Look, if we want to have a reasonable discussion about how managers misuse their relievers, I’m all for it. By now you should know that I agree in general with that premise.

But using over the top rhetoric does not further the discussion, and in fact often clouds it. What we are really talking about now is not whether Girardi did something that was inexplicable (i.e., unexplainable, incomprehensible, etc.). Rather we are speaking about the much more mundane: that Girardi does not rise above very predicable tendencies of most MLB managers.

Now that we have dispensed with the hyperbole, we can continue the discussion, and focus on what then is the real issue: managers use their relievers incorrectly, and Girardi appears to be no cleverer in this regard.

Go to it.

If most managers would make that decision, how is it inexplicable?

And yet, as demonstrated earlier, Coke DID have fine numbers v. LH batters this year, though he has been prone to the long ball. If Marte could not go, Coke was not the worst option, in my mind. At that point Girardi has one lefty to go to against the meat of their order.

Now I for one am not so hung up lefty-righty match ups, an i would have gone with Hughes (probably). But eliminating the reductio ad absurdum of jumping out a window to save time, using your one lefty available in the pen to go after their tough lefties is by no means *inexplicable*within the context of typical baseball strategy, as employed by managers these days.

In all serious, semantics aside, the Coke decision was a pivotal mistake, in my opinion.

Mistake or not, I agree…he ended up allowing to lead to balloon to a much tougher deficit.