Regardless of the fact what Garner did worked and produced 0 outs, you're complaining that he didn't ask a guy with zero sac bunts in the last five seasons to move the runners over while adding an out.
last night was not exactly an isolated incident. lee, berkman, jason lane, morgan ensberg, probably luke scott....they aren't allowed to bunt in phil's book o' rules. forget the fact that a major league baseball player getting paid 110mm probably should have learned to execute a bunt somewhere along the way. but you're right....garner's strategy of letting lee get a hit to load the bases, then having ensberg hit a routine pop foul and having borchard plow into jacobs to have the ball fall out of his glove, then ensberg following that with a base hit worked to perfection. i stand corrected. no more complaints from me.
so what u are saying is that u would be happier had Gar bunted Lee and we end up losing in extra innings....just as long as he made, in ur opinion, the right decision? Or would you then be complaining that we paid a guy 100 million who cant bunt?
i didnt see anything wrong with what happened in the 9th last night...we signed lee to a $100M contract to drive those runs in; 100% of MLB managers let carlos freaking lee swing away in that situation. he came through with a hit, but like some other posters said, he hit it so sharply that it wouldve been tough to score on borchards strong arm "You can't restart a guy once you stop him," Mansolino said. "You just can't do it. I'm not going to send him anyway. You can't say, 'Well, he's going to make an error right there.' If I bring [Loretta] down any farther and wait any longer to stop him, and he comes up throwing, now I stop him and he's caught halfway between home and third and now we've got a mess and they throw him out at third." that makes a lot of sense to me...bases loaded with no outs, and your 4-5-6 hitters coming up? GIDP, sac fly, base hit, error, wild pitch, walk, HBP...there are so many ways to score that ONE run now if we REALLY wanna complain about garner, someone tell me why hes starting roy on short rest, when tonight is the perfect situation to see what sampsons got...and the fact that roy DOMINATES the reds...but thats just my opinion
As has already been discussed (twice), Garner wants to give Sampson more rest to rest his injured calf.
I understand why the bunt is a smart play... but its not smart when you consider who is at bat. The same would go if Berkman were up in that situation. Other than that, I'd say bunt for anybody else in this lineup... including Ensberg and Luke. I've also seen several games work out where you get the bunt down, they walk the next guy, and its a GIDP to get out of the inning. NOTHING is certain... and we ended up winning with the right strategy given the batters. Lost in all of this is Lee's uncanny ability to get big hits/drive important runs home for the early part of this season, as well as Ensberg getting into a little mini-groove at the plate. With Lance turning it around big-time any day now (already had a great night at the plate yesterday), this lineup is the least of my concerns. As far as starting Roy, Garner wouldn't do it if he didn't know Oswalt well enough (and had gotten Roy's blessing). Sampson will have to be a huge part of this rotation, given Woody's struggles and Jenning's injury, and you don't want to mess with a calf muscle injury (which is the reason he's giving Chris an extra day).
Just keep watching and the next time that Garner doesn't employ the bunt strategy in a close and late game (losing by a run or tied, 7th inning on) and the resulting strategy FAILS, let us know. Since you brought up Ensberg's "lucky" play, imagine if Lee HAD bunted the runners over and Ensberg hits the exact same pop-up but it is caught. Now there are two outs and the runner still hasn't scored. With Lee advancing the runners WITHOUT making an out, you have room for failure in a subsequent at bat.
If you want to delve deeper and weight things against TPAs or whatnot, be my guest: The Astros in 2006 had the 3rd most sac bunts in "close & late" situations in MLB, 2 off the lead. The Astros in 2005 had the 5th most sac bunts in "close & late" situations in MLB, 5 off the lead. So I'm not sure how it "blows [your] mind that he continues to do this **** when the situation obviously calls for bunting men over in the late stages of games." He seems to employ the sac bunt more than most in the late stages of games. Next project, should you want to delve deeper, go look up the career sac numbers for your contemporaty top flight power hitters - Kent, Alou, Giambi, Bagwell, Lee, Frank Thomas, Helton, Dunn, whoever. Then get back to us.
If Lee bunted well, he would likely not be thrown out. He might even get to first before the 3rd baseman got to the ball. Thus, G is a fool if he does not let Lee bunt at least once per season.
Not sure if it has been posted: http://www.myp2p.eu/MLB.htm You can watch the MLB mosaic and some games at the link.
