Post-game pie-in-the-face safety protocol: The 2016 Baltimore Orioles

and i'm not sure why you'd compare starting pitchers pitching different games with relievers pitching within the same game, but i'm pretty sure the comparison would be "bumgarner should start the WC game and then he should start game 1 of the NLDS because he's the best"

or is this just griping over saving closers for the 9th instead of bringing them in willy nilly? like britton should've pitched the 8th and then brach the 9th? when there's every reason to believe the leverage situation would be just as high, if not higher, in the 9th? when you already have another reliever with a 1.60 ERA?

If you want to look at it another way, the Jays were in almost the exact same situation yesterday. They brought in their second best reliever (Grilli) in the 7th, hoping he'd get them at least a couple of outs in the eighth, but as soon as he got into trouble, Osuna was in for the two inning save. You could argue against that (bottom of the order coming up, what if Boston ties the game and it goes 18 innings, and so on) but fuck it, it's a must win game and you can't lose with less than your best pitcher in the game. I give Gibbons shit for how he handles the bullpen all the time but not last night.

And even if bringing in Brach was the right move, why didn't they bring in Britton sooner? Of course he never came in at all, because being down 5-3 with runners on apparently wasn't high leverage enough.

jason grilli decidedly isn't brad brach

buck left him in for the same reason most managers leave relievers in too long, he thought he'd get the next out. and in a tie game, you generally don't want to burn through your second best reliever before he can get an out. hindsight is great but if you replace brach with britton before the romine single and britton gets through the inning, you still have who knows how many innings left to play and you're down to the second string.

really if anything this just exposes a big flaw, which is the lack of relief pitching that can take down lefties. when your closer is also your only effective LOOGY, any team with decent lefties on the bench or switch hitters, like NYY right now, will pull this off. britton could've come in sooner but there's no guarantee the O's hitters get the lead, and then the same thing happens to brach in the 9th or 10th or 11th.

btw as i didnt see much of that game (or know the O's relievers well) i wasn't endorsing Law's position, tho keeping Britton entirely out of it does seem dubious

Managers change their reliever usage patterns in postseason all the time, as we've seen. Maybe Showalter won't get to.

time to bring out the "all" in "all or nothing"

"No one has been pitching better for us than Ubaldo."

‏@jaysonst
I should clarify that Buck did say that "except for Zach" no one was pitching better than Ubaldo. But I have a feeling that doesn't help

actually not sure you've ever read a post written by someone else