Paul Mainieri Happy He Went With His Gut

I wish Paul had a gut feeling on when to pull a pitcher.

He usually pulls a pitcher when he has a reliever warm in the bullpen. Sometimes, getting one warmed up takes longer than we would like because Mainieri doesn't like to warm up a pitcher and not use him in the game.

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I wish Paul had a gut feeling on when to pull a pitcher.

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this narrative has really got legs in the last year or so. the thing is, when he's right, there is never a post mentioning it. no coach, I mean none, know exactly when to pull a pitcher. PM seems to have a slower hook than some coaches in games where we have a nice lead and early in the season. what he's doing is giving his pitchers a chance to make adjustments on the mound as opposed to treating every game situation as if it's the world series and not giving the guy any chance at all. as the season progresses and the games get more important you will see him replace a pitcher faster in key situations especially.

if the rant had it's way, we would use 10 pitchers a game and the narrative would be he replaced pitchers too soon. it simply is not possible to predict what the pitcher is going to do. yanking them too soon is as big of a sin as not yanking them. i'm not saying you are that way, it's just I see lots of posts that imply that PM doesn't get a guy out in time and EVERY time it's when the pitcher fails to pitch out of a jamb. hindsight is 20/20.

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He seems to think having pitchers warming has a negative impact on the guy on the mound.

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Paul exhibits the signs of a person with a weak ego, so he likely presumes all his pitchers lack mental toughness, when in fact a guy warming probably has a neutral if not positive effect on most guys.

Let's all just face facts:

Paul Mainieri is an all time great coach who doesn't even need to look at data, practice performance, or recent games to make key decisions. His gut instinct just leads the way.

We had this conversation after UNO. My specific issue is simply having someone in a position to get ready quicker so that instead of being 2 or 3 batters too late, you're just 1 batter late. I agree that no coach can always get it right. But as Scuba alluded to, PM handcuffs himself.

As for the OP, I'm glad Romero got a couple starts and played well. That's big going forward. But I still laugh at PM giving himself a pat on the back over his "gut". He was right about Nola and continues to look for that "big move" every year.

Right?

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He should have used his gut feeling to put in Peterson with a 4-0 lead against Baylor and saving Gilbert for the 3-1 lead against a much better Texas Tech team!!

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I'm pretty sure you're being facetious. But Peterson needs to see high leverage situations now. Because we need to know if we can rely on him in the SEC in high leverage situations.

So you were listening to Rantz last night, huh?

Rantz is using hindsight to make his point. During the game, who would have a problem with Gilbert taking the last innings? Nobody, of course. You're already 0-1 on the weekend and we needed that win. Poche maybe could have gone an extra inning, but he went longer than planned the weekend before for obvious reasons. Only 3 relievers were "burned" by Sunday: Bain, Reynolds, and Gilbert. That's pretty darn good considering Lange's start. Hell, I'd take that EVERY weekend.

Who was upset that we put in gilbert? Rantz was complaining that that's when we should have used TP saving Gilbert for the 2 run lead vs TT. Like we are supposed to know we would lead by 2 at that point? What if it was a blowout and you never use Gilbert for a critical situation at all? And how am I using hindsight to say that I was fine with the moves as they were unfolding?