|
Yeah, you can argue about all this after the fact, but if you are the manager and are making the decision in real time, you might not choose the same thing.
It's easy to say 'leave the rookie in the game' after the fact when you know how it turned out. Not a terribly risky statement. But if Bell would have left him in and he'd blown it, the same thread would exist here, with all the same people bitching about Bell blowing the game for leaving him in.
Common sense tells you that the way it probably went down was that Bell let Keppel go out for the 9th, told him or decided that if he brought the tying run to the plate (which he did), he would go to the closer. He's brand new to the majors, he was at 100 pitches, he's got a long history of injuries so you dont want to overwork him, and the last time Keppel was out on the mound he was left in a little too long and it blew up an otherwise good outing.
While everyone pretends like they knew all the right answers, I'll go on record saying that I would have done the same thing. I would have sent Keppel out in the 9th, and told him that if the tying run came up I was going to make the change. I wouldn't have gone to Burgos - criticism of that is fair - but we don't have a whole lot of options out there either.
|