Man, I feel a little bad for David Hernandez.
I think there must be few suckier things than the pitcher who starts off in a competitive game and then gets bombed so quickly and mercilessly that like his job duties wraps around from trying to win game to mop up duty. You get to keep pitching because you were shitty.
And then you try to get it together and at least eat some innings, but you are so bad you can’t even do that and of course it gets harder and harder as your arm wears down from throwing 35 pitches in an inning. And then you start thinking, “Okay, now we have moved beyond ‘save the arms’ mode into “Let’s blow this guy’s arm out so that at least he can’t itch the rest of this series and hopefully he gets hurt so we can DL him and bring up another player.”
And in the end, you still fail and the team is forced to use a position player who thinks it is all a fun goof.... and then that guy works a crisp 1 and a third inning making it look easy.
It happens multiple times a year, but it is always cringe-y watching.
I remember LaRussa did this like twice in one season to Jason Marquis. He *hated* Jason Marquis. I don’t know why. Marquis was not very good, but he was an okay 5th starter. But LaRussa hated him. He would always leave him in too long even when he wasn’t awful. Like Marquis would be down 3-1 after 6 innings which is typical 5th starter stuff and LaRussa would make him pitch the seventh and throw 110 pitches. He was also always making Marquis do other stuff, too. Like ph just to sac bunt on off nights. Or pinch run for no reason,
Anyway, The second time it happened, I was certain Marquis was going to punch La Russa when he finally took the ball. I think LaRussa knew it, too, so he sent out the pitching coach. Pitching coach takes the ball tries to give him the pat on the ass and Marquis kind of stiff arms him and walks off, staring daggers at LaRussa the entire time. That was it for him in St. Louis. Next year they traded him to the Cubs. He was pretty good for us. Did a good job eating some innings.
