Davey seems to have lost faith in Rodney since the outing on 8/10 against the Mets when he couldn't get an out. He's only appeared once since then.
was that the one where he came in the 3d time in 2 days. Well, "like duh!" If he's hurt because of that, then it is the IL for him. If not, then he's had 10 days to recover. In any event, the answer to "who instead of Suero" is . . . Strasburg. The guy has a shutout, it's a 1 run game, and he's under 100 pitches.
I'm not a Suero hater, but with Hudson and Rodney available (we'll leave out Strickland for now), he has not been shown he's a go to that close and that late. He walks too many guys when he's off. You are going to need to warm up Hudson to bail him out, and, as we saw, if you wait until the bases are loaded to bring in Hudson, it's unreasonable to expect him to be houdini and escape every time.
If Davey wants to be really honest, then he'd say "we really aren't trying to overtake the Braves, I need to see how Suero does close and late to know how much I can trust him, it's the Pirates so it's as low-consequence a situation as I'll get to do it (not a division opponent and not in the running for the wild card), so yes, I was willing to lose the game to save some bullets in Stras's arm and to see what I have." I'd respect him for that kind of thinking even if I disagree.