Removing Starting Pitchers

Andy Pettite is pitching a masterful game. For no reason he’s pulled after six innings. Chisox load the bases on the first reliever. He’s pulled. Second reliever allows a grand slam home run to the first hitter he faces. Yet nobody in the world but me questions why a perfectly good starting pitcher is pulled after six strong innings. This is why modern day baseball stinks. Starting pitchers should finish the game. Managers lose more games by pulling starting pitchers for no reason than they win with all the other decisions they make.

Handling Pitchers.
Cardinal manager Tony Larussa epitomizes the ineptness of baseball managers when it comes to handling pitchers. In the second inning Houston had runners on first and second and the batter put down a sacrifice bunt. Mulder, the Cardinal pitcher, had the runner at third out by 20 feet, but he choked and went to first. I would have had the bullpen up in a trice because my pitcher was clearly choking. Then he threw a wild pitch, so wild it was BEHIND the batter, allowing the runner to score from third. I would have pulled him, and I’m the guy who believes starters should finish games. Then he allowed a hard single to left driving in the second run. If I hadn’t pulled him after the wild pitch he would have been out of there after the single. This guy clearly did not have it. But Larussa is so clueless he didn’t even have anyone get up in the bullpen.

Later, in the top of the seventh, down 4-1, he was doing that idiotic thing of pulling his pitchers after each batter, the lefty-righty absurdity (a right hand pitcher to a right hand batter, etc). These guys just don’t understand pitching, and since pitching is 80% of baseball, they don’t understand baseball.