"Dierker a disgrace" -Joe Morgan

Hmmm....1st inning, no one on base and 2 outs.

NOT A GAME SITUATION.

 

It is not smart baseball to pitch to Barry Bonds under any circumstances. Not with the season he's having.

 

I agree with you there because Dierker only made himself look worse by not sticking to his original "strategy".

 

Big difference there Finn. The Astros are not in the World Series. Maybe Morgan's Reds would have won that series if they had pitched to Reggie.

"Its too damn bad that Joe Morgan and all those Bonds fans that came to Enron to see history ( they sure weren't there to cheer on the Astros) walked away feeling empty."

Come on now Finn. The fans wanted to see the Astros win first and foremost. If Bonds hit a homer or more in the process, that would have been icing on the cake for everyone in the stadium. I seriously doubt fans would have "waled away feeling empty" if Bonds had been pitched to, not hit any homers and the home team won.

 

Puedlfor, stop with the exagerrating. These guys are all professionals. No one in the league(with the possible exception of Wilfredo Rodriguez) has thrown Bonds straight cheese(or slow lobs) to hammer out of the park. Bonds has worked hard and earned this recognition and it's really unfortunate that Bonds Haters can't appreciate it because they are too busy listening to the media and jealous guys like Jeff Kent, who wouldn't get so many good pitches to look at if he didn't have Bonds batting in front of him.

True, the Astros are playing to win, but walking Bonds 9 times in 3 games didn't help the Astros win anything did it. A good manager would play him like a man. Make him beat you until it is really necessary to pitch around him.

 

It worked last time we played San Francisco.

I'm sorry, but Barry Bonds is having one of the greatest seasons <i>ever</i>, pitching to him is stupid, under any circumstances.

I've seen Bonds beat too many teams to need to see him blast one out against the Astros to know we need to pitch around him.

 

Three straight times Bonds has been pitched too - three straight homers.

I was not exaggerating, it just doesn't make sense to pitch to him unless you want a severe case of whip lash.

He is dialed in now, he has been the entire season. You can't fool him, you can't pitch to him, better to put him on and take your chances with Kent.

 

If there are any Bonds haters it's because of Bonds, not because of the media. He has a well earned reputation for being a jerk all the way back to his days in college, that's not something that the media just created. Jeff Kent is not the first teammate to think Barry Bonds is a jerk. Barry has always been all about himself. He really could care less about fans, teammates, or the media.

 

Is Morgan a racist by any chance? Dierker is not a disgrace, he is just overly cautious and doesn't know how to manage. *** Morgan and *** records. Teams play this game to win, not to be the team that gave up the meaningless record setting homer. *** that phoney Joe Morgan.......

And btw, Bonds is a great player (probably the best in our era), but if anyone doesn't think that he's had pitches to hit, then they're mistaken. He had some fat pitches to hit in the middle stages of this record breaking season. Even the commentators were saying "What the ***....taht was right over the plate."

 

Joe stinks. I think he pooped his pants.

www.desipio.com

 

btw, whe would Jeff Kent be jealous of Bonds? Because Bonds has his own leather lazy boy that noone else can sit in? I'm sure Kent can do the same. Is Kent jealous of Bonds because Kent won the mvp last year? BTW, rumor has it that Bonds left town early when he found out he didn't win the mvp last year. No congratulations to Kent or anything. But, what do you expect? Bonds was just being himself.

 

Of course Caple just a few days ago said he would pitch around Bonds, too, and then got mad that we did it. Didn't he call it an embarrassment or something. Just because this situation is getting heavily focused on doesn't give these people free reign to dump on Houston and call the team and manager weak or embarrassing. I never remember national, supposed to be impartial people come out and actually rip specific managers and teams and say they are ruining the game. That's what local talk radio is for. I think everyone is just getting mad because of the intentional walk down 8-1. I think that was really weak and stupid too. But other than that, pitching around bonds was not a bad idea. Just because the pitchers keep giving up hits after the walk doesn't mean you should've let bonds hit a homer to get the run out of the way.

 

Nice call, shanna. I am hoping that the playoff spot clinching by the Astros can help them settle their nerves a bit and they can go on to sweep these damn Cards. And I have but one thing to say to Tony LaRussa:

"Take THAT, Nuclear Power Plant!"

 

I'm not sure if what Dierker did paid off or not.

But one thing is clear, it was the smart thing to do in the first place.

Morgan's logic is obscene. By stating that you "don't put runners on base when you're behind," you're implying that it's the walk is a better idea when you're not behind.

That's simply not true. Runs are runs... and pitching to Barry is more likely to result in a run than walking him.

Over the course of 550 at bats, it's actually advantageous to walk Bonds if there's a runner on base. Bonds is insanely lethal, Kent is merely good. The Astros got burned a couple of times. But the decision was well-founded.

Sorry, winning comes before machismo.

 

I haven't read all the posts here but I'll tell you what I think nevertheless!

I think the way the Astros handled the whole Bonds thing MIGHT have cost them a chance to win the division. They were more concerned with how they were going to handle Bonds than they were with winning. Then played prevent defense (and we all remember how well that worked in Buffalo!) over the course of the series...and it backfired and bit them in the ass.

It's one thing to walk Sammy Sosa who has little or no protection in his lineup...quite another to walk Bonds who is followed by Kent (last year's MVP) and Galarraga. And keep in mind, when we did pitch to Sammy it still played to our advantage..dude hit 3 homers (all solo shots) and we still one that game! Kent is merely good??? Huh??? Walking Bonds when he appears as a leadoff hitter in an inning is inexcusable. I totally agreed with the decision to walk him in the 6th inning of the Thursday game when Aurilia was on second and first was empty with one out...it ultimately set up a double play that ended the inning. I stood up and cheered that decision while seemingly everyone else at Enron booed it.

Dierker, as the manager, let this series get out of control. The stumbling the team was doing coming into the series was only made worse by the whole approach to Bonds. Pitch to him early in the series, strike his ass out (or get a ground/pop out) and you build the confidence of your staff. The old adage in baseball is to make the other guy beat you...the Astros didn't do that, and they went far and away to avoid that. It bothered me because even as an Astro fan I saw it as chicken excrement.

I do think Dierk jacked with the integrity of the game. He backed away from competition for fear of having a magic moment framed by the Giants at Enron. It was weak and the team looked weak...you never, ever win games by consistently putting runners on base everytime they appear at the plate. The baseball gods had their revenge though...ultimately he hit #70 in his last at-bat of the series and the Astros got their butts swept.

 

For you guys who disagree with walking Bonds because "it isn't the way the game is supposed to be played," how do you feel about the Hack-a-Shaq technique? I guess you disagree with that too and would rather lose with dignity instead of stooping to Hack-a-Shaq tactics, right? Gimme a break..

It is the exact same thing.....

 

Hack-a-Shaq works....walking Bonds didn't!

Actually, it's not the same thing at all. While some creative offense (other than just dumping it in to the low block) could ultimately guide Shaq to some different alternatives --- or if he had an outside game, like Hakeem --- he could still prove effective. He wouldn't be totally nullified. Walking a guy...not giving him anything to hit...is fine in certain situations. But taking the bat out of the same guy's hands over and over again in a series is just chicken crap! The Astros organization lost so much respect (Dierker, in particular) from the rest of the league. I've heard that some of the players said, "well what did you expect from Larry" when asked about how he handled the situation. Ultimately they team was completely taken out of their game by this whole thing...management let it take on a life of its own that superseded the game itself. They fed the monster and it grew. Then it bit them in the ass by scoring nearly everytime!

Pitch to the guy..particularly when there's nobody on...make him beat you! Yes he's hit 69 homers at that point...but guess what, he's popped out, grounded out or struck out many more times than he's homered! Instead, they gave a free pass to a guy who is among all-time career leaders in runs scored. A guy who has last year's MVP batting right behind him. It's just stupid...and it ultimately helped to cost them the series as Dierker allowed it to blossom in to such a huge distraction.

 

We walked Bonds in our first series against San Fran, and Kent didn't punish us(and he was not a deserving MVP last year), and I did not hear this same level of b****ing. Of course, there weren't a legion of people wanting to see Bonds hit 70 then.

Pitching to Bonds is stupid. And pitching to Bonds will do more to make the opposing team lose than pitching to Kent with Bonds on base will.

I think its bull**** to get pissy with a manager because he didn't want to screw his team over by not pitching to a guy having a season equaled only by some guy named Ruth.