Series Thread: Dodgers @ Rockies

[lasportzphan]

The Front Office gave him the pitchers. It's not like he could've done it any other way.

I'm just saying, it's not Mattingly's fault. It's the Front Office who made the bad call. You don't need to hang this one on the manager.

I agree with you as I think the front office forces his line up card as best they can without overtly undercutting him. However, he did have to pull Nicassio that quickly. So I hold everyone culpable.

 

[Villain]

Well, you're entitled to you opinion and that's your prerogative. Doing my best to defend Mattingly in this case, I think he was trying to limit Nicasio's usage so that he'd be available sooner than later in this 8-game week.

Any pitchers that were called up solely for the double-header, like Ian Thomas or Daniel Couloumbe, it doesn't matter. You know they're only up for that one day so you can have them throw a ton of pitches if it's a blowout or something. They're only up for one day. Who cares?

In Nicasio's case, Mattingly knew that he's a pitcher would would not be replaced from the 25-man this week. So therefore, by limiting Nicasio to only two innings and 40 pitches, versus 3-4 innings and 60-80 pitches, it made Juan's recovery time shorter.

8 games in 2 cities over 7 days is fucking brutal. Half of those games against a tough-as-hell opponent. The other half are not against a tough opponent but they're in-division and they're away games. Suffice it to say: schedule was pretty much bullshit for the Dodgers this week. Oh well.

Back to that double-header, you have Mattingly thinking about this week, it's meaning for the hypochondriac fans like you guys, and the ESPN-narrative "DODGERS/CARDINALS THIS IS THE NLCS RIGHT NOW" story-writers. To me, it's just a bullshit week and you take what you can get. To you guys and ESPN this is the END-ALL-BE-ALL-OH-MAH-GAWD week. It's that week every week for you guys.

Anyways, Mattingly has to put up with those stupid ass questions every day. That's his job. He wants to be able to have nice happy answers to those stupid questions (and yes, they are stupid questions. "Is Clayton Kershaw broken?" No, he's not. Shut the fuck up).

So, for Mattingly, the only option he had was to let Nicasio throw two-innings (and recover sooner), while the 26th man shitbum from AAA throws out his arm as the sacraficial lamb for 3 innings. There you go - your 5 inning starter. Let's all be surprised that it ended in disaster.

I personally don't agree with the situation Mattingly was put in, but I don't blame him for how he handled it. He was given a turd and made the best of it. As we all saw, it was still a turd.