Postseason Managerial Report Cards: Craig Counsell and Rob Thomson

This postseason, I’m continuing my use of a new format for our managerial report cards. In the past, I went through every game from every manager, whether they played 22 games en route to winning the World Series or got swept out of the Wild Card round. To be honest, I hated writing those brief blurbs. No one is all that interested in the manager who ran out the same lineup twice, or saw his starters get trounced and used his best relievers anyway because the series was so short. This year, I’m skipping the first round, and grading only the managers who survived until at least the best-of-five series. Earlier this week, I graded Aaron Boone and A.J. Hinch. Today, we’ll continue with the two managers who lost in the National League Divisional Series, Craig Counsell and Rob Thomson.

My goal is to evaluate each manager in terms of process, not results. If you bring in your best pitcher to face their best hitter in a huge spot, that’s a good decision regardless of the outcome. Try a triple steal with the bases loaded only to have the other team make four throwing errors to score three runs? I’m probably going to call that a blunder even though it worked out. Managers do plenty of other things — getting team buy-in for new strategies or unconventional bullpen usage behind closed doors is a skill I find particularly valuable — but as I have no insight into how that’s accomplished or how each manager differs, I can’t exactly assign grades for it.

I’m also purposefully avoiding vague qualitative concerns like “trusting your veterans because they’ve been there before.” Playoff coverage lovingly focuses on clutch plays by proven performers, but Cam Schlittler and Michael Busch were also great this October. Forget trusting your veterans; the playoffs are about trusting your best players. Cristopher Sánchez is important because he’s great, not because of the number of playoff series he’s appeared in. There’s nothing inherently good about having been around a long time; when I’m evaluating decisions, “but he’s a veteran” just doesn’t enter my thought process.

I’m always looking for new analytical wrinkles in critiquing managerial decisions. For instance, I’ve increasingly come to view pitching decisions as a tradeoff between protecting your best relievers from overexposure and minimizing your starters’ weakest matchups, which means that I’m grading managers on multiple axes in every game. I think that almost no pitching decision is a no-brainer these days; there are just too many competing priorities to make anything totally obvious. That means I’m going to be less certain in my evaluation of pitching than of hitting, but I’ll try to make my confidence level clear in each case. Let’s get to it.

Craig Counsell
Batting: A+
The Cubs hit the playoffs with a roster that made Counsell’s job fairly easy on the offensive side. That might sound like a good thing, but that’s not what was happening here; the team’s bench just never came together. Justin Turner faded down the stretch. Willi Castro was below replacement level after joining Chicago in midseason. Moisés Ballesteros was probably the best pinch-hitting option, but he wasn’t a serious consideration to replace Carson Kelly in the starting lineup. In other words, it was mostly plug and play.

To face the Padres and their stable of righty starters, Counsell led off with Michael Busch, as he did all year against righties, and slotted Kyle Tucker in fourth. Tucker DH’ed throughout the playoffs and looked at least partially compromised, but I don’t think Counsell had any alternative to playing him and hoping it would work. The first time that the Padres brought in a lefty, Adrian Morejon, Counsell’s plan became clear: Unless it was late enough that a second at-bat for that spot in the order was unlikely, Busch and Tucker were staying in the game even if they drew a bad platoon matchup. Given that the Padres only had two lefties, I liked the decision, and the Cubs won an uneventful opener without making any offensive substitutions.

That pattern held for the entire series, with just one exception: Ballesteros coming in for Matt Shaw against Mason Miller, a move I approved of. Other than that, the big move was that Ian Happ bunted in Game 3, but I didn’t even hate the bunt: 3-0 lead, man on second with no one out in the bottom of the seventh inning. That’s a small win probability swing either way, but two things made me like this call more. First, it was a surprise bunt, and the Padres weren’t in position to field it. Second, Happ is fairly good at surprise bunts for a hit; he was batting .400, with only a single disaster outcome in 10 career bunts against a regular defense. Not only was there very little chance of this backfiring, but a better bunt might have made Happ safe.

Against Milwaukee, Counsell started the same way he had against San Diego, using Ballesteros to replace Shaw against a tough righty and otherwise letting the lineup turn over uninterrupted. That changed in the second game of the series. The Brewers made their first unconventional pitching move, starting reliever Aaron Ashby as an opener, and Counsell countered by inserting Turner for his first at-bats of the postseason. What’s more, he hit him leadoff, in Busch’s normal spot, so that the lineup could turn over to normal as soon as Ashby, Milwaukee’s best lefty reliever, departed. Counsell actually got two Turner/Ashby at-bats out of his gambit, and Turner converted one of them into a single. After that, though, the Brewers ran out a string of good relievers and Counsell didn’t have any counters; even with the tiny edge of the Turner matchup, the Cubs just couldn’t get any traction.

The worst matchups Counsell ended up with in this series were probably lefties pitching to Pete Crow-Armstrong; he faced four southpaws and looked pretty bad in those at-bats. I think Counsell would have been willing to sub out PCA late in the game, but the Brewers were smart about attacking him with lefties early in the game, when Counsell’s removal would both compromise his defense and result in losing Crow-Armstrong’s bat against righties in future innings. A sacrifice bunt, up four runs in the sixth inning of Game 4, was probably a good outcome for one of those PCA/Ashby matchups, and in general I think that Counsell is very good at understanding when bunts are good tactical plays, and coaching that into his players so that even their bunt-for-hit attempts come in good spots.

At the end of the day, I don’t think that Counsell could have pulled any batting levers differently here. He got his chosen pinch-hitters – Turner against lefties, Ballesteros against righties – into the game regularly, which is especially impressive given that Turner could only really replace one guy (Busch). The Cubs just weren’t a platooning/switching team, and Counsell didn’t try to force something that wasn’t going to work. I really appreciated his light touch here – and I upgraded his A to an A+ because of the cute little Turner-leading-off move.

Pitching: B
With Shota Imanaga ineffective to close out the year and injuries leaving Cade Horton unavailable, Counsell had his work cut out for him on the run prevention front. Matthew Boyd drew the first start against the Padres, and Counsell managed by the new-school book; 18 batters and a trip to the showers. Daniel Palencia was the first reliever in, a good choice against the top of the San Diego lineup, and then Counsell played matchups by using lefty Drew Pomeranz against the bottom of the order, Andrew Kittredge for another crack at the Fernando Tatis Jr. section, and then Brad Keller to lock down the save. Palencia might be the team’s nominal closer, but Counsell was just matching up good pitchers against good hitters.

To help Imanaga navigate that scary section of the Padres lineup, Counsell turned to Kittredge as an opener for Game 2. I wasn’t in love with giving him the top of the order twice in a row, but I don’t see a way around it given the way the matchups stacked up in the first game. In any case, Imanaga came in against the lefties at the bottom of the order.

I’m not anti-opener, but I disliked how the Cubs executed this one. Generally speaking, openers are useful because you can line up your starter against the section of their lineup that is most advantageous to your team. You can imagine Imanaga facing the six through nine hitters three times each, then departing before getting the top of the order a third time. You can imagine him facing those bottom four hitters twice, for 13 total batters faced, and then leaving before the scary righties get another bite at the apple. But Counsell got caught in between, and Imanaga got absolutely torched in his second attempt at Tatis and Manny Machado; Machado cracked a three-run bomb to break a scoreless tie. Then Counsell pulled Imanaga for a lefty reliever instead of having him attack the lefties at the bottom of the order again. Why even bother with an opener if you’re going to use the follower that way? The only batter that Counsell prevented Imanaga from facing twice was Xander Bogaerts; feels like a lot of work for no gain. A variety of low-leverage relievers tag-teamed the rest of the game, leaving Chicago as rested as could reasonably be expected for Game 3.

You already know how Counsell wanted to manage, and he was able to do it just as he drew it up in the last game against the Padres. Jameson Taillon made it through four innings and 14 batters, Caleb Thielbar came in to get the lefty pocket, and then it was hammer time. Palencia got the big boppers, Pomeranz got the lefties the next time they appeared, and then Keller and Kittredge switched places, with Keller handling the top of the order and Kittredge locking down the save after Keller faltered. I liked this flip-flop; keeping the best San Diego hitters from seeing Kittredge three days in a row has a lot of merit, and it’s not like he and Keller are meaningfully different in terms of likelihood of locking down the save.

The first game of the Brewers series gave Counsell the worst kind of mental break; Boyd gave up a six-spot in the first inning, at which point it was time for the low-leverage brigade; shout out to Aaron Civale for 4 1/3 scoreless innings of relief against his old club. For the second game, Counsell gave up the opener charade in front of Imanaga and let him start regularly. Unfortunately for the Cubs, Imanaga just wasn’t right, and he’s homer-prone even when he’s at his best. Andrew Vaughn crushed a three-run shot in the first, and William Contreras added a solo dinger in the third. When Christian Yelich reached, bringing Vaughn up again, Counsell did what I would have done: He pulled the plug and summoned Palencia for his playoff fireman role.

In the fourth, Palencia just got beaten, giving up a massive home run to Jackson Chourio that broke the game wide open. That happens, though: Counsell put his best reliever in at the proper time, but making a good decision doesn’t guarantee a good outcome. He then saw the writing on the wall and shut things down; Colin Rea, also a former Brewer, pitched 3 1/3 innings of scoreless relief to wind down the game.

With his back against the wall, Counsell stuck to his plan in the next game; 18 batters for Taillon, then a mix-and-match selection of relievers following. He used Pomeranz against lefties, Palencia against the 4-5-6 part of the order, Kittredge to keep the line moving, Thielbar for another trip through that swath of lefties, and then Keller for a four-out save to close things out. This is exactly what I’d want to do if I were running the Cubs: use the good relievers in a tight, must-win game, then figure out tomorrow’s plans tomorrow.

With Boyd starting another must-win game, the Cubs got out to an early lead and Counsell put the hammer down. I didn’t love that he had Palencia as the first reliever in again, and against the same section of lineup he’d faced twice in the last two games, but he breezed through an inning and a third, and then it was matchup time. One little flourish I loved was that Counsell kept alternating his lefties. This game, Pomeranz got Sal Frelick and switch-hitter Blake Perkins; the previous day, he’d faced Yelich and Brice Turang. Likewise, Thielbar’s assignments kept moving around. This is what good managers do – make little switches like this that slightly improve their team’s chances without meaningful downside.

Speaking of Pomeranz, he drew the start in the series finale, again drawing Turang and Yelich as the lefties he matched up with. Contreras got him for a homer, but eh, what else was Counsell going do there? He didn’t have a starter. Rea followed Pomeranz, and this time Counsell pulled off the opener gambit correctly; Rea got the 5-8 hitters in the Milwaukee lineup twice, then Palencia came in before he’d have to face the scary top of the order a second time. This was hard work for Palencia, facing the same good hitters over and over, and I would have preferred a different reliever here, but I’ll cut Counsell a little slack given that it was still only the fourth inning when Palencia entered; no matter who faced the top of the order first, another reliever would have to deal with them later. You can’t completely avoid bad matchups, and I think that Counsell correctly deduced that he’d prefer to give his best pitcher the hardest assignment, rather than piling difficulty on a lesser arm.

The rest of this game went basically how you’d expect – Thielbar, Kittredge, and Keller followed Palencia in the best matchups Counsell could get. It didn’t matter; the Brewers limited Chicago to a single run. But I still came away from this series impressed by Counsell’s bullpen management. In the last three games of the NLDS, he pulled out all the stops, correctly so, and the Cubs staff held the Brewers to three runs in Games 3 and 5, and left them scoreless in Game 4. He did so with good matchups and a willingness to lean on his best pitchers, rather than simply the guys who got in the game first. Aside from the Imanaga opener game, which I truly didn’t care for, I don’t think that the Cubs had the pitching to do anything different than what Counsell did. That sounds like a B to me, though if you wanted to shade it up a half-grade or so I wouldn’t object.

Rob Thomson
Batting: D
It’s pretty hard to get a poor grade in my batting recaps; the only bad grades I give out are for something egregious. In years past, that has included Stephen Vogt pinch-hitting with Austin Hedges, Torey Lovullo calling so many bunts I lost count, Dusty Baker seeming to forget that he had a good young catcher as an alternative to his fading veteran. Thomson himself has done well in these postmortems before, largely because he seems to understand that the best way to manage the Phillies is to get out of the way and let their gaudy assortment of power hitters leave the yard. Cue the foreshadowing…

Thomson started the series against the Dodgers with his two slugging lefties batting second and third, with Brandon Marsh following fifth. Now, Marsh batted fifth a lot this season, but that’s a risky proposition in the playoffs. The Phillies know that Marsh can’t hit lefties. They spent all year trying to protect him from lefties; he racked up 88 PA against them and 337 against righties in 2025, and that split is pretty consistent throughout his career. He’s been abysmal against lefties. Even if you regress his performance heavily back to the mean, he’s one of the worst left-on-left hitters in the game. Marsh’s position there made very little sense to me, because an opposing manager who brought in a lefty reliever to face the scary bats could just leave their guy in against the overmatched Marsh.

Now, Thomson could always use a pinch-hitter, and he started the series with Nick Castellanos on the bench. There’s a hole in this plan, though: it’s a three-batter minimum, not a four-batter minimum, which means that even if Thomson subbed in Castellanos, the opposing manager would be able to pull their lefty for a righty. Things got even worse when Harrison Bader was injured in the first game, promoting Castellanos to the starting lineup henceforth. Now Marsh’s position in the batting order was a bright red target for the Dodgers – but Thomson didn’t move him down to protect him from the lefty relievers that L.A. wanted to use against Schwarber and Harper.

The Phillies didn’t really have righty bench bats after Bader got injured. Why aren’t you hiding Marsh among some low-impact righties and daring the Dodgers to use a lefty reliever there instead of against your best hitters? I truly thought this was an awful unforced error. In any case, Thomson tried his best to protect Marsh in the closing stages of the first game, subbing in utility infielder Edmundo Sosa when Marsh drew Alex Vesia. That would presumably have been Castellanos’s spot if he hadn’t already replaced Bader, so this particular substitution is no knock on Thomson. I just think that he needed to react more to the changing team in front of him instead of stubbornly leaving Marsh in a lineup spot that invited tough matchups.

Against Blake Snell in Game 2, Thomson at least moved Marsh down to eighth – two thumbs up from me. Marsh even drew a walk against Snell, only to get picked off of first base later in the inning. In his defense, it’s not like he sees many lefty pickoff moves. The game proceeded uneventfully for the most part; the main change Thomson made was inserting his lefty bats when Snell departed. Then came the fateful ninth, and one of the strangest decisions I’ve seen in recent years.

With the Phillies trailing by three, Castellanos hit a huge two-run double to put Philadelphia in business. Man on second, no one out, one-run deficit against a shaky Dodgers bullpen; this was their chance. But instead of doing his normal thing and just letting his good players try to make good plays, Thomson called for a sacrifice bunt. You’ve probably seen a lot of replays of this one. Bryson Stott put down a pretty poor bunt and Max Muncy was charging all the way; he had time to throw to Mookie Betts, wheeling over from short to cover third, and retire Castellanos.

Phillies legend Jimmy Rollins broke down the baserunning failure immediately after the game, placing the blame on Castellanos. He’s not wrong; that was a really bad baserunning play, and a better baserunner probably would have been safe there, either by getting a better jump on the ball when Betts took off or by retreating to second base, which was left uncovered, when he realized he’d been beaten. But Castellanos isn’t a good baserunner! He hasn’t been one at any point in his career, and he’s 33 now. Thomson didn’t call that bunt with no knowledge of who was on base. He knew that he was trying to advance Castellanos, a poor baserunner with middling footspeed. He knew that he was calling for a bunt from Stott, who has recorded six successful sacrifices in more than 3,000 professional at-bats. He even kept the bunt on after the Dodgers showed that they were willing to crash the plate with their entire defense.

Even if the Phillies pulled this play off, they’d end up with lefty Max Kepler facing lefty strikeout specialist Alex Vesia with one out and runners on the corners (assuming an intentional walk when Bader pinch-hit for Marsh); this was far from an automatic tie game, and even if the Phillies tied it, the game wasn’t going to end. As an added “bonus,” donating an out made it less likely that Philadelphia’s best hitters would get a chance in this inning, and realistically, you should be playing for a win here, not a tie. Even a successful sacrifice bunt here would have lowered the odds of the Phillies winning the game, per our WPA Inquirer; the actual result was far worse than that. Ouch.

In Game 3, a must-win, Thomson just kept his opening game lineup and switched in Castellanos for Bader in the eight spot. That’s pretty weird to me – Castellanos played in 147 games this year and never hit eighth once – but whatever, maybe he just felt like sticking with the same lineup card with as few alterations as possible. Maybe he just wanted his right-handed hitting outfielder to bat eighth no matter what. In any case, the Phillies got to Yoshinobu Yamamoto in the fourth inning for a three spot and then started the fifth looking to add on. Unfortunately, the Dodgers brought in a lefty to face Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper, which (after an intentional walk) led to Marsh facing Anthony Banda, a lefty specialist, with the bases loaded. Whoops, strikeout.

A scant two innings later, the Dodgers brought in Clayton Kershaw to get Schwarber and Harper again. It ended with an intentional walk bringing Marsh to the plate against a lefty, and Marsh again wasn’t up to the task, stranding two runners in a tight game. Mercifully for Philly, the rest of the lineup absolutely put it on Kershaw and put the game away with a five-run eighth, though Marsh did get another at-bat against him (resulting in another out). Even in the middle of that gong show (two homers, a double, a walk, plenty of other hard hit balls), Thomson had to put his mark on the game; he called for another sacrifice bunt from Stott, one of the rare outs Kershaw recorded. I just don’t get it; there were multiple bases-clearing hits still to come in this inning, and Stott bats right before the big boppers, so that wasn’t exactly hard to forecast. Why are you giving outs away?

The fourth game was a low-offense slog, with difficult visibility and good pitching muting each team’s offensive firepower. The Dodgers mostly stayed away from their lefties, so Thomson mostly stayed away from his bench, with both sides only blinking in the 11th inning. On the hitting side, I thought this game was pretty cut and dry; Thomson just needed his club to score more runs than they did.

Maybe I’m being too harsh on Thomson. He didn’t have a ton of options in this series. But even with few options, he made a series of very strange moves. That Castellanos/Stott play was baffling to me. Hanging Marsh out to dry repeatedly against lefty relievers? Why? The Phillies carried so many outfielders that even after Bader’s injury, they had Otto Kemp and Weston Wilson both available. Maybe keeping one batter in reserve to pinch-run for Bader made sense, but Thomson had a whole stable of fast runners to choose from for that role. How did this end in Marsh getting a ton of at-bats in spots that the Phillies just didn’t set him up to succeed in? And the bunts! The bunts, with this team of plodders. These bunts weren’t trying to advance Trea Turner and Stott, the team’s two excellent baserunners. They were moving Castellanos around, and I cannot imagine any manager in baseball thinks “let Nick Castellanos run the bases more often” is a key to success. (Well, fine, maybe Philly’s opponents do.) In a series where it felt like there weren’t many moves to make, Thomson still managed to find a few bad ones.

Pitching: D-
Facing the Dodgers without Zack Wheeler isn’t anyone’s idea of fun. In the first game, however, the Phillies had a tremendous consolation prize in Cristopher Sánchez, who was among the best starters in baseball this year. Thomson treated him like an ace, letting him tangle with the Dodgers order a third time through, which I think was a great decision. Unfortunately for the Phillies, the pocket of lefty-killing righties in the middle of the Dodgers lineup came through when Tommy Edman singled and then Enrique Hernández followed with a two-run double. Fine decision in my eyes, just a bad outcome; the Phillies weren’t getting through this series without yeoman’s work from Sánchez.

Thomson replaced Sánchez with David Robertson, and here Thomson lost me. I was actually surprised that Robertson made the playoff roster. He signed more than halfway through the season and looked vastly diminished, like a 40-year-old who took six months off and couldn’t turn things around. As a fellow 40-year-old, I sympathize – but then again, I didn’t have to enter the NLDS in a one-run game to face the Dodgers. Robertson retired one of the three batters he faced and didn’t induce a single swing-and-miss; Thomson rushed out to get him as soon as he was legally allowed. Matt Strahm entered with two on and no out, and almost got out of the jam, but Teoscar Hernández tagged him for a three-run shot that ended the scoring. Thomson still used his very best relievers the rest of the way, cognizant that beating the Dodgers is very difficult and that he needed to seize every opportunity. Orion Kerkering got the bottom of the lineup and then Jhoan Duran got the top to finish things up.

In the next game, Jesús Luzardo looked pretty good himself, and Thomson again made the calculated decision to let him face the Dodgers lineup a third time through. For the second time in a row, that didn’t work out great; Teoscar Hernández and Freddie Freeman reached base to open the seventh inning, which meant Thomson had to go to his bullpen with men on base and the game on the line. This time, he brought in Kerkering, with Robertson essentially consigned to the dustbin of history. The Dodgers just beat a pretty good pitcher here, and I don’t think Thomson did anything wrong aside from leaning heavily on his best relievers in what felt like a lost cause. Strahm, lefty specialist Tanner Banks, and Duran followed with zeroes, setting up the Stott/Castellanos drama at the end of this game. Somehow, Duran had now faced Shohei Ohtani and Will Smith twice each, with other great Dodger hitters like Betts and Muncy also getting a look at him, even though the Phillies were trailing by multiple runs in the ninth inning each time Duran entered. I get that it’s a short series, but that doesn’t seem optimal. Once is probably unavoidable. Both games? That does not seem like a good plan to me.

The Phillies have another great starter in Ranger Suárez. Thomson elected to use Aaron Nola as an opener in front of him in Game 3, though, and made a big deal to the television announcers about how he’d come up with the perfect spot to replace Nola with Suárez. That spot was somehow against Edman, who has huge career platoon splits; he’s a power hitter against lefties and a slap hitter when he switches sides of the plate to face righties. Batting on his preferred side, he launched a missile of a home run on Suárez’s get-me-over fastball to start the outing.

I hate, hate, hated this decision. You can’t just say “oh, it’s an opener” and have all the matchups work. If the point of the opener was to let Suárez face batters who he’s better against, why did he come in for Edman in particular? The Phillies talked at length about how his extensive postseason experience as both a reliever and starter let Thomson use him flexibly; why not have Nola face Edman and then bring in Suárez against a lefty? Why even bother with the opener if all it gets you is an extra Suárez/Edman confrontation? That’s actively bad for you!

Anyway, Suárez was amazing and by the time he departed the game, the Phillies had blown things open against Kershaw. Naturally, then, it was time for Kerkering, who was apparently both a high-leverage reliever and a mop-up man now. He faced the top of the Dodgers order – pitching for the third straight game – with an 8-1 lead. I truly do not understand this one. You’re supposed to set your young guys up to succeed, not keep giving your opponents free looks at your pitchers in unimportant spots.

Game 4 started out easy to manage; with the offenses flailing, Sánchez rolled through the Los Angeles lineup twice before running into a pinch of trouble in the seventh, with two on and one out. Thomson went to Duran here, and I completely understand why: If he was going to lose, he was going to lose with his best guy on the mound, and Duran is one of the best in the majors in a one-inning stint. But then Thomson decided to intentionally walk an ice cold Ohtani, loading the bases for Betts, in a one-run game.

Just say those words to yourself over and over again. Load the bases… for Mookie Betts… in a one-run game. Betts has one of the best batting eyes in baseball. Duran is far from wild, but a big reason he limits walks is that his absurd splitter makes a lot of batters swing at it even when it’s not in the strike zone. Offense was at an extreme premium in this game, too, thanks to the twilight conditions; it was clear right from the start that Betts would be hunting for a game-tying walk instead of trying to beat one of the best closers in baseball straight up.

I found this decision so shocking that I ran the numbers on it in depth. For the record, Duran has massive reverse splits, which doesn’t surprise me given his nasty splitter. Betts is almost perfectly even against lefties and righties. Ohtani hits righties better than lefties, of course. Throw all that and the game state after each possible outcome into my rough matchup tool, and I get a 37.4% Dodgers chance of winning before the intentional walk, and a 40.3% chance of winning after the walk. If you’re new to these articles, you might wonder what the big deal is, but let me be clear: That’s an enormous swing in win probability for a managerial decision. It’s bat-Ohtani-ninth levels of bad, bunt-with-Aaron Judge level bad.

I had to make a few assumptions, so I wouldn’t be confident to the 10th of a percentage point or anything, but this was an enormous, awful gaffe. Honestly, it’s probably worse than my calculations. I simulate the chance of a walk based on overall skill level for batters, pitchers, and league average, but if you tell literally Mookie Betts, a man who is a superstar despite his slight stature because he’s just so coordinated and good at making adjustments, that a walk can tie the game, he’s allowed to change his behavior. He’s allowed to stop trying to hit the ball hard and focus more on seeing it late, and indeed, his two swings in the at-bat were defensive. He was trying to take a walk; Duran threw four pitches outside of the zone, and Betts took them all. You just cannot load the bases like that and give the Dodgers a way to tie the game without a hit. That doesn’t even consider the fact that Ohtani was cold as ice, Duran was in fine form, and no one could buy a hit to save their lives that night. What in the world was Thomson thinking?

After Duran, under extreme duress, surrendered the tying run, Thomson let him pitch until he was too tired to continue. Makes sense to me! He’s their best reliever, after all. Strahm then pitched a bridge inning – sticking with the good relievers – before Luzardo got the 10th and most of the 11th. This felt like one of those games where Luzardo was going to pitch until it ended – but when the Dodgers put runners on the corners with two outs, Thomson brought in Kerkering, who had pitched in every game of the series already, to a huge leverage spot. Kerkering walked the first batter he faced (it wasn’t particularly close) and then committed an unfortunate error to end the series. I don’t blame him for it, though; on-field mistakes are inevitable. You’re never going to erase all of those. The bullpen management in this game, though? That’s an easier thing to clean up, and I thought Thomson’s decisions needed quite a bit of cleaning up. This year’s playoffs have seen a lot of good management so far, but Thomson’s performance wasn’t up to snuff. I’m not giving him an F, because I think he had some good instincts around leaving good starters in the game, but he made some errors that I found pretty shocking.