Troy Percival Has The Opposition Right Where He Wants Them
Joe Maddon, Troy Percival May 15th. 2009, 10:00am
Two nights ago as the Rays were adding insurance runs we said the following on Twitter:
4-run lead now. Not even Percy can [bad bad word] this one up , right?
Luckily for us and the Rays, they actually built the lead up to 6 before Percival was called upon in the 9th inning. Because 5 batters later, he had surrendered 4 runs.
But listen to the quotes from Joe Maddon, and not only is he going to still run Percival out there, he’s going to do it more often.
We went a whole week without throwing him. He got hot once up in Boston, and that was it. You liked the idea that he’s not been overused in a sense, but I don’t like to have him so underused, either…Seven days not pitching was not good.
Joe Maddon, your Tampa Bay Rays manager. He would have complimented the captain of the Titanic on his mustache, after hitting the iceberg.
Percival undeterred by uneven results [MLB]
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One of the producers on the Dan Sileo show (620am) had a good point this morning… he said if Percy had been the one to boot the ball instead of Aki, their phones would’ve been lit up with people wanting to vent. But since it was Aki, nobody wanted to talk about it. For some reason, Rays fans have an unhealthy obsession with what Percy’s doing (or not doing).
I understand the Percy hate, but he’s not the only guy in the bullpen that looks like ass. Joe “Vulcan” Nelson looked really bad last night… but, I don’t hear the venom for him. What about “Big Game” giving up all those hits last night? I understand Aki had an error, but “Big Game” still kept giving up hits. Cleveland was hitting him well before the error.
Of course Maddon’s going to keep trotting him out there. He’s the closer. Until Izzy gets up here, Maddon doesn’t really have a viable option. Wheeler and Balfour don’t look like they can get the job done.
Simple. Aki booting a ball allowing this kind of runs to score is not the norm. If Percy imploding was a rare occurance, we wouldn’t yell as much.
took the words right out of my mouth
At least Maddon’s learning not to try and keep him in there after an implosion. I’d say that’s progress. But, I’ll also say this team has bigger problems right now than their closer.
much bigger!
BTW, Nice to see the 10 Connects microphone in the middle of that photo. Too bad I can’t identify the hand.