Down 3? Yes.

If his spot didn't come up that inning, he should've and would've pitched another, I would guess.

Who should he have used there instead?

We can hope so

Byrdak warming.

I take back what I say about TC figuring out this long relief/mopup man thing.

Manny is available...

Now here's something that is TC's fault: when do you think he'll figure out that Elvin is not a long reliever?

He went multi-innings just fine in AAA regularly.

I think the question is more whether Elvin is a major league calibre reliever.

I don't think its the multi-innings thats necessarily hurting him. His lack of fastball command, on the first pitch or the 30th, is really his issue.

Pitching two innings if you're crusing is one thing - pitching two with a boatload of pitches is another. Don't get me wrong; it's on Elvis to perform, but you think TC would realize when something isn't working.

Terry said he's "Very concern" about Bay. Any chance of it being minor sounds like it's out the window sadly.

If Elvin Ramirez, as one of the last guys on the depth chart, can't give you two innings, he's not worth much.

This bullpen really needs a revamping in order to get rid of guys like Batista, Ramirez, and Hefner. I mean I could live with Ramirez's growing pains if he's the 7th reliever or even Hefner as the 7th reliever/longman, but all three in the bullpen at once just hurts the team and makes things tougher on TC. The rest of the group (Francisco, Parnell, Rauch, Byrdak) is fine.

Hopefully Mejia and Edgin get here soon.

I was at Citi tonight, crowd looked really nice (I did not stay for the concert), the weather was cool, but the game really become uninteresting relatively fast; once it was 4-0 it felt like the game was pretty much over, even after the Kirk and Hairston homers.

I like Elvin a lot but he may need to go down to wrinkle out his control issues, his arm is electric but can't walk guys as reliever

Bring up Beato, mejia for elvin and Hefner, changes bullpen bigtime

Jeff Paternostro was talking about it on Twitter, but Kirk's numbers (well, peripherals) are starting to become much more solid; the strikeouts are still high but not egregiously bad like they initially were* and his ISO is up to .144. The BABIP is still fueling his overall slash line but it's nice to see some cut down in whiffs and bump in power.

* - This also coincides with an improvement in contact rate each month:

April: 73.0%
May: 74.6%
June: 75.6%

He still needs to improve his contact but I'm starting to think a fair comp for him could be Ryan Church (again, hat tip to Jeff for first bringing it up). Kirk's season has gone very much like Church's 2005:

Kirk: 233 PA, 8.6 BB%, 26.6 K%, .144 ISO, .348 wOBA, 121 wRC+
Church (2005): 301 PA, 8.0 BB%, 23.3 K%, .179 ISO, .354 wOBA, 118 wRC+

Church was still a very solid player as corner outfielder but put a bat similar to his in center and he looks quite good, and even if Kirk has to stick in a corner, maybe his bat will end up sufficient enough (like Church).