04/23/2004 - St Louis (Carpenter) @ Milwaukee (Kinney)

[Cyanogen5]

I agree witht he PR, but why not PH for him to begin with...the man hasn't gotten a hit in 13 at bats, and it isn't like he is Pujols and just in a slump, he is expected to not get hits for long periods of time. Speaking of Pujols, Kinney made him look terrible, and he looked pretty bad on the two strikes before Kieschnick walked him too.

[clancyphile]

RoCoBrewfan

 

Kinney's track record from 2003 hasn't impressed me much.

 

If he can put it together, I'll be happy for him. But he still hasn't shown that he is any better than Jamey Wright and Jimmy Haynes were. Wright and Haynes occasionally had good starts, but more often than not...

 

Well, you know the scoop on that front.

[DuWayne Steurer]

Clancy, that's all fine, and I agree, but I don't understand your venom for the guy when he throws a gem. I mean, you're a Brewers fan, right?

 

FYI, last year Kinney had 12 quality starts in 32 tries, Franklin had 13 in 34 tries.

 

This year, Kinney is 2 out of 4.

 

If nothing else, I think he's earned a stay of execution for now.

 

Give the guy credit where it is due at the very least.

 

He knew it was on the line tonight, and he delivered.

 

Heck, go back and read my posts over the last week. I've been calling to get Kinney out of the rotation as much as anyone else. I don't let my personal like and dislike of players cloud judgement calls on things like that.

[colbyjack]

What a great, great win tonight. Back to .500.

 

A few thoughts...

 

I don't want to get caught up too much with Kinney's start, because he's just as likely to fall back onto his previous form in his next outing, but I was impressed with him tonight. I watched the first 2 innings on TV before switching over to the radio broadcast, but I did notice that Kinney was hitting the targets that Gary Bennett set up for him extremely well. This is one big thing I watch in pitchers every time I watch a game, and if you watched those first 2 innings like I did you would have noticed that he hit each & every target that Bennet set up. And not just with his fastball, but with both his curveball & changeup. He clearly was a lot more focused in this game, and while I didn't see if he was doing the same thing in innings 3-6, that is an encouraging sign IMO.

 

And how about Kieschnick? Especially after yesterday's 15 inning game, the Brewers needed that performance. I've never seen him that dominant on the mound.

 

And for deserved props for my least favorite Brewer, way to go Counsell!

[clancyphile]

RoCoBrewfan

 

I agree for the most part. While Capuano is on the DL, see if Kinney can put it together enough so he can bring in something of value over the offseason.

 

But I'm not optimistic. If he can keep the focus, he might turn out okay. But that is the big question.

[berniebrewer4life]

I am not the biggest fan of kinney, but concidering he pitched 119 pitches, and only gave up one run shows me that he deserves to stay up a little bit longer.

[gregmag]

The main thing some of you are missing, IMHO, is that it's way early. You can't put a death watch on for pitchers with every start from the beginning of the season, at least not when you don't have better options beating down the door.

 

It's also not a question of what the player "earns" or "deserves" -- it's just a question of what the team needs. If the Brewers had five starters with better track records than Ben Sheets, Sheets wouldn't deserve anything -- he'd be the odd man out. As it happens, the Brewers have only one starter with a clearly superior track record to Matt Kinney (sorry, RoCo -- I still say Doug Davis' ERA+ edge has little predictive value given the number of games we're talking about and Kinney's superior strikeout numbers, although Davis is starting to shake my stubbornness on the point).

 

If Kinney (or Obermuller, or Davis, or Capuano) blows his next two starts, that's no good reason to bump him from the rotation. These four are clearly the team's best starting options behind Sheets at this point (please don't talk to me about what a fine starter Dave Burba was seven years ago). Somebody is going to get hurt, and the Brewers need to evaluate all of these guys and figure out what they can do over a significant number of starts.

 

Or maybe, as Clancy surprisingly suggested, you figure out what they -- Kinney -- can bring as trade bait, although I still haven't heard why you would want to trade a healthy, cheap, 28 year-old starting pitcher who was good enough to bring someting in return. Oh, wait, I forgot -- extended tantrum. Sorry.

 

Greg.

[DuWayne Steurer]

Greg, you don't have to preach to me that Davis is not a superior pitcher!... http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

 

I don't know what I may have said to give you that impression, but I may have been off that day!

[gregmag]

I may have the wrong guy. It was somebody with whom I usually agree, and I thought it was you . . . it may have been RobertR, whose similarity to your screen name sometimes trips me up. Am I the only one who does that -- confuses two completely different people sometimes because they have similar user names? Oh, well; wages of senility. Sorry for the false accusation.

 

Greg.

[DuWayne Steurer]

Greg, absolutely no need to apologize!

 

I very well may have pimped Davis somewhere this spring after his performance in AZ, but like you, I certainly don't think he's anything special.