With that being said, the following is the height of stupidity.
These are the Gameday screen grabs from Rafael Perez's two playoff appearances (click on them to make them larger).
To recap: in the 6th, his average FB was 91.75 MPH, with all but one of them being 91-93.
In the 7th, average FB was 89.5, with all but one being 89-90. Do remember, the Indians were up eight runs when Perez came back out for the seventh. This was entirely unnecessary.
Average FB in the 10th: EIGHTY SEVEN POINT FOUR MILES PER HOUR.
In the 11th: 87.3
He didn't throw a single pitch faster than 88 in either inning. This is the same guy who threw eight of his 12 FBs at 92 or 93 mph the day before.
FWIW, he struck out four guys on Thursday, and then only one on Friday. Faced six batters both nights (NYY is hitting .000/.000/.000 against him in the series).
I wish I had some kind of witty analysis, but I really don't. This seems like it's pretty blatant. Perez has been one of Wedge's main guys for about three months- he should know him pretty well at this point. He HAS to know what effect pitching two innings has on him the next day.
He clearly does not, and the Indians got lucky in game two. It will be interesting to see if the effects of this carry over to game three.
Not surprisingly, fireericwedge.com is "Coming soon!"
Related (kind of): Alex Rodriguez's career numbers against current Indians pitchers. [B-R]
2 comments:
i would certainly love to see that fireericwedge.com website come to fruition and i would be glad to be a regular contributor to it since i believe that eric "the genius" wedge is by far one of the worst, if not the worst manager in all of baseball. if you ask me, the indians win in spite of wedge, not because of him, but when they lose, it's almost always because of some dumb decision of wedge's like not walking hot hitters (i.e. a-rod, jack cust, alex rios) with men on base and first base open, his ridiculous lineup decisions (starting mike rouse over jhonny peralta in inter-league play???), his inability to get this team to consistently perform even the most basic fundamentals of the game such as the sacrifice bunt, the hit and run, the stolen base or just simply running the bases for that matter. his in-game and pre-game strategical decisions, or lack thereof, have led to some of the most heart-breaking losses (see both c.c. sabathia's 1-0 loss to boston and paul byrd's 1-0 loss to toronto as two examples among many) and i would be extremely surprised if the indians even make it to the world series this year, let alone win it with wedge as the manager. if you ask me, a better manager along the lines of jim leyland, lou piniella or tony larussa would have already had this team in the playoffs a couple of years ago and might have already won a title as well. wedge is better suited as a minor league manager or some sort of developmental guy, but is not the answer to lead this team to a title. he is baseball's version of former nba coach doug collins who couldn't even win a playoff series with the greatest player in the history of the nba on his team and it took bringing in somebody different like phil jackson to get michael jordan and the bulls over the hump. i think the guy who is the answer to our problems would be former tribe catcher, former a.l. manager of the year in 2003 with kansas city and current first base coach of the yankees, tony pena. at least he has a history with the indians, unlike wedge who was a former boston backup catcher which is hardly the pedigree you want to see for winning a world series. granted, wedge will more than likely win the a.l. manager of the year award this year, but that has a lot more to do with the indians record now than whatever sort of job wedge is doing as the manager today as compared to when he first came here. if you ask me, his best days as manager were actually in his first couple of years here as he got the players to buy into his "just take it one game at a time", "maintain an even keel", "it's a marathon and not a sprint", "stick to the process" and "let's see how things play out" mentality which has finally paid dividends after 5 years. the only problem is that now they are contenders, he doesn't possess the sense of urgency needed to get it done now. just like collins, he can get you to the hump, but for whatever reason, he just can't get you over that hump. he just lacks that "it" quality that is hard to describe, but you know "it" when you see "it". by the same token, when you don't see "it", there is no doubt "it" is missing, such as in wedge's case. i honestly think it will take bringing some other guy in here to take wedge's place who has "it" along with that sense of urgency, as pena had shown in his first year with the royals, if the indians are ever going to win a world series. we can only hope.
Wow, that was a great comment. You should probably chime in more often, Dave; you may have even watched more Indians games this year than me.
Although would it kill you to hit enter once in awhile?
Good stuff.
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