7B2D3B2F203A2A212C3B092E24282025672A490 wrote: Bad day for Underwood, and unfortunately, bad extra innings performance for the Pirates.
I'm not sure how Underwood can hold his head up, we fight all day long and the guy just was awful. These players need to let him know they expect better and if he can't get it done he needs to get the hell out.
After Underwood began the inning with 2 singles and a walk, why was he left in the game? Stratton had only thrown 17 pitches the day before. And they cut Feliz (who was pitching uncharacteristically well) for Hartlieb and then let him also sit and watch Underwood self destruct. With Underwood floundering in the 10th, ya gotta try something! [highlight]But this is the same manager who benched Frasier, Reynolds and Stallings together and concocted an embarrassing lineup so I guess we can't be surprised about anything.[/highlight]
If someone asked you to make a line-up that would give the team the best chance of losing, yesterday's would be a pretty good choice. The goal in 2021 is to lose. Shelton was just making sure.
In the 2nd inning with runners at 2B and 3B and 1 out, they had Perez and Cahill coming up. That didn't look good but then I looked over the rest of the lineup and thought, "Aw, what's the difference? Perez and Cahill are as good as anyone else."
Pretty sad. I've made up my mind not to get angry over what's taking place this year. It's not worth it to invest myself in that way. My wife would ask me to move into the garage.
I understand that the team is very bad and not capable of winning many games. So I don't get upset just because they lose. But when they lose because the manager failed to make an effort to win, it's very annoying. [highlight]When the manager looks at his weak roster and benches the only 3 guys who have been hitting and then puts together a lineup without them that was little better than having 9 pitchers bat, then fans have a right to be angry.[/highlight] Losing is one thing. Not even trying is something else.
Also, I doubt the Cards and Brewers appreciate Shelton not even making an effort to beat he Reds.
With the many bad line-ups Shelton has put on the field so far this year, is it fair to believe that he's instructed by Cherington to do that? Otherwise, why would Shelton put line-ups out there he knows have no chance of competing? Why wouldn't he want to win? Retaining his job is based on wins and losses. What I'm observing says to me that they're taking every effort to make winning as difficult as possible without looking like they're trying to lose.
I don't think so. They know they are bad enough that they will get one of the first few picks at least. In baseball, it's not necessary to secure that #1. There are no guarantees as to who among the top 4 or 5 will turn out the best. All year we've been talking about who they should take with this year's #1, knowing how difficult it is to pick "the right one." I just think Shelton is a very bad manager. I don't think he ever has a fear of not losing. Especially the way Cahill had been pitching. Shelton may have been fine as a hitting coach or a bench coach but I think he is in over his head having to make the day to day decisions on how to run the team. Even going back to last year many of his decisions appear illogical.
Then it's puzzling to me that Shelton hasn't been fired by now. He's either trying not to win by these decisions he's making or, as you say, he's a really bad manager. Either way, those are good reasons to part ways with him.
Shelton was Cherington's hire. A quick firing would make BC look very bad. And between last year and this year they have only played 96 games. That's only about 60% of one full season. And no new manager is going to win with this squad anyway. They just wouldn't do it as poorly. So there's no urgent need to replace Shelton which would be an admission that BC messed up so badly he wanted to get rid of his hire before a full 162 games had been played.
But BC probably also knows that if his acquisitions make the team competitive in a couple years, he will need to find a competent manager to lead them. Because if BC actually developed a decent team, no one would I know it if Shelton was ruining it. But if BC wants to cover his butt, it would look bad to fire Shelton now and bad not to fire him later if they assemble talent a good manager can win with.