Leyland's problem is he's too damn stuck on pitch counts and lefty/right match ups. The main issue I have with him is he overmanages the pitching staff. Just like last night, I fully put 100% of that loss on Leyland. Max was only at 108 pitches, he was completely dominating the Sox hitter and had a no hitter going till the bottom of the 6th were he gave up a single and double. Your ahead by 5 runs, it's bottom of the 6th, your ACE is on the mound and been un-hitable the entire game, he's only thrown 108 pitches. WHY in Gods name would you pull him at that point to go to a bullpen which every Tigers fan watching has known all year is "shaky" at best.
Then not only do you go to the shaky bullpen, but you change pitchers every damn hitter for no reason at all. Take a look at the pitch counts that moron used after taking Max out of the game...
Veras -- 3 pitches
Smyly -- 6 pitches
Alburquerque -- 8 pitches
Benoit -- 8 pitches
Porcello -- 9 pitches
When you run a parade of pitchers out there your' bound to find at least one or two that are having an off night. With Max at only 108 pitches and as dominating as he was he should have been left in there for at least one more inning, maybe even two more depending on how he felt. When you have a pitcher doing what he was doing on the mound you leave him in till he gives you a REASON to pull him out. Not because of the sequence of pitchers you like on paper (which BTW fails about 65% of the time). Never pull a pitcher that is doing well just because you have a "set up man".
Pitch counts have ruined baseball, Jim Leyland is way to pig headed in buying into this whole crap that pitchers should stay around 100 pitches. Back in the older day pitchers use to throw almost 250 pitches, even as recent at the 80's a pitcher pitched until he got tired and started giving up runs. Today a pitcher gets yanked at about 100-110 even if he is doing really well, that's BS. I'm not saying to go 200 pitches, but this is the playoffs, 130-140 pitches is not unreasonable, you don't pull a pitcher that is pitching like Max was for any reason other than he's not pitching well, and he was still pitching one of the best games I had ever seen. In the 80's do you think sparky would have pulled Jack Morris out just because he was at 108 pitches?? NOT.
As you can tell I am not a Leyland fan and I've been saying for the past 6 years that we win games despite Jim Layland, not because of him. Yet I honestly believe we will never win another World Series until Leyland is gone.
I'm still fuming over his bonehead moves last night as you can tell.
