Like the Chicago Cubs hitters, it took one game for the fire Joe Maddon crowd to get into mid-season form. From the sharing of the lineup to the last pitch, they found some reason to, bi$&@.
The complaints began the second lineups were released.
here we go again with these f*** lineups
— Ryne (@ryne715) March 28, 2019
Already benching Schwarber vs a lefty. How about you let the man play a full onslaught of games to find out what he can actually do.
— Joe Pounders (@JoePounders) March 28, 2019
zagunis over schwarber? okay…. pic.twitter.com/xKO24IKc8C
— gmcguinn (@g_mcguinn) March 28, 2019
https://twitter.com/mlbstatsnspin/status/1111333321877999616?s=21
There’s literally 1,000 of these. They mostly hit on Kyle Schwarber sitting and Mark Zagunis starting in left. Coincidentally, they usually complain about Schwarber playing left because, “he’s a DH.”
Fans have a somewhat reasonable response to Schwarber not hitting against lefties, and needing the opportunities to do it for him to get better. Through the course of a season, he will get some opportunities, but not enough to create positive change.
This is the same thought folks have with Albert Almora. He can’t hit right-handed pitching, but also didn’t get enough opportunities to try. Last season Maddon had a .760 OPS guy in Ian Happ on the bench to play in his place, and in 2017 they had Jon Jay. In 2019 there isn’t really another hitter to take those at bats away, unless Jason Heyward shifts to center and Zagunis or Ben Zobrist plays right?
Thing is, the fans that don’t like Maddon will likely concede the lefty-lefty thing, but would suggest a lineup where Kris Bryant is in left, David Bote is at third, and Daniel Descalso is at second. They may go as far as putting Zagunis in right for Jason Heyward, staying true to the righty-lefty matchup.
Ultimately, they have some credibility in criticizing this lineup – if it didn’t go out and score 12 runs and every starter scored at least one run.
The next issue they had was with the quick pull of Pedro Strop.
So yes, Strop was pulled and immediately a Nomar Mazara absolutely destroyed a Mike Montgomery pitch.
But they weren’t considering the injuries that limited Strop to 3 spring training games and 2.2 innings pitched. They also likely ignored that he was likely on a pitch/batter count. Why not use a 12 to 2 blow out as an opportunity to allow stroke to get some work?
There’s zero credibility to anyone complaining about this decision. Sure, the two-run home run sucked, and it’s possibly the only example of the team playing to win every pitch of every inning. But this is a dumb complaint.
