Second Guessing Scioscia – You can’t have it both ways

Welcome to Second Guessing Scioscia, our look back at some of the questionable decisions that Mike Scioscia made in the last week. And, boy, there are some questionable decisions to be reviewed. In the history of this column, we have never once struggled for content. However, we aren’t anti-Scioscia. The official MWAH stance on Scioscia is pro-Scioscia overall. But his in-game tactics need some help and we are here to provide that help by nitpicking incessantly and grading them with our patented SciosciaFace grading system.

Scioscia wants to be a good manager, he really does. Sometimes he tries too hard though. He tries to preach one strategy one night and then another strategy in the same situation the next night or even the next inning. He wants to do all these smart things, but he wants to do them even if they completely conflict with each other. You can’t have it both ways, Mike.

Let it linger… or don’t… or do… MAKE UP YOUR MIND!
Let’s condense this all into one, shall we? Scioscia stumbled over the same hurdle three different times this week. All of which included Scioscia’s reluctance or lack thereof to pull his starting pitcher.

The first such instance was in Matt Shoemaker‘s ill-fated start. Through three innings Shoe had been just terrible. He was coming off a third inning in which he gave up a homer on an 0-2 pitch and then allowed a double, a walk and two very loud outs. Things were not working for Shoemaker. At all.

Naturally, Scioscia trotted him back out for the fourth and he immediately proceeded to surrender another homer and get yanked from the game.

Two night later, Scioscia did the reverse and pulled Jered Weaver after six innings and just one run allowed. Jered had only thrown 93 pitches, but wasn’t exactly dominating. Nonetheless, he was sent to the showers and he wasn’t too happy about it.

The very next night Nick Tropeano worked six shutout innings and was dominating. He finished the sixth with exactly as many pitches as Weaver did the night before. Guess who got to start the seventh inning? Yep, Tropeano was sent back out, however he allowed a leadoff single and got the hook.

You have to give Scioscia credit, he’s consistently inconsistent. The Shoemaker decision is frustrating because it was obvious that the more Shoemaker pitched, the more trouble he was going to get into. Still, pulling a guy so early just seems to make managers’ stomachs churn. They don’t want to tax the bullpen and Scioscia’s relievers had been worked moderately hard lately (as shown in our Bullpen Usage Report). A few guys were going to be in danger of pitching for the third time in four days if they weren’t able to get length out of Alvarez. Still, you have to try to win the game.

The Weaver move gets two thumbs up. Scioscia didn’t kowtow to Weaver’s (former) ace status and general veteraniness. Jered may not like it, but with the way he’s pitched of late, he didn’t deserve the longer leash. If anything, Scioscia probably just wanted to get him out of the game feeling food about his performance.

Alas, Scioscia clearly hadn’t really learned a lesson because there was no reason to be so wishy-washy with Tropeano. Yes, it was a close game, but if he’s rolling well enough to start the seventh, give him a bit more rope. But if your are going to yank him at the first sign of trouble, just let a reliever start the inning clean. Bullpen fatigue may have been an issue here as Morin, Alvarez and Pestano were all probably too overworked for Scioscia to be OK with using them. Nonetheless, he had enough options to get through three innings and avoid having Salas inherit a runner, which almost never works out well for anyone.

VERDICT:

More Cowgill, less Cron
An interesting decision Scioscia made in the aforementioned Weaver game was opting to have Collin Cowgill start over C.J. Cron, with Matt Joyce sliding to DH. It wasn’t interesting in that Cron sat because he’s been awful this year. So has Cowgill though, so really there was no wrong choice nor was there a right choice.

What was interesting was the reasoning that Scioscia gave for opting for Cowgill. It wasn’t him throwing stuff against the wall to see what would stick, but rather he opted for defense, specifically flyball defense. Scioscia recognized that Weaver was an extreme flyball pitcher and that Matt Joyce had been extremely bad in the field thus far.

Sheer brilliance! This makes so much sense. I literally have nothing bad to say about it other than I wonder if he’ll continue to do the same if Cron starts hitting.

See? We can be nice to Scioscia in this space, too.

VERDICT:

Bullpen roles? We don’t need no stinking bullpen roles.
Earlier in the week Scioscia was talking about bullpen roles and basically said sometimes you need them and sometimes you don’t. Scioscia tried to have them and not have them in the same game on Wednesday.

Scioscia no longer has a “seventh inning guy” so he resorted to playing the matchups in the seventh inning of this game. That meant bringing in Fernando Salas to start the inning, which is fine. The problem is that when Salas got in trouble, Scioscia kept him in the game until he could line up Cesar Ramos to face a lefty.

What he didn’t do was make the call for Joe Smith, who hadn’t pitched in five days, because Smith does have a role as the “eighth inning guy.” He didn’t recognize that in a one-run game with a runners on third and first with one out that maybe it would be a great idea to bring in a groundball-heavy pitcher who is also vastly more talented than all the other middle relief options. Oh, and because the A’s didn’t have a lefty available off the bench, Smith would get to face a right-handed batter, which he devastates, in Mark Canha. His odds of getting a strikeout or GIDP were very good.

The one thing you want to avoid in this situation is a flyball. Yet Scioscia left Fernando Salas in the game. That would be the same Fernando Salas who is one of the most extreme flyball pitchers in baseball. Salas managed to get that strikeout, fortunately. He then gave way to Cesar Ramos to face Stephen Vogt and that’s when all the wheels fell off.

There is nothing inherently wrong with Ramos facing Vogt other than Ramos is not a well-rested Smith who could surely go four or five outs with any real problems.

Why was Smith not used? Because in this case, he has a role and his role is actually an inning. The eighth inning. It was not the eighth inning, therefore Smith didn’t get to pitch until the Halos were already down by eight runs. Good thing Scioscia saved him, right?

VERDICT:

Giavotella sac bunt in the second
Sac bunting is dumb in almost every single case. This is well-trodden area. But sac bunting is particularly dumb in the second inning of a game. It is also incredibly dumb when your team is already struggling to hit.

Sure enough, Scioscia did just that. His team just can’t score runs this year, so when the Halos got a runner on to leadoff the second inning, Johnny Giavotella, one of the three Angels actually hitting well right now, was ordered to move the runner over via a bunt. Because, hey, when your team is already doing a fine job of making outs, you might as well start giving away the out for free, right?

Dammit.

VERDICT: