Bard is awful despite the two doubles. He cost us 2 runs by coming out to far to catch that throw from Morgan.
His defense outweighs his offense. Nieves should be starting more games.
Bard may give a decent effort, and has some more pop in his bat, but his defense is awful. There are too many games where his failings have cost this team big time and it doesn't show up in the stats. Forget about the actual errors, his inability to catch balls really hurt. The nightmare inning against the Cubs on Sunday was a Bard lowlight reel. If he catches the foul tip that landed right in his glove, Soriano strikes out. Instead, he stays alive and jacks a homer. The subsequent wild pitches were more like passed balls that moved up runners into scoring position and out of DP position on several occasions. Sure the pitching had its issues, but the defense didn't help, and you just can't give away bases and outs and expect a pitcher to control the damage. I think I counted at least 5 bases and an extra out yielded by Bard in the course of 1 inning.
