart before being taken out of the game. In this situation, Baker had better hitters in the dugout and left them sit there in favor of his pitcher. The obvious interpretation here is that Baker believed that Cueto pitching gave the Reds a better chance to win the game and showed a lack of confidence in his bullpen. The bullpen should have been fully ready after Monday’s day off. On top of that, Dave Weathers and Francisco Cordero hadn’t pitched since Friday and Saturday, respectively. I argued at the time that it was a horrible move for Baker to leave Cueto in. Looking at it now, it isn’t as bad as I initially thought but certainly was the wrong move.

This wasn’t the only mistake Baker made though. In the bottom of the ninth, with the game tied 2-2, Baker brought in Weathers instead of his bullpen ace, Cordero to face Ryan Braun, Bill Hall and Corey Hart. Perhaps Cordero’s history with Milwaukee played a role in this, but it hurts the Reds chances of winning the ball game. Clearly, this was a critical situation. If the Brewers scored one run, the game was over. Yet, Baker rolled the dice with a lesser pitcher. Weathers retired the Brewers batters on three fly balls and was brought out again in the 10th inning. His command was noticably worse from the first pitch he threw. J.J. Hardy singled on a line drive to center. Joe Dillon came in and sacrificed Hardy over (a marginally poor choice by Brewers Manager Ned Yost though it worked). Jason Kendall hit a line drive to right advancing Hardy to third and Rickie Weeks hit a grounder that snuck between Votto (at first) and Brandon Phillips (at second) for drive home the game winning run. Use your best reliever in the most critical situation. The bottom of the ninth in a tie game is the most critical situation. For reference, the at-bats by Braun, Hall and Hart in the bottom of the 9th inning carried Leverage Indexes (LI) of 2.28, 1.84 and 1.42 respectively. The 10th inning at-bats by Hardy, Dillon, Kendall and Weeks sat at 2.28, 3.17, 3.17 and 5.14 yet the Reds best reliever sat on the bench, watching. Weathers pitched in the six highest LIs of the game for Reds pitchers.

The other note I wanted to make was about Ned Yost’s lineup. As you probably know, he’s batting catcher Jason Kendall 9th and his pitcher 8th. As I’ve noted in another Brewers Blog Entry, this has worked out well for the Crew as the 9th batter has been in more important situations so far in the early going. Last night was another situation where the 9th batter faced more important at-bats. Suppan came up to bat for the first time in the third inning, with a runner on first, no outs and the score tied 0-0. This carried a LI of 1.58. He sacrificed the runner over to second and Kendall came up to the plate with a LI of 1.36. Kendall ultimately singled to left driving in the runner. The next time Suppan came up was the fifth inning. Again, there was a runner on first, but this time with one out and the Crew up 1-0. The LI on this at-bat was 1.13. Again, he sacrified the runner over bringing up Kendall with a runner on second, two outs and the Crew up 1-0. His LI was 1.19. Kendall singled again. Suppan was pinch hit for in his next at-bat that carried an LI of 0.41. Kendall’s leadoff at-bat the next inning was at 0.55. The 8th and 9th spots came up again in the 10th inning where Joe Dillon and Jason Kendall helped get the final winning run on the board. Both at-bats carried an LI of 3.17. Kendall batting 9th yesterday helped the Brewers more than if he had batted 8th in each of the first two at-bats by a good margin.

That’s all today. I’m sure I’ll have more tomorrow as Dusty Baker seems to be good fodder for bloggers.