What a difference a couple players make

[Fiver6565]

1 minute ago, Too Tall said:

I believe, injuries do matter. Sometime psycologically. Gunnar's rough patch also seemed to begin soon after Mateo's injury. I may be the only one, but I wonder how much that affected Gunnar. And then on top of that, Westy is out and Holliday is up - a new double play partner. Not Westy or then Urais. Gunnar is a young guy and I've watched that play where Mateo is injured several times. I'm not putting fault anywhere because it was two guys going all out, but one was ultimately out for the year - maybe career. That's hard to shake. It took till September for Gunnar to get over all this in my opinion and in doing so he has shown the fortitude that will make him a super star. Sometimes it's more than just guys getting hurt. This is after all a very mental game. Now, cept for Mateo, we are whole again. In the infield anyway.

I agree with this, I think we poo-poo the mental side of things in situations like this somewhat.

Don't agree that Mateo's injury is career threatening in any way though.  Zero reason to think that.

[Moose Milligan]

1 minute ago, Fiver6565 said:

Agree with that, certainly.  Holliday's first game back was the game Westburg got hit in the hand, so it didn't affect his roster spot, but it certainly affected his PT, no doubt he would not have seen lefties much at the very least had Westburb been around.

That's right.  Urias going down allowed for Mayo to play and be awful, although that was offset by Rivera.

So much of what the "injuries shouldn't be an excuse crowd!" fails to realize that it's not that there were injured players...it's about who they were replaced with and how poorly those players performed in their absence.  

 

[Too Tall]

3 minutes ago, Fiver6565 said:

I agree with this, I think we poo-poo the mental side of things in situations like this somewhat.

Don't agree that Mateo's injury is career threatening in any way though.  Zero reason to think that.

I hope you are right - I like Mateo and what he brought to this team. It may have been the end of his career as an Oriole however and that is probably how I should have phrased it.

[Fiver6565]

1 minute ago, Too Tall said:

I hope you are right - I like Mateo and what he brought to this team. It may have been the end of his career as an Oriole however and that is probably how I should have phrased it.

I doubt he's done as an Oriole either - if anything his value to the team has been reinforced by his absence.  And he won't be all that expensive for a bit yet.

[Fiver6565]

4 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

That's right.  Urias going down allowed for Mayo to play and be awful, although that was offset by Rivera.

So much of what the "injuries shouldn't be an excuse crowd!" fails to realize that it's not that there were injured players...it's about who they were replaced with and how poorly those players performed in their absence.  

 

Yes. In a perfect world Holliday and Mayo come up and perform like their prospect status and AAA results made you think they might - if so, the last two months look and feel a lot different.  But they didn't, and not only that, they did much worse than even the most pessimistic of us likely would have guessed.