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Poll Time: Do you approve of the job John Gibbons is doing?

Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports

My plan was to do this monthly, during the season, but I see that the last one was on April 27.

Last time around his numbers ran 37% Approve, 28% Neutral and 35% Do not approve.

Of course, this time we are on an 8 game winning streak and, well, put the past little bit everything he does seems to work. Pinch hitting Munenori Kawasaki for Ryan Goins, in the 9th inning of last Sunday's game was perfect and started us on our way to the walk-off win. Of course, now we have no Kawasaki to pinch hit, and we are back to the bloody 8-man bullpen, at a time when we can't find enough work for the guys that are already there.

The number of times our relievers have pitched over the last two weeks:

  • Cecil: 3 times.
  • Osuna: 4 times.
  • Loup: 6 times
  • Delabar: 3 times.
  • Hendriks: 4 times.
  • Tepera: 1 time.
  • Bo Schults: 2 times.

Does it look like we need an 8th man in the pen? I guess rosters moves fall more under the GM role, but if you really wanted Coke for a 3rd lefty in the pen, why not send out Ryan Tepera and let him get some work.

Normally my complaint with Gibby is his lack of patience, but he was incredibly patient with Kevin Pillar and it seems to be paying off.  Pillar hit .181 in May, and I was ready to ship him out and give the job to anyone, but the calendar flips to June and he's hitting .357 with a .607 slugging average. Patience pays off. Or something.

At the moment, Ryan Goins is testing my patience. 1 hit in June. 1. No walks. He hasn't even been hit by pitch. And yet he continues to play every day. And we send away anyone that could possibly play his position.

Gibby seems to be bunting more than he has in the past. I don't understand bunting when your team is leading the league in runs score (and, also, can't seem to win a close game ever). I can understand Goins bunting, because, lets face it, he hits like a pitcher, but he's had Jose Reyes bunt. If you are bunting with your leadoff hitter, you are screwing up.

On the flip side, man are we great at stealing bases, 39 steals, caught 6 times. I'm not sure how much of that to credit to Gibby, but we do seem to have a system that lets the runners know what pitcher/catcher combinations we can run against and which ones we can't.

The starting rotation has come around and Gibby seems to have a pretty good feel for when to leave guys in and when to take them out. I think Pete Walker deserves some praise, our pitchers seem to have stopped handing out walks to anyone that is willing to take 4 pitches. In April we walked 9.4% of the batters we faced. May 8.4%. June we are down to 3.8%. I thought Walker was getting close to losing his job, a month or so back, but he seems to be getting a message across now.

Anyway, lets have the vote.