He does not belong out there. I would not mind seeing the Rangers draft someone with their # 1 pick that is a college reliever that can be a setup guy or in the big leagues next year to help out in the bullpen. Our bullpen needs major help.

but he is still probably one of our better relievers.

There is no way they should have lost this game.

You can easily see the stress and failure in his face. He may have a world of talent but if it’s missing upstairs, it doesn’t matter.

He’s pitched in 4 of the first 6 games and just pitched in back to back games. He should not have been out there today.

there is absolutely no one at this point that could replace him if we sent him down. maybe you could use jennings or madrigal in the setup role, but is anybody really ok with that? assuming you could just take that job away, you realyl cant’ do anythign else.

management? yes. if they cleaned house tomorrow i wouldn’t bat an eye. this team could be good, but they will suffer many more losses like this because they have no bullpen. the atlanta braves, run by smart men with disposable money, completely overhauled their pitching staff this offseason. the rangers mgmt only needed two legit bullpen arms to field a competitive team, and they decided not to.

so yeah, fuck them.

well, they wished really hard. does that count? your statement probably should have read “management has just been awful at evaluating pitching”. but no, don’t say that around here, because every horrible decision they make was completely justifiable at the time.

and the Rangers win.

Post game show worrying about davis and murphy and salty. How about you worry about the bullpen? The offense is not the problem. This host is starting to get on my nerves.

Around three years ago or so he seemed like maybe a decent filler for a bullpen, near the bottom of the depth chart of a solid relief corps, and maybe a LOOGY type guy.

That is the peak of my faith in him, and today was nothing new.

Is CJ completely healthy?

…SBNation insists that I log in to create a new fanpost even though I’m obviously logged in, and then when I go to log in it won’t take it.

Wilson pitching. Inge homered to right on a 2-0 count.
Salty goes to the mound and reminds CJ that he has a 4 run lead and needs to throw strike. Next pitch is a HR. It happens

Everett singled to right.
Broken bat single.

Granderson safe on Andrus’ error, Everett to second.
Granderson hits the ball off the end of the bat that Andrus charges and tries to catch in the air. Definitely not a routine play. If he plays it on the hop then Granderson may have ended up with an IF single.

Polanco doubled to left, Everett scored, Granderson to third.
With MY playing in, polanco hits ball down 3B line for a 2B. How many doubles did the Tigers hit past MY this series?

Ordonez struck out.
Give CJ some credit here.

Cabrera was intentionally walked.

Guillen doubled to left, Granderson scored, Polanco scored, Cabrera to third.
This is the AB that really hurt. CJ had gotten a couple strikes on Guillen with breaking ball down and in. Thats where Guillen was looking and that is where CJ threw it. Salty had setup outside. Did CJ miss his spot?

Thames pinch-hitting for Larish. Madrigal pitching. Anderson pinch-running for Guillen. Thames was intentionally walked.

Laird struck out.
Did Madrigal even throw him a strike?

Inge singled to center, Cabrera scored, Anderson scored, Thames to second.
Moderately hard hit ball back up the middle. Karma? Or lack of it.
 
Everett popped out to shortstop Andrus.

To often it seems like ball are hit in just the right spot against the Ranger relievers. I understand the “pitch to contact” philosophy. But I don’t like it for relievers. And how many hard hit balls did the Tiger have these last two games?

Is CJ completely healthy? His velocity may have been down 1-2 mph. I am not sure we will ever see the 2007 CJ again. I recall him being able to tune it up to 93-94 mph.

It’s easy to “Monday-morning Quarterback” it though.

That being said, I would have probably left Millwood in another 1/3 to 2/3 inning, with Guardado finishing the inning and finishing the game with Fx2.

CJ is just so hit and miss. He’s either completely rocking it, or laying a big fat shit egg. And, just to gain some semblance of confidence before the next homestand, I don’t think I would have chanced it to CJ for that inning, especially after his melt-down.

Also, yes, some of those balls were lucky hits, but our defense on the left side needs to do something different. I don’t know what that would be quite yet, but there are some pretty costly mistakes happening.

However, I raise my Rolling Rock in confidence that the homestand will be amazing with lots of smash hits by our boys in RED!

How many games did it take to win that division? 84?

I totally missed the game (Easter shindig at church) but let me just say I’m not surprised at all to hear he’s blown a lead in the 8th inning. The guy has good stuff, and can be lights out at times, but he’s also going to be extremely erratic. He really needs to be paired with someone else in the late innings, and used more exclusively against left-handers. We’re really feeling the loss of Jack Benny right now, having to rely exclusively on CJ for the 8th – I was one of the ones who thought we didn’t need Juan Cruz back when we had a shot at him, but at this point I think it’s time to admit AJM was right: passing on Cruz was a mistake. It cost us today’s game, and as long as CJ’s our best 8th inning option, it’s going to cost us a few more.

As long as he’s sitting in the low 90s, I think he is afraid to use his fastball.

2-5 lifetime off of Frank Francisco, 2 K, 2 RBI… .800 OPS… small sample size, whatever.

0-2 lifetime off of Warner Madrigal, 1 BB, 1 K

And obviously Gerald Laird has faced nobody in the Rangers bullpen.

So, I guess that is the situation Washington was faced with when deciding who to bring in to relieve Wilson. You’d think Frankie would have been a better option… but….

Doug FREAKING Davis. Another lefty with a lot of talent, but a 10 cent head. Davis eventually figured it out a little (although I would argue that it was more going to the NL than anything), but he still never lived up to his potential.

It’s not so much of “he’s the only guy that we can roll out there right now”, but more of one that he really needs to get his head right…and if that means AAA or long relief, then try that. Hell…put him in the #4-5 rotation slot and let him work out his issues that way.

Something needs to be done…and something drastic.