[CTcard]

It was a matter of time for Little. Entering tonight, he had been hit hard and given up five runs in his last five innings of work even though the team had still managed to win each game. His only clean outing was last week versus OSU's 7-8-9 hitters. Better to flush it out his system now than next week.

No doubt Little has not looked very strong as of late. It doesn't seem to be velocity but I think he's been missing with his slider and his fastball seems straighter than I remember.

The only problem with "Better to flush it out now" is that it is not at all clear that this disaster means anything is flushed and will now improve. Sudden improvement can happen, particularly associated with some definite event, but more often not.

We do have two interesting cases of sudden pitching improvement this year.
Palisch was really struggling as a starter and improved remarkably since going to the pen. His last start was vs UCLA at which point his ERA was 5.93. Since then he had one poor appearance (vs Gonzaga), otherwise has only allowed one earned run, and his overall bullpen ERA has been 2.25 and no runs allowed in his most recent 8 appearances.
Grech was also struggling early, with his ERA going as high as 5.40 after that same Gonzaga game. Then he stopped starting his windup with his hands way over his head and the movement on his pitches got way better. Since that game, he's given up 1 run in 12 appearances to get his ERA back to 3.08. 

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Anyway, that was certainly an extremely painful last inning to watch. Just a couple of hours earlier my son's little league team did the exact same thing - though because it was little league it was about twice as many runs.

Until the ninth it was a pretty strong game on the road versus a tough opponent. [Though of course there were some things ... bases loaded and no outs leading to zero runs is terrible.]
Despite not exactly mowing down the ASU hitters, I was mildly encouraged by Beck's performance. I thought he looked crisper in his pitches, though he still couldn't get through the fifth inning. 

I wonder if we'll see Dieter or Williams out of the pen the rest of the series?

[CTcard]

It was a matter of time for Little. Entering tonight, he had been hit hard and given up five runs in his last five innings of work even though the team had still managed to win each game. His only clean outing was last week versus OSU's 7-8-9 hitters. Better to flush it out his system now than next week.

No doubt Little has not looked very strong as of late. It doesn't seem to be velocity but I think he's been missing with his slider and his fastball seems straighter than I remember.

The only problem with "Better to flush it out now" is that it is not at all clear that this disaster means anything is flushed and will now improve. Sudden improvement can happen, particularly associated with some definite event, but more often not.

We do have two interesting cases of sudden pitching improvement this year.
Palisch was really struggling as a starter and improved remarkably since going to the pen. His last start was vs UCLA at which point his ERA was 5.93. Since then he had one poor appearance (vs Gonzaga), otherwise has only allowed one earned run, and his overall bullpen ERA has been 2.25 and no runs allowed in his most recent 8 appearances.
Grech was also struggling early, with his ERA going as high as 5.40 after that same Gonzaga game. Then he stopped starting his windup with his hands way over his head and the movement on his pitches got way better. Since that game, he's given up 1 run in 12 appearances to get his ERA back to 3.08. 

---------
Anyway, that was certainly an extremely painful last inning to watch. Just a couple of hours earlier my son's little league team did the exact same thing - though because it was little league it was about twice as many runs.

Until the ninth it was a pretty strong game on the road versus a tough opponent. [Though of course there were some things ... bases loaded and no outs leading to zero runs is terrible.]
Despite not exactly mowing down the ASU hitters, I was mildly encouraged by Beck's performance. I thought he looked crisper in his pitches, though he still couldn't get through the fifth inning. 

I wonder if we'll see Dieter or Williams out of the pen the rest of the series?