Friday, May 13, 2005 |
Fire Jim Tracy Bobby Cox: Dodgers 7, Braves 4
Tracy refused to pull him. Grand slam.
There's just no excuse this time. Bullpen was worn out from use in the series against the Cards? Well, Wunch, Carrara and Brazoban were all warming up.
Fortunately, Adam LaRoche -- brother of Dodgers prospect Andy -- hesitated fielding a J.D. Drew grounder while playing first that loaded the bases. Kent at least managed to fly out -- I was biting my nails, because Kent leads the team in GIDPs with four -- but Bradley came in to pull Tracy's (chest)nuts out of the fire.
Chris Reitsma, who used to be a starter with a number of awful Reds teams, has undergone the usual Mazzone magic touch, but tonight, Bobby Cox is considering the merits of making fewer mistakes than the other manager. Somewhere -- perhaps at Fire Jim Tracy -- there needs to be a list of stupid managerial moves, along with the number of earned runs those stupid managerial moves has cost particular pitchers. Tonight, Jeff Weaver ate four that he shouldn't have. The Braves started to get to Jeffy in the top of the seventh; why not get Carrara warmed up after that?
Tracy owes Bradley after that excusifying for Tracy in the postgame show ("[Weaver's] velocity's been down but his other pitches have been better").
And before we forget: Tracy gets points for putting Choi in against a lefthander (John Foster), and to some degree even more because Choi delivered with an RBI single. It stands in direct contrast to comments he made before the game:
"What I wonder is, if you give him too much left-handed pitching, do you mess up what he's doing against right-handed pitching?" Tracy said. "Because he alters things to hit against left-handers."Well, Jim, looks like what I'd call a success, eh?
Honestly, somebody needs to come up with sabermetric methods to account for managerial stupidity.
: 5/14/2005 03:08:00 AM
The first guy was right. Choi went up as PH against Reitsma, and when they changed pitchers Choi was left in since there were no righties left.
: 5/14/2005 12:02:00 PMNewer› ‹Older
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