Monday Quickie : Sending me up to the plate with a pencil

So it's been a while.  Anything happen?

Ok let's quickly talk about Friday. Strasburg continued his playoff dominance by handling the Dodgers for 6 innings (3 hits,1 ER, 0 BB, 10 K). Kershaw was fine but Doolittle (really one bad pitch),  Scherzer, and Hudson shut the door after Stephen and there wasn't anything the Dodgers could do. I noted going in Davey had an easy game to manage because it was effectively a three man staff, but Max throwing his hat into the ring did add a wrinkle, and the closeness of the game didn't afford many missteps. I thought Davey did well.  The first big decision he had was pulling Strasburg - which could be argued but with the big lefties coming up and Stras coming off a 2-hit, deep fly ball out, line out inning - it made sense to move on. The second was the use of Max. The alternative though was trying to get 9 outs from Doolittle & Hudson. To me, neither is appealing and it's a judgment call. Davey went with Max and it worked great. Even the AsCab PH choice worked tacking on an insurance run that became a big deal when Hudson almost blew it in the 9th.  So good game by Davey

Yesterday was iffier but the truth of the matter is the Nats fell behind due to no real fault of Davey.   Anibal went 5 stron... check that - he went 1 very weak, 3 strong, 1 ok. But because he escaped the first the damage was limited to 1 run.  That and Soto's first inning blast put the Nats up 2-1 but also had them facing a dilemma. How do we get 12 more outs?  They could have kept Sanchez in but in a tight game a speedy man on first and one-out calls for a PH.  I was fine for using Zimm there. And the plan seemed to be to use Corbin from the get go. As he was being brought in in the 6th the plan was likely Corbin for 2 if possible, Doolittle, Hudson. But after a single and two Ks Corbin gave up a through the infield single (can't pull him yet) and then a powerful double. Two runs score 3-2.  It's here where I feel Davey faltered, letting Corbin continue instead of trying best to contain the damage. We've talked about not "saving" pitchers for important situations that may never come. This was a big situation and with a righty up Corbin should have been pulled for Hudson. I know, I know no guarantees but it was the best available option. But he wasn't pulled and Corbin walked Taylor and the Dodgers pinch hit Hernandez. Another opportunity to pull Corbin. Another non-move. Another crushing double.  At this point Corbin was pulled (instead of pitching to Muncy who they IBBd - this move I'm ok with if you are going righty out of the pen) but instead of Hudson we got Suero, we got homer, we got ballgame...

Well almost. Roberts correctly saw an opportunity to let Joe Kelly find himself with a 6 run lead in the last half of the game. Problem was he was up against the heart of the Nats line-up and the next four guys got on and Kelly was out (presumably for the series).  There was a question of whether they could have goaded Roberts into keeping Kelly pitching by keeping Dozier in (instead of PH AsCab - who hits both but is generally better from the left hand side) but I don't think so. I think Urias was coming in no matter what. Maybe they lost the opportunity for a better match-up but I don't think they lost an AB against Kelly.

After that the Nats down 8-4 they couldn't quite go to Doolittle and Hudson so it was up to the B.. no C... no D-Teamers. Rodney nearly lost it but didn't.  Rainey wasn't perfect but got out of his inning. Strickland got bombed and should get the Joe Kelly treatment. You could argue why Strickland and not Voth but at this point I'm not using Voth in a likely unwinnable game and giving the Dodgers a look at him.  Voth is my go to tonight if for some reason keeping to Max, Doo, Hudson is impossible. Is it a bad go to? Almost certainly. But you gotta try it.

So all in all it wasn't a terrible weekend for Davey. He kind of froze in that 6th, which put the game out of reach and that matters but otherwise - eh. I'm not getting worked up about it.

Why? Well because Davey is in an impossible situation. He may be messing up but he's given no leeway to do that. All managers make mistakes. Davey can't because he's literally got two men he trusts in the pen, then it's starters, then it's Rodney? I don't like some decisions but he could play it perfectly and what happens? Like last night let's say he gets Hudson in there and he gets out. 3-2 Dodgers but the Nats aren't facing Joe Kelly. Do they tie?  Hudson is probably asked to work the 7th but how does that go after what you saw Friday? Ok in trouble and in comes Doo... maybe he gets out of it too but then he's PH for and then what. Figure best reasonable case is it's 3-3 and the Nats gotta find 6 outs from everyone else, while scoring against a solid Dodger pen.  The odds would still be heavily in LA's favor here.

Davey has fault but it's down there behind the Lerners for not ponying up the cash and Rizzo for keeping with his prospect holding. And then there are the bats. Collective line for the team .194 / .283 / .280.  I get - harder opponent - worse hitting BUT they should be doing worse than usual not flat out terrible. They've only hit one homer. The line-up is hitting like we feared might. Turner and Eaton are doing ok, Rendon and Soto are doing ok. A total of 12 hits and 7 walks between these 4 guys.  Then nothing, 6 hits and 1 walk from the rest of the team. Suzuki and Gomes 0-9.  Parra, Dozier, Adams, Zimm, AsCab 2-15, with 1 XBH. 

I don't know what to say other than - hope Max is MAX for one night despite the injury and the history and the already unusual usage pattern. Then hope Hill is bad. If we look at the pre-series goals

1) Aces Aces?  Pretty much. Even Sanchez was good.

2) Keep it close for Jansen. No. Both G1 and G3 devolved quickly.

3) Don't miss opportunity to get out bottom of LAs lineup.  First game they went Muncy at 2B so line-up had no hole. Last two they used Lux and Nats mostly held him in check as a starter in the 8 hole.

4) Roberts outthinking himself? Here and there a little but not really. Then again he's got all the leeway Davey doesn't

So they aren't getting any breaks from the Dodgers, but they are managing the lineup and getting good starts. The breakdown is when the hitting and the relief aren't keeping the game close enough. A couple bad choices by Davey made it worse but he's got few good ones. The series has to help Davey out, but it's made things harder on him twice and both times we've seen the result. The Nats can't afford that again.