Buddy Needs to Pull His Head Out of His Ass

by Drama on Apr 6, 2008 8:08 PM PDT

Bud Black did a horrible job managing this baseball team during the three game series with the Dodgers. We should have at least won the series...if not swept it. Saturday's game was the equivalent of the 1984 Dream Team in Barcelona with Buddy playing the role of Chuck Daly...all he had to do was roll the ball out to get a win. Thank you, Jake Peavy.

I ripped Buddy quite a bit in his rookie season...some it warranted, some of it not. On Thursday afternoon, after seeing him lay his balls out on the line for Trevor (and Trevor's, for that matter), I was incredibly impressed. He had every credible, built-in excuse NOT to pitch Trevor at the end of Thursday's 3-2 win over the Astros...for him to go to Trevor like that was awesome to see. Let's all be honest here...if Trevor had blown that game the shit would have flat-out hit the fan. I'm a huge Trevor supporter, but even I was wavering. I know how bad we all really want him to go out on his own terms. I know how badly we want him to retire with some bullets still in the chamber. We hate to think about it...and we hate to talk about it...but if we see Trevor Hoffman retiring in May or June it's gonna hurt. And it's gonna hurt f**king bad. So to see Buddy take the risk he did on Thursday...he really scored some points in my book.

But this weekend dashed all of that. His performance Friday night was borderline incompetent. His effort today was questionable, at best.

The Joe Thatcher incident. Thatcher should have been pulled immediately after the Kuroda at-bat. No argument...he should have been yanked. Kuroda was making his third major league plate appearance and just wanted to get down a bunt. He just wanted to trade the second out of the inning for moving Dewitt to second base. That was it. Instead, Thatcher's command problems were so horrid he couldn't even throw the guy a straight pitch to lay down a bunt. We should have been looking at two out with a guy on second. Nope. Runners on 1st and 2nd with one out. Now Furcal. He walks Furcal. Does Buddy make a move? Of course not. Mind you this was his THIRD straight base on balls. He just loaded the bases for Russell Martin who was hitless for 2008 so far...i.e. OVERDUE. And not only that...he killed lefties in '07. So what happens? Buddy leaves him out there and Martin rips a single scoring two runs and putting Furcal at third with one out. Game over. 1-1 tie turns into a 3-1 deficit just like that.

Sunday's game. Why in the world do you go to Trevor in that situation? Bell was beyond fresh. He didn't pitch Wednesday. He threw 12 pitches in a scoreless inning on Thursday against Houston. Then had Friday and Saturday off against the Dodgers. Today he threw 19 pitches in another scoreless inning. He gave up one infield hit. He struck out Andruw Jones with Furcal on third and one out. He was kicking ass. You yank him to put Trevor in a non-save situation??? WTF?

Anybody else remember a guy named Cla Meredith? How about Wil Ledezma? According to the Padres website they're both on the 25-man roster...no idea why. Buddy sure as hell doesn't use them.

Ledezma has made one appearance so far. He threw one scoreless inning in garbage time of the Joe Thatcher incident game. He walked a guy...struck out two others.

Cla? He pitched in the first three games of the Houston series. Threw a total of 2.2 innings. He's given up one hit, no walks and no runs. 0.00 ERA. Where was he Friday night? Today? Not a clue.

Buddy needs to learn how to use this bullpen properly and put his guys in the best situation possible for them to succeed. Simple as that.

Is this an over-reaction super early in a long season? Probably. But the fact of the matter is that we could easily be 6-1 right now. This division race is going to be a nasty fight to the wire...and today's loss is going to count just as much as a loss in August or September.

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The only

plausable explanation I can come up with is that Bud's continually trying to give Trevor (unwarranted and unneccesary) chances to redeem hiself.

www.PadsAndEnds.blogspot.com
"jbox does not drink coffee, as it makes him clean house big time." ~Kev

by TheThirdGonzalez on Apr 6, 2008 11:20 PM PDT 0 recs

Trev redemmed himself already.

I agree with Dramarama. Meat should have pitched the 9th. That wouldn't have guaranteed anything, however.

by planetjeffy on Apr 6, 2008 11:48 PM PDT up 0 recs

walking Kuroda

Two walks in a row and a reliever should get pulled every time. When one of those is the pitcher, he gets taken into the locker room and given a whirlie. Rules are rules.

by Billy Almon on Apr 7, 2008 6:27 AM PDT 0 recs

Agree completely

Drama. Although I think Meredith instead of Bell in the 9th yesterday. Thatcher walking the pitcher was flat out inexcusable.

Does anyone think it's interesting that our vaunted bullpen is responsible for all of our losses? And in each of those situations, the run that scored got on base via walk. Two of those losses are hung on Trevor, who has either been lights out or awful.

by Phantom on Apr 7, 2008 8:27 AM PDT 0 recs

Walks

thats exactly what I said when he walked the leadoff batter yesterday. "The walks are KILLING him". He velocity IS actually up (according to the ballpark scoreboard) and his change looked pretty nasty. He needs to let the hitters put it in play and let the fielders help him out because we all know how often a leadoff walk scores.

...the man who isn't a pessimist is a damned fool.-Mark Twain

by sdsuaztec4 on Apr 7, 2008 9:28 AM PDT up 0 recs

MLB.com

at least their rankings make a bit more sense: http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/news/fab_fifteen.jsp

by Phantom on Apr 7, 2008 8:37 AM PDT 0 recs

perfect sense

they're clearly assigning random numbers to teams (sometimes separated by a dash, sometimes not) and then sorting in descending value.

by pjbno4 on Apr 7, 2008 9:26 AM PDT up 0 recs

Heath

His velocity is actually down from last season because he was overworked in the second half and he didn't pitch much in ST because of this fact, so I understand that they didn't want to extend him. BUT obviously there are how many relievers down in the bullpen NOT named Trevor that could have come in? Yah.

...the man who isn't a pessimist is a damned fool.-Mark Twain

by sdsuaztec4 on Apr 7, 2008 9:30 AM PDT 0 recs

Velocity

Hoffman's velocity was pretty consistent last year. There were a couple of games he would get up to 87-89 on the fastball (usually those were his bad games, ironically). Most of the year he was in the 83-86 range. So far this year I noticed he was 87 on his first outing and 83-84 on the first blown save. I haven't paid much attention since that.

I don't have to always be right. I just have to always think I'm right.

by Wonko on Apr 7, 2008 10:48 AM PDT up 0 recs

A guy like Maddux

has made a career out of rarely (if ever) breaking 90 MPH. The last few years he has been successful at 82-85 MPH; his success, like Trevor's is due to movement, location, and mixing pitches. However- if a major league pitcher who only throws 82-85 MPH loses any one of those elements, he will get racked.

Charlie, here comes the deuce. And when you speak of me, speak well.

by JBRO on Apr 7, 2008 11:46 AM PDT up 0 recs

Yes

Trevor is the Maddux/Glavine of closers. When these guys are on and hitting their spots and have everything working, they are highly effective. When everything isn’t clicking, and they have to rely on their fastballs, its batting practice. Trevor hasn’t lost it anymore than those other guys, it’s just magnified because he only has one inning to work with. When Maddux gave up those back to back homers to Houston, it was no big deal because we had the whole game to get it back. When Trevor does the same thing, we call for his head. Should Glavine have retired after that last game meltdown last year? No, he still has something left in the tank, it just wasn’t working for him that day. As these guys get older, the control will not be as consistent as it once was. They need everything to be perfect in order for them to succeed. Sometimes they will be the guys we are used to seeing, sometimes they will get rocked. That’s what happens to control pitchers when they get older. Mariano had a fling with mortality last year, but he still has enough of a fastball to go into "here it is, hit it" mode when he doesn’t have his fine control. Trevor and Maddux don’t have that in their arsenal. That is just more of a testament to their greatness, in my opinion, since they’ve had be pitchers, not throwers. (Not that I’m saying Mo is just a thrower, but he can be when he needs to.) But it is a problem as age sets in. With Maddux, like I said, you have a whole game for him to find his control or for the team to pick him up. But what to do with Trevor? Count me as NOT being on the "don’t let the door hit you on the way out" bandwagon. But I am all for mixing up where we use him as I think someone suggested somewhere else. Let Heath pitch the ninth every now and then. Don’t make it such a hard and fast that the ninth is Trevor time. I love and respect the guy as a player and for what he’s meant to the community, but I’m trying to temper than with some practicality, and the reality is that he’s getting old. He’s not on empty yet, but he’s getting up there and I don’t believe there is any shame in admitting and allowing for that in the team’s approach on how to use him.

Padres for life

by sdgaucho on Apr 7, 2008 12:59 PM PDT up 0 recs

so what you're saying is...

we need to convert trevor into a starting pitcher.

Interesting.

by pjbno4 on Apr 8, 2008 6:33 AM PDT up 0 recs

Questions

What is the reasoning behind having your closer up in a non-save situation especially when you have other relievers available still, as Drama mentioned? Did anyone ask Buddy this or is there some kind of reasoning for doing this in general? Was he playing some kind of percentages game since Trevor has had a lot of success in the past against the Dodgers?

Whatever the reasoning, I wasn't a fan of Buddy's decision, as I am no longer comfortable whenever Trevor is up and he doesn't have at least a 2 run lead.

by lab_mouse on Apr 8, 2008 12:47 AM PDT 0 recs