Sometimes pitchers last an incredibly long time, like Strausburg in game 6, but the norm is for them to go 6-7 innings. I too was surprised about not using Cole, given the importance of the game. Even starting pitchers will come in as a relief pitcher if the stakes are high, I believe Scherzer did in fact come in as a relief pitcher during one of the Dodgers games (I think I have that right, they used two starting pitchers in one game). Cole is now a free agent, and apparently there was some bad blood about not using him.

There are a lot more strategies to pitchers than I realized.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think OP is asking a fair (and a good question). His pitch count was relatively low and he looked strong and finding his spots. All of Nats hits were ground outs. Max looked much worse but Nats kept him in. Not sure why above posters were being so snotty.

yes, i feel like the Nats were going on feeling / trust and not just stats, IMO.

PP you are responding to. I give MAX a lot of credit. Obviously, he was not near 100% but, boy, he gave his all. That's how you earn your respect.

I think it was OK to take Greinke out after giving up the HR and the walk. The Astros still had the lead and the Nats' bats had been quiet most of the night.

Obviously, this was a critical point in the game and the manager went with his best pitcher available: Gerrit Cole. Oh wait, he didn't do that because he had fixed in his head that HIS BEST PITCHER would only be used at the beginning of an inning when the Astros had the lead. Dumb Dumb.

Anonymous wrote:I think OP is asking a fair (and a good question). His pitch count was relatively low and he looked strong and finding his spots. All of Nats hits were ground outs. Max looked much worse but Nats kept him in. Not sure why above posters were being so snotty.

yes, i feel like the Nats were going on feeling / trust and not just stats, IMO.

NP. Boswell is seriously the best (like everyone else probably realized that 30 years ago, but I only realized it in 2019 with a 2019 article linked to DCUM and now I read all of his stuff!), and he writes stuff that is even easy to understand for new to sports people. Here he answers the question:
"Many, in an age that views negativity as if it were as essential as oxygen, ask why Houston Manager A.J. Hinch went with Harris rather than starter Gerrit Cole, who was on two days’ rest after throwing 110 pitches in Game 5." Boswell has good answers.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nationals/nats-postseason-upset-run-was-the-greatest-in-mlb-history-with-moments-well-never-forget/2019/10/31/ebe71472-fbff-11e9-8190-6be4deb56e01_story.html

And this is my own personal opinion:
They say the Astros rely a lot on stats. I think for whatever reason they thought it was statistically better to put someone else in for Greinke - after all Kendrick was 0-3 against Harris so far!! But this is real life, not just stats.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you seriously asking about relief pitchers/closers? Every team has them and uses them pretty much every game.

Read the Thomas Boswell article in yesterday's post, which gives a good explanation of the choices the astros made/had in relief. The big question is why they didn't use Cole in relief but Boswell explains that pretty well.

Yes, I wondered about that too. Do you have a link to Boswell's post?

It's towards the end.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nationals/nats-postseason-upset-run-was-the-greatest-in-mlb-history-with-moments-well-never-forget/2019/10/31/ebe71472-fbff-11e9-8190-6be4deb56e01_story.html

I think OP is asking a fair (and a good question). His pitch count was relatively low and he looked strong and finding his spots. All of Nats hits were ground outs. Max looked much worse but Nats kept him in. Not sure why above posters were being so snotty.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you seriously asking about relief pitchers/closers? Every team has them and uses them pretty much every game.

Read the Thomas Boswell article in yesterday's post, which gives a good explanation of the choices the astros made/had in relief. The big question is why they didn't use Cole in relief but Boswell explains that pretty well.

Why so snotty?

I didn't know either.

Wasn't trying to be snotty but I go to only a few Nats games a year and don't consider myself to know much at all about baseball so I'm just surprised that people aren't aware of how MLB pitching works (given that the sports coverage talks so much about this topic and that particularly in the coverage of the Nats this season the pitching has been a big topic of conversation).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you seriously asking about relief pitchers/closers? Every team has them and uses them pretty much every game.

Read the Thomas Boswell article in yesterday's post, which gives a good explanation of the choices the astros made/had in relief. The big question is why they didn't use Cole in relief but Boswell explains that pretty well.

Why so snotty?

I didn't know either.

Same here. I had to ask a friend a few weeks ago who knows baseball about why the good pitchers were taken out when so much was on the line near the end of the game. The Patriots wouldn’t take out Tom Brady when the game was tied in the 4th quarter!...I said. She explained it to me. I’m trying to learn about baseball. I don’t know why the PP felt the need to be nasty about the question.

Anonymous wrote:Are you seriously asking about relief pitchers/closers? Every team has them and uses them pretty much every game.

Read the Thomas Boswell article in yesterday's post, which gives a good explanation of the choices the astros made/had in relief. The big question is why they didn't use Cole in relief but Boswell explains that pretty well.

Yes, I wondered about that too. Do you have a link to Boswell's post?

Anonymous wrote:Are you seriously asking about relief pitchers/closers? Every team has them and uses them pretty much every game.

Read the Thomas Boswell article in yesterday's post, which gives a good explanation of the choices the astros made/had in relief. The big question is why they didn't use Cole in relief but Boswell explains that pretty well.

Why so snotty?

I didn't know either.

Are you seriously asking about relief pitchers/closers? Every team has them and uses them pretty much every game.

Read the Thomas Boswell article in yesterday's post, which gives a good explanation of the choices the astros made/had in relief. The big question is why they didn't use Cole in relief but Boswell explains that pretty well.

Anonymous wrote:http://www.howbaseballworks.com/RotationandBullpen.htm

Thanks for this. So, he got battered and that's why the manager decided to replace?

I am not a sports fan so please bear with me. I started watching the Nationals game after seeing them on the news coverage and the newscasters talked about how they fought this season, they sounded like a great team and they just spread positivity all around the DMV specially going through the finals. I'm so ecstatic when we won, because it wasn't looking really good at the beginning. Soo.. that being said, I followed their game during finals, and I knew Greinke was good and they had trouble with him even when they played here, so I didn't understand why Astros replaced Greinke on the final game when they were leading, anyone here care to explain?