I personally think we'll be calling him Mujicklin by the end of the year...

Vajajay Burnett finally had a perfect game broken up w/ a HBP on Descalso in the top of the sixth.

Kozma likely gets that ball.

Mujicahausen?

One hit?! That's all we got, one goddamned hit?

You can't say "goddamned" on the air!

Didn't see the game, did we seriously just get one-hit by the ****ing Pirates?

It's ok, no one's listening.

Don't worry, nobody's listening anyway.

Yes. It looked like we might get perfected for a while.

Could be worse - remember the home opener? :facepalm:

Jesus tits, this team is bi-polar.

The last couple of years for whatever reason the Pirates have had our number.

On the positive side Shelby Miller looked awsome again last night. I love watching him work on the mound. Works quick, pitches with confidence.

He was awesome from the second inning until the sixth. After Descalso made that stupid throw to try and get McCutchen he struggled to get the final out of the frame. He had a hard time getting a swing and miss pitch when he got ahead in the count, and then he had some bad batted ball luck when Descalso couldn't get to a 39 hopper up the middle, but he racked up way too many pitches to get out of that inning, and it cost him an ability to go seven or eight.

Then, our <del>gas can</del> bullpen came in and the rest was history.

Philly fans are such scumbags. Brown eased in to a broken bat liner that was going to drop anyway and the Philly fans boo his ass off. Then, he catches an atom ball and they give him the Bronx cheer.

I'd hate to play for those one who sucks the peniss.

Matt frickin Adams just keeps hitting the ball

That was piss poor

Pisses me off to even see Salas warming up in this situation.

Wouldn't you know it. :#

Who would have thought that our only two god damn shitty ass relievers would ****ing blow this game? Do you even care Matheny?

Cut Salas, cut Boggs. There's no excuse.

Holy shit.. that was a bomb. Has your guys bullpen been this bad all year?

Not really the bullpen as a whole, but Boggs and Salas have.

I don't know if Boggs has any options left, but if he does, his bitch ass should be sent straight to Memphis. Salas should be DFA'd.

Unfortunately, there is little help available in the system right now. Rondon and Cleto would just walk the world, and Sanchez is hurt (as always).

Bullpen should be set up this way:

LOOGY: Choate

9th: Mujica
8th: Rosenthal
7th: Rzep

Long relief: Kelly
Implosion Duty: Boggs, Salas

Kevin Siegrist is 23, in Springfield, on the 40 Man, and currently has 17Ks in 8 IPs against two walks.

Probably the best candidate for promotion right now.

Gotta do something. The game comes crashing down every time Salas or Boggs is handed the ball.

Perhaps they should just randomly pick somebody out of the crowd instead.

**** those clowns. :#

Siegrist has dominated at damned near every level he's been at. He's also a lefty. He needs to be the guy.

Royals fan here with a question.

Why isn't Rosenthal closing?

He has been extremely subpar this year. Not terrible, but definitely bad.

That's pretty damn impressive stats.

They would have better success than Boggs/Salas :cuss:

He's throwing strikes just missing location and giving up too many hits for someone throwing 100 mph. I think we should give the job to him if Mujica doesn't shine. He has the upside. Let him learn on the job.

Hopefully Boggs is not broken from his stint at closer.

Boggs has gone through stretches like this before, probably why TLR never used him as a closer. He's always bounced back before. FTR, I like Mujica as the closer, but this might become a sabermetrician's dream-closer by committee, just go with match-ups in the 9th. May as well try it.

I think they see him as a starter and want him to get some more Double A innings. He could be someone they look to if Garcia goes down again. He has good stuff. Dennis Martinez was his High A ball coach and was very high on him. I was hoping he would get a look as lefty specialist too, because Choate didn't impress me and Scrabble has inconsistent success.

I think they were looking harder at Tyler Lyons in spring training for the specialist role, but in the end opted for the two knowns. Seigrist could be an interesting late call up that could help down the stretch. He could be one of those guys that you could leave in against righties too.

Nice, that was one we needed after yesterday's crap fest.

What do you know? No Salas, no Boggs, no loss.

We are still tied for first place even though we have blown a ton of games. The Reds have played 14 games at home and 6 on the road. We have played 6 at home and 14 on the road.

Mujica's stuff was borderline unfair last night. Rosie was pretty awful yet again but showed a couple of flashes to get out of the inning. I was actually fairly pissed that Kelly didn't come out for the 8th but it ended up working out, barely.

Yes, it wasn't a panic situation, but it is never too early in the season to display resiliency. A strong start by a starter that gets pissed away too often, can affect the whole team. Hitters start trying to do too much, fielders taking unnecessary risks, etc.

Kelly, Rosenthal, and especially Mujica restored order. Keep winning series has been a successful formula here. Hopefully Adam comes out dealing tonight and regardless of the series finale it will be a happy flight home.

2 hits, 0 runs going to the 8th inning. :thumb:

Another great 9th by Mujica with filthy stuff. I know it's a small sample size but I like what I see so far.

Garcia vs. Strasburg today, hope to complete the sweep!

A sweep for the Cards is as rare as a 3 up 3 down save. Maybe rarer.

They can win series like mad, sweep someone? Almost never.

Both of these things just occurred, happy to be wrong!
:D

WOOHOO PBJ

Nice way to end this interminable road trip - 15 of the first 21 games on the road.

You've been trying to give Rosenthal a job he's done nothing to earn all season. You don't "learn on the job" in major league baseball.

Yet again today he gave up hard contact on an elevated fastball.

He should be in the minors learning to pitch. This is going to become a self-fulfilling prophecy whereby we force him into the pen by failing keep him stretched out this year and not giving him a chance to develop his secondary offerings.

I hate how we're handling Rosenthal. I just absolutely hate it.

I owe Beltran an apology, he turned things around and I should be bitch slapped.

Still looking to move heaven and earth to put Rosenthal in at closer?

Comes in with men on 2nd and third, hits a guy and then walks the run in. Yeah - this is definitely a guy we should be letting 'learn on the job'.

Send the damn kid to Memphis already.

Why the hell didn't they bring out Westbrook for the 7th? He was at 91 ****ing pitches.

Poor defensive play on a tough ball costs us a DP and a run.

Can't be too hard on Matheny for that; Westbrook's 7th inning implosions are as sure as the sunrise.

There's something to be said for giving Kelly a clean inning to work with. Kelly had the bottom of the lineup and nobody on to contend with - he just kicked it.

This one's on the players.

He acted almost like he thought McCutchen was running.

He had the time to look that ball in and get it over to Kozma but he got way too hurried and turned before he caught it. Just a little to anxious from a normally steady defender there in Descalso.

That struck me as a "Keep him in til the first runner reaches" type of inning.

Sadly, not having Mujica in the 7th is what allowed that to get out of hand.

If anyone ever tries to argue the ol' "closer by committee" there are mountains of evidence I can give them to show how poorly it actually works in practice.

And with the 2013 St. Louis Cardinals, we have yet another example.

Great bullpens need a dominant closer and everyone else needs to know they're role. BPBC simply does not work because guys like Boggs start to flip out in the 9th, Rosenthal comes in overthrowing in the 7th, etc...

Give them their roles, leave them in them.

Wasn't speaking to that as much as the implosion of Boggs and others that forced Mujica from the 7th to the 9th.

He is streaky. He's in good streaky mode now.:thumb:

Oh my God. How do you get frozen on that pitch, Holliday?

Looks like Mujica is helping to stabilize the bullpen, rotation still pitching great, now just need the offense to pick up; perfect time to go to Milwaukee, their pitching is pretty awful.

I don't understand how Mujica can keep this up. All he has is a splitter that drops out of the strike zone. Why won't the hitters just learn to lay off the pitch? I know Sutter made a career off the pitch but aren't hitters smarter today?

If they don't recognize the pitch he can. You could say the same thing about Mo Rivera. Besides, he doesn't just have the split, he also utilizes a circle change, which, IMO, is the most effective off-speed pitch in baseball.

Do you ever watch him pitch?

Mujica is absolutely hammering the black. He throws the splitter for strikes often enough to keep guys honest and then puts them away with it in the dirt. Hitters always have to respect the fastball, especially with 2 strikes, and the split/change dives so late that it looks like fastball until they start their trigger. By the time it dives out of the zone, they've already committed and they miss.

He throws his fastball about 40% of the time. He throws almost exactly 1/2 his pitches in the zone and draws swinging strikes on better than 1/3 of the pitches he throws outside of the zone. He is in the zone often enough and throws his fastball often enough that hitters can't simply spit on anything.

And Trevor Rosenthal? Threw only 45% of his pitches in the zone last year and is only at 49% this year.

Mujica throws more pitches in the strike zone than Rosenthal. Oh, and Rosenthal throws his fastball 84% of the time. So if all Mujica does is throw one type of pitch out of the strike zone...but actually throws it less frequently than your hero throws his primary pitch and does so more accurately, I guess the question becomes how Rosenthal could possibly keep it up?

Keep on trying...

I think BRC's line of critique was more appropriate for Brad Lidge, who could never throw his slider at the bottom of the zone for a legitimate strike and couldn't locate his fastball for shit. I always thought the approach of any team facing him the first time should just have been to keep the bat on your shoulders, because he could not locate his pitches in the zone.

Lidge was the same guy I was thinking.

Lidge couldn't duplicate his arm angle either. If he wanted to get the slider down, he'd have to alter his release and the spin on a slider can be recognized much sooner than the drop on a split/change. He telegraphed the slider almost his entire career, everything just came so fast and turned so hard that, when he had his fastball command, there just wasn't enough time to gear up for it and recognize/adjust slider.

When that fastball command abandoned him, guys just stopped gearing up for the heat, spit on it if he threw it and waited for him to telegraph a slider.

There's much more deception to Mujica's arsenal, though his raw stuff is nowhere near Lidge's at his peak.

I'm okay with Mujica getting the 9th. If he falters, its Rosenthal's job. Rosenthal has a much higher upside than anyone else left.

I really wasn't criticizing. Sutter made a career of the same pitch. Same thing with Riveria as you mentioned. My question is why can't hitters lay off? They don't always go for the high heat. Why do they seem to go for Riveras slider and Sutters split?

Rivera often only threw his cutter, yet hitters couldn't square it up. His location was nearly spotless in his most dominating years. You couldn't not swing yet, you couldn't make great contact because of location.

We were spoiled watching Rosenthal at the end of the year. He was pumping serious gas and pounding the zone that weren't centered, either corners, low, or high in the zone late. He has great upside, but he has work to do now in those set up innings that will either project him to top of the rotation type starter (most preferred) or eventually a Motte type closer. If it is the latter it is because he has improved location, but secondary pitches did not evolve consistently.

Here's a link to a good story on Seigrist (except according to the MLB Cards site he has 21 K's in 11 innings not 20). I think we could see this kid up in September. Very intriguing prospect. Especially as a lefty. One of those diamonds in the rough possibilities.

http://www.news-leader.com/article/2...ield-Cardinals

The young pitching pipeline adds another MLB prospect.:thumb:

Why. In the ****!!!!!! is Boggs in this game.

The thing that amazes me is that they sent Scrabble down and kept Boggs and Salas. :spock:

So they just ran to Exxon and grabbed the gas can..............

Jesus Christ

This idiot makes Franklin look Cy Young. How much more of this shit do we have to endure? :banghead:

JFC Boggs is having a Franklin like career ender.

I can't see how Boggs is still on the team tomorrow. Bring up that asshole from Memphis who hasn't allowed a run yet this year.

Thank god.

Whew. No further damage.

DIE IN A FIRE BOGGS