Second Guessing Scioscia – Week 23: The bullpen game

Welcome to Second-Guessing Scioscia, our look back at some of the questionable decisions that Mike Scioscia made in the last week. This isn’t because we dislike Scioscia, in fact, MWAH is officially pro-Scioscia. However, we do realize that he is not infallible and hope to use this series to bring light to the decisions in which he went wrong (or was at least perceived to be wrong by some). At a minimum, it will help us all come to a better understanding of what goes on during games but maybe, just maybe, we’ll get lucky and this will somehow make Scioscia more self-aware of his more chronic managerial missteps.

This week, I want to break format a tiny bit. There are certainly some minor decisions that we could bang on Scioscia for, but I’d rather focus the time on the one big, huge decision he made in the last week. That would be opting to go with a “bullpen day” start last Saturday against Oakland. It was a brave, bold choice that paid off well, but was it the right decision?

8/30/14 – The bullpen game
First things first, why even go with a bullpen day?

The answer is pretty simple. This was a very important game and Scioscia needed to pull out all the stops. He could either go with an unproven and/or clearly inferior starter like Wade LeBlanc or Michael Roth. If LeBlanc crapped the bed like he did in his previous start, that game is as good as over and the Angels would have given away a game to their division rival. By going with Rasmus with the rest of the bullpen ready to go, Scioscia is at least showing that he is smart enough to rely on the best arms available to him that day, the deep and talented bullpen that Jerry Dipoto built for him.

So why Rasmus instead of just starting Roth at yanking him at the first sign of trouble?

This was the smartest thing that Scioscia did, actually. While it might be tempting to hope that Roth could’ve pulled six solid innings out of his butt, by going with Rasmus, he ensures that Oakland, a team that relies heavily on platoons, starts a left-hand heavy lineup. Sure enough, the A’s started five lefties and one switch-hitter (and would’ve started another switch-hitter if Coco Crisp had been healthy).  That put Rasmus at a disadvantage, but only for the three innings.

Where Scioscia recovered the advantage was by going to Roth right after Rasmus. That put Bob Melvin on the spot to either let Roth face a left-handed hitter, which allows Scioscia to maximize the utility of arguably his worst pitcher, or dip into his bench early and call on a righty bat to face Roth. In so doing, Melvin would deplete his bench and put more right-handed bats in the game early, meaning he’d be stuck with a righty bat late in the game when the Angels have nothing but dominant right-handed relievers. It is a sacrifice early in the game to gain an advantage later.

The gambit worked well for Scioscia as Melvin took the bait and yanked Josh Reddick in favor of Jonny Gomes in the fourth inning with the bases loaded. Gomes is no slouch as a hitter, but he’s much less effective against righties. Instead of sticking with Roth because he could go several innings, Scioscia called Melvin’s bluff and brought in a right-handed reliever to neutralize Gomes. This is a great call…

[mlbvideo id=”35814563″ width=”400″ height=”224″ /] …except for one thing. He went with Yoslan Herrera. This is an extremely high leverage situation (3.06 on the leverage index, to be exact) and Scioscia opted for his worst reliever. Scioscia claimed he liked Herrera in that spot because he can induce grounders, which he did. However, Herrera doesn’t exactly have a massive groundball rate. He definitely leans that way, but he isn’t what one would call a specialist. Mike Morin would’ve seemed like a better fit for this spot. He’s more of a flyball pitcher, but his changeup can be especially effective in such a spot. He’s already induced 6 GIDPs this year in addition to having a .217 wOBA against righties with a 29.1% strikeout rate. Morin is death on righties. Herrera is usually death on his own team.

What it really seemed like here was that Scioscia was expecting to give up a few runs and thought Herrera was best suited to soak up some innings in a lost cause. Why he couldn’t let Morin try to escape the situation as he has so many times before (stranding 29 of the 35 runners he’s inherited this season), I don’t know. That was really Scioscia only misstep in this game.

Well, that’s not totally true. I wasn’t a huge fan of Scioscia intentionally Derek Norris to load the bases, but I think it was excusable in that situation because a double play was really the only way the Halos were going to escape that inning unscathed and the only way to force Melvin into making the Reddick-Gomes choice. Again, a huge gamble, but it paid off.

Getting Gomes into the game actually paid off even bigger in the bottom half of the inning. With one out, a single to shallow right scored the lead-footed Albert Pujols. That may not have happened if Reddick and his cannon of an arm were still in the game. Lord knows Disarcina isn’t afraid to run on a strong-armed Oakland outfielder. That allowed not only Pujols to score, but the other runners advanced to third and second, respectively, by a narrow margin. Again, that might have turned into an out with Reddick in right. Instead, it put the Halos in position to score their second run of the inning when Samardzija uncorked a wild pitch.

From there on out, Scioscia was unimpeachable. Salas, Grilli, Jepsen and Smith came in and each posted perfect frames in succession. Oakland didn’t even get another baserunner until the ninth inning when Huston Street came in for the save.

[mlbvideo id=”35821027″ width=”400″ height=”224″ /] Street labored through that inning after allowing a leadoff single to Sam Fuld. You couldn’t really blame him as he was pitching his fourth day in a row. For that, you can blame Scioscia.

Maybe Scioscia should’ve kept Street on the bench and slotted in Morin before he went to Jepsen and Smith, but in such an important game, you definitely want to use your best reliever if at all possible. Street is that guy and, in Scioscia’s defense, Street had only thrown a combined 46 pitches in the previous three days. That isn’t a lot. It isn’t a little either though. Lest we forget, the last time Street worked four days in a row, he imploded on the fourth day and lost a game without getting anyone out. There’s a bad precedent here.

Of course, it could have been avoided had Scioscia just not used Street the day before. Scioscia opted to use Street to close a 4-0 game. That is a low leverage situation (0.34, to be exact). The opponent is obviously a factor in that decision, but Scioscia had other options he could’ve safely gone to. Jason Grilli, most obviously, was available and on two days rest. He is more than capable of finishing that Friday game and still be fresh enough to pitch on Saturday. Mike Morin probably could’v handled it too, though Grilli would’ve been a better choice regardless.

Scioscia simply failed to plan properly for the bullpen day where he should’ve known full well that Street might be needed. It didn’t end up hurting the Angels in either game, but it was a huge risk both in terms of the outcome of the game and in terms of Street staying healthy.

So while Scioscia wasn’t perfect, all in all, it was a pretty strong showcase for his managerial brains. So strong that he is going to give it another whirl this Saturday. Hopefully he will learn from his previous experience and manage things more effectively, especially with a deeper and more well-rested bullpen at his disposal.

VERDICT: