Justin Wilson (1-3) looked excellent for most of his start; he ran into trouble in the 4th and 6th, but battled gamely through it, escaping with just one run allowed in six innings of work.
That's when the curious managerial decision happened.
I am a fan of Matt Walbeck's work as manager. He is articulate, smart, and seems to handle the team very well. I have no idea whether the curious management of the 7th inning was Walbeck's own, or if--as does happen sometimes in the minor leagues--it was dictated to him from above that these are the relievers we want you to use tonight, in these innings or in this order.
I am sure what, whoever made this particular decision, he or they had good reasons for it. I'm just not smart enough, I guess, to figure out what they are, because I'm coming up with fistfuls of air in my effort to grasp why Corey Hamman was sent out to start the 7th inning of a one run game.
You'll recall that yesterday's match was rained/snowed out after five innings. Derek Hankins worked all five innings in question; the entire bullpen was rested and ready to go. That includes Danny Moskos, Mike Dubee, Ronald Uviedo--those are some good relief pitchers. And Dubee did, in fact, enter the game after it was well out of hand, later in the 7th, and Moskos in the 9th.
I have talked to numerous Curve fans who have generally the same things to say about Corey Hamman: Corey Hamman sucks, Corey Hamman is awful, Corey Hamman should be driving a truck, and so forth. I always tell them what I tell you now, that I used to talk in terms like that, but no more; because the fact is that Corey Hamman could strike you or I out a hundred times in a row if he was ever called upon to do so. Corey Hamman is better at pitching than 99.99% of the human race. And in all probability he has worked very hard to get to that level, and continues to work very hard to stay there.
The fact does remain that--and he spent last year and the past few weeks establishing that--it doesn't seem like he can get AA hitters out. This is no secret.
It's also no secret that Hamman is 30 years old and is in all probability never going to pitch in the major leagues. If you want him in your AA team's bullpen to fill out the roster, that seems okay--you can send him in for mopup work to save everybody else's arms, when the game's out of hand and/or everyone else is tired. That's fine. No harm there, and you give him a chance to prove he's better than he has been.
What I can't for the life of me understand is why you would send the 30-year-old who hasn't gotten AA hitters out for a few years now into a 1-0 game in the 7th inning, when everyone in your bullpen is rested and ready. Well... I kind of think I might understand. The logic might work something like this:
(1) My available relievers today, unless the starter gets chased in the 3rd inning or the game goes 14 innings, are Hamman, Dubee, and Moskos, in that order. (It's normal for the relievers to know a day in advance when they should expect to be working.)
(2) It's the 7th inning, and I know I'm using those three guys. Therefore, I'll send Hamman out for the 7th, Dubee for the 8th, Moskos for the 9th. That was the plan going in, and I'll stick to it now.
The logic was probably something like that. If it was, I just can't see the wisdom in being that regimented about pitcher usage; I can't see the harm in instead saying, okay, if we're ahead or behind by 3 runs or more, then Hamman pitches; if the game's close, we'll use Dubee and Moskos first, and then maybe Hamman or maybe Uviedo for the 9th or 10th.
That makes a lot more sense to me, because in 1-0 game, you do not want to let Harrisburg pull away in the 7th, demoralizing your team. That's what happened in this case, of course; Hamman couldn't find the strike zone on his warmup pitches today, gave up two walks, a single, two bombs, five runs, and then was replaced by Mike Dubee.
Matt Walbeck is smarter than I am, and the Pirates organization is presumably smarter than I am, and they have good reasons for doing what they did, I'm certain. I'm unable to grasp why Mike Dubee didn't start the 7th inning.
RANDOM TIDBITS
- In the 4th inning, Harrisburg shortstop Danny Espinosa was "picked off and caught stealing" (per the game log) on a very odd play. Justin Wilson threw the ball in the dirt, and Hector Gimenez expertly blocked it; the ball jumped straight up into the air and down into Gimenez's glove. Gimenez looked up and Espinosa was just kind of standing around in no man's land halfway between first and second, wandering over to second at a leisurely pace. It seemed like he assumed when he saw the ball up in the air that it had gone back to the screen; that, or (this is my theory) Espinosa thought the pitch was ball four. It was in fact ball three. Wilson at that particular time had been throwing ball after ball, and Espinosa may have lost count.
- In the 7th inning, near the end of Corey Hamman's inglorious night, he struck out Erik Arnesen on a very wild pitch in the dirt that got past Hector Gimenez. Gimenez practically walked after it, allowing Arnesen to reach first at his leisure. Gimenez had a very unhappy look on his face right then. Unprofessional, perhaps, but Gimenez is a good catcher. It was a bad inning for the Curve all around, one of those innings that everyone suffers through from time to time, when everything just gets away from you.
- Danny Moskos pitched the 9th, simply because he hadn't worked in a while, and was rusty, unable to find the strike zone, and got knocked around a little bit.
- The Curve 1-2-3 hitters (Chase d'Arnaud, Gorkys Hernandez, Jordy Mercer) were an ugly combined 0-11, with one walk. It may be time to move d'Arnaud (.214) and Hernandez (.205), in particular, down the order and take some pressure off them, and perhaps move Josh Harrison, Alex Presley and/or Jim Negrych up to the top.
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