CosVT

There is plenty of lack of execution to go around. I don't know about Castro. His release point is all over the place. His mechanics will have to be more repeatable for him to have sustained, consistent success. I don't know if changes there would rob him of his velocity and explosive movement, but the current version isn't going to work. I see some similar problems the last couple of nights to the sloppy play in Buck's last year that set me off. Baserunning errors where we get late break to a bag because we aren't fundamentally sound on rounding bases aggressively and watching throws relative to the cut off. Guys missing signs (perhaps intentionally) and missing an opportunity to get down a sac bunt, then getting the sign (overtly) and giving a half-assed bunt effort to go down 2 strikes. Failure to take an approach to move runners over in close games. Of course, failing to cover home and letting 2 runs score on a past ball. I can deal with having a rebuilding team that is a little bit down in the talent department, but there is no excuse for those guys to not be executing fundamental baseball. I'll watch developing players or even overmatched players play, but I'm not going to watch bad baseball.

I don't see a difference. I see him rushing the bat head out to try to pull fastballs. I had hoped to see fastballs getting deep and being driven middle away. Seeing the ball longer to chase less and have some hope of detecting a breaking ball.

....and not have Manny lead the team in HR despite leaving in mid-July

I expect to see his curveball become much better than what we saw last night. I think its a good to plus pitch for him. He seemed to be losing it high and arm side quite a bit last night. In his presser after the game, Buck mentioned some struggles with the different baseball used in MLB versus MiLB. He implied that there were some struggles there with getting the feel on his off speed stuff. Buck went on to mention how ridiculous it is that they use different balls and says he thinks it will get addressed this offseason. I spoke to a college pitcher that pitched in the CAA and he was telling me how much different the ball was when they played in a game at an ACC stadium (using the ACC ball vs the CAA ball). He kept a ball to show me the difference in the seams and it was unbelievable. The ACC ball seems were considerably more raised. He said his off speed stuff all had considerably more movement but it took him his whole bullpen plus part of the game to get comfortable with trying to control the pitches much less hit spots with them.

This is an interesting scouting report and shows how things ebb and flow with making adjustments. When Mancini first came up, the thing that impressed me was how fast his hands were and his ability to turn on that inside fastball. Funny how that is now the book to get him out.