WHEN MANAGERS SCREW UP.
If good pitching beats good hitting, wouldn't it make sense to jump on a good pitcher if he's in trouble and go for a big inning? I think so. That's what should have happened in the top of the third inning in St. Louis yesterday. . The Giants had just scored the first run of the game, and had runners at first and third with one out. Hunter Pence up, and Buster Posey is the runner at first. You want to stay out of a double play here, and score at least one more run against Kyle Lohse. Ball one. Ball two. Any good manager figures Lohse has to throw a strike so start the runner at first and hope Pence makes good contact. Bruce Bochy is not a good manager. He didn't send the runner and Pence hit a medium speed grounder to short, which became a 6-4-3 double play. Inning over. Giants only get one run. Cardinals score 2 more in the bottom of the 3rd en route to a 3-1 win. Had Bochy started the runner, the grounder isn't hit hard enough to turn two because Posey is almost at the bag, so you can only get one and the run scores. 2-0, runner at second and hot hitting Brandon Belt coming up. This is why it's so important to have a manager that can make the right decisions in the heat of the moment. Bochy's indecision cost his team at least one run, and more importantly, a chance to win a game in St. Louis. He let Lohse off the hook and didn't take advantage of his own players abilities to execute.
This is why John Farrell is not the manager for the Bluejays. And this may also be why Ron Washington won't be the manager of the Texas Rangers for much longer. When a critical point in a game takes place, and sometimes it's in the first inning, a good manager must recognize an opportunity to score multiple runs. Especially when he's got a good pitcher out there, like Matt Cain. Wouldn't you feel good with Matt Cain out there and a 3-0 lead? I would. But when Bochy elected to play it safe in the third by not starting the runner, he sent the wrong message to his players and Giants fans. If you take a chance early in a game and it doesn't work out, you've got time to come back. But if you fail to seize an opportunity to really put the hammer down, and it comes back to bite you in the ass, you can't blame the players. You didn't give them an opportunity to execute. Bochy failed his team, and it may ultimately cost him his job if the Giants don't come back to win this series.
Ron Washington should've won the World Series with Texas last year, but he had the wrong guy, Nelson Cruz, playing right field with two outs in the 9th and the Rangers on the verge of winning. That was a monster managerial mistake which allowed St. Louis to come back and win the series. This year Washington's infatuation with certain players and his inability to manage properly in close games cost the Rangers down the stretch, and they ended up blowing a 5 game lead with 8 games to play. Washington insisted on playing Josh Hamilton when he shouldn't have. He used Michael Young way too often and didn't allow a couple of the younger prospects to get any playing time, even though Young's numbers were terrible. Washington will not be back with the Rangers. He may end up in Toronto. I hope not. He doesn't know what he's doing, and we've already got a guy like that managing the club.
a tailor made double play ball that ended the inning with the Giants ONLY up 1-0. In the bottom of the third, the Cardinals got a two run homer from Matt Carpenter, and that was the winning margin. Had Bochy started Posey on the 2-0 count, the Cards wouldn't have been able to force him at second, which means a run scores to make it 2-0 and you've got Posey at 2nd with hot hitting Brandon Belt coming up. It could've been 3-0, but Bochy's boner meant the Giants came away with just one, and that wasn't enough to win on this night. Ron Washington is in trouble in Texas because he can't manage. It's been painfully obvious.
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