Quote:
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut
He's had a great season thus far.
He had a shit weekend.
The Pirates are loaded with fastball hitters and Rosenthal's was straight, had no command and he didn't have any kind of wrinkle to throw with it this weekend.
No, I don't believe it's any sort of indictment on Rosenthal the pitcher, but we had a chance go into the hottest team in baseball's barn, take 3 out of 4 and actually expand our lead despite being shorthanded and run down. Instead Rosenthal picked the absolute worst possible time to simply lose the feel for his pitches.
It took 2 batters last night to see that he wasn't going to get a handle on his stuff last night. Our only hope was for the "Motte Save" where 3 rockets are hit into somebody's glove. 3 blown saves in 2 days against the plucky upstart that is now absolutely convinced it can beat you and get to savor that fact for 4 days.
There's no way to spin this - it was an AWFUL weekend and ultimately I'm pretty sure we don't hold onto the division because of it.
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Rosey threw 28 pitches less than 24 hours previously. That has to be a factor.
We all know that if Rosey can't prove early in an appearance that he can throw the off speed stuff for a strike, teams just rule it out and sit on that fastball. 98 or not, MLB players can hit 98MPH fastballs just as good as their predecessors 10 years ago hit 94MPH fastballs.
Rosey was also up in the zone. When he's effective he down in the zone and then climbs the ladder for the strike out.
Vilaveanu lools like the real deal. Why not give him the 7th?