Clay Dreslough
10-02-2003, 11:11 AM
Only the Red Sox could lose last night's game the way the did.
Pedro has a bad inning, but leaves with the lead. And like clockwork, the bullpen flushes his win down the toilet.
The new twist that Grady Little brings to the table is cramming a ton of bad managerial moves into one game:
1. Taking Todd Walker out for defensive reasons. In a one-run game, is it more likely that your second baseman will make an error in the 9th, or that the game will go into extra innings and you'll need the guy that already has 4 hits?
2. Letting Kim throw his slider. Nobody was getting anywhere near his fastball, and he was doing a good job of spotting it at the knees. His slider led to a walk and a hit batter.
3. Taking Kim out. As I said above, nobody was hitting his fastball. Throw it in there, at the knees, 98 MPH, with downward action, and see if Durazo can knock in the tying run.
4. Letting Chavez steal third. I'm sure they didn't mean to "let him" steal third, but they didn't exactly stop him. The idea that a runner on 3rd is no more dangerous than a runner on 2nd with two outs is preposterous, but that seems to be the strategy they were following.
5. Walking Terrence Long to pitch to Ramon Hernandez. With Long batting, a hit wins the game. With Hernandez batting, a hit or a walk wins the game. Long batted .245 this year. Hernandez has a .331 On-Base Percentage. Pretty simple math, IMHO.
The ONLY logic for walking Long is if you want to create the force at home, at which point the infield would have been playing in, which alas they clearly were not.
In case you think hindsight is 20/20, I was screaming about these moves as they happened.
One orthodox move Grady should get some credit for: batting Walker third. That's something you don't see everyday. And leaving Pedro in to pitch through the 7th was the right move, but it wasn't exactly brain surgery.
Also, what it just me, or was there a pretty tiny strike zone last night? It seems like B.H. Kim was throwing crotch-high fastballs and not getting the call.
Arrrgghh!
Clay
Pedro has a bad inning, but leaves with the lead. And like clockwork, the bullpen flushes his win down the toilet.
The new twist that Grady Little brings to the table is cramming a ton of bad managerial moves into one game:
1. Taking Todd Walker out for defensive reasons. In a one-run game, is it more likely that your second baseman will make an error in the 9th, or that the game will go into extra innings and you'll need the guy that already has 4 hits?
2. Letting Kim throw his slider. Nobody was getting anywhere near his fastball, and he was doing a good job of spotting it at the knees. His slider led to a walk and a hit batter.
3. Taking Kim out. As I said above, nobody was hitting his fastball. Throw it in there, at the knees, 98 MPH, with downward action, and see if Durazo can knock in the tying run.
4. Letting Chavez steal third. I'm sure they didn't mean to "let him" steal third, but they didn't exactly stop him. The idea that a runner on 3rd is no more dangerous than a runner on 2nd with two outs is preposterous, but that seems to be the strategy they were following.
5. Walking Terrence Long to pitch to Ramon Hernandez. With Long batting, a hit wins the game. With Hernandez batting, a hit or a walk wins the game. Long batted .245 this year. Hernandez has a .331 On-Base Percentage. Pretty simple math, IMHO.
The ONLY logic for walking Long is if you want to create the force at home, at which point the infield would have been playing in, which alas they clearly were not.
In case you think hindsight is 20/20, I was screaming about these moves as they happened.
One orthodox move Grady should get some credit for: batting Walker third. That's something you don't see everyday. And leaving Pedro in to pitch through the 7th was the right move, but it wasn't exactly brain surgery.
Also, what it just me, or was there a pretty tiny strike zone last night? It seems like B.H. Kim was throwing crotch-high fastballs and not getting the call.
Arrrgghh!
Clay