My feeling is that this team, as a whole, needs to start doing their jobs outside of Skubal. Skubal can’t carry the whole weight of this team. 105 pitches is probably more than we should have him pitching but Hinch left him in there.
Should we go to a 4 man rotation so that Skubal can pitch every 4 days? Or a 3 man rotation?
Of course not. The answer isn’t to keep Skubal in for “Just 1 more batter”. The answer is that the rest of the team needs to step the ■■■■ up and do their jobs a whole lot better.
If you traded him, you’d do it at the deadline next year, no matter what your record is.
It makes no sense to let a guy that good hit free agency, but it also makes no sense to trade him in the offseason when you could instead be trying to negotiate his contract.
Scott Boras is going to push for him to hit FA. Harris is going to push for him to get signed ASAP.
In baseball? The ultimate statistics sport? Absolutely. Holton allowed 0 batters to reach base, yet he’s being destroyed for an unlikely bad pitch…that was matched by a poor pick behind the plate.
It ■■■■■■■ sucked and was unacceptable that it happened, but it doesn’t make the decision wrong. You don’t know that Skubal would’ve gotten the next guy out either. What if Skubal threw a pitch in the dirt? What would everyone be saying?
Our bullpen needs to be better, but it’s not going to be filled with 7 versions of Mariano Rivera.
