Manny Delcarmen is a good reliever. Both his career era and season era are in the mid 3s. Tonight, he came in with a 7 run lead and suck; he gave up 2 home runs followed by 2 walks. All athletes, but especially baseball relievers are under a lot of pressure to perform. Usually when Manny is in there, the game is on the line. That pressure begats intensity which begats focus. When that pressure is removed by being up 7 runs, the intensity disappear and what replaces it is confusion of purpose. Obviously the purpose of a pitcher is to get outs, but when it is not paramount to get this specific guy out, it messes up the entire pitching game plan and a pitcher starts questioning themselves which leads to bad pitches. Then as the bad pitching mounts, pressure comes back into play. However, now the pressure is not whether or not the pitcher can rise to the moment, but the pressure not to fuck up so much that you become a goat. (as opposed to The G.O.A.T) That is why Francona made the smart move tonight by getting Manny out of there after 4 batters.