I slept on it. I'm still baffled at this decision.
Little was elite in the first half. Hitters didn't know how to handle his knuckle curve and he had people chasing it. At the all-star break teams adjusted their approach and realized that Little struggles to throw pitches in the zone and they stopped chasing his pitches early in the count. It forces him to elevate his pitches or he stays wild and can't keep the curve in the zone.
First half - hitters had a .177/.305/.234/.539 slash line
In the second half hitters were .230/.355/.345/.700
Splits at home: .163/.309/.207/.516
Splits on the road: .236/.341/.355/.696
Polanco hitting from the right hand side against LHP in 2025 - .308/.348/.548/.896 (OPS .802 against RHP)
Raleigh hitting from the right hand side against LHP in 2025 - .281/.351/.681/1.032 (OPS .909 against RHP)
In the playoffs he now has 3.0 IP over 5 outings. He faced 19 batters total. One was an IBB, 4 walks, 5 hits and had a wild pitch. He had one inherited runner and allowed it to score giving Gausman the loss in Game 1.....against Polanco because Schneider wanted to turn him around.
So in summary, Schneider wanted to give Raleigh a look at a different pitcher....but was fine with having Polanco get the same look from a pitcher.
Little is not a leverage reliever and he hasn't been one for 3 months. I completely understand Schneider's post game comments. You have to protect your players at this point and it's not Little's fault that he was put in that situation but we put a guy in the game who can't throw strikes, who consistent lets 2-3 runners get on base in an outing and brought him in to face two hitters who have better splits hitting against lefties in 2025. It didn't work in Game 1 and it didn't work in Game 5.
Anyone attacking Little or his family are despicable but this is a decision that goes right up with pulling Berrios and Gausman in previous playoffs where a critical managing decision involving pitching changes cost the Jays a game and potentially just cost them a chance to go to the World Series
.....................................................and that this point Seattle or Toronto are just going to be fodder to the Dodgers. Ohtani very well may have had had the greatest individual playoff game in league history last night.