As was mentioned earlier, no manager on the game is going to throw away an out in that situation. Any single except for a sharp one plates the runner. A walk works as well. Besides which, Carlos Lee is your best hitter of the three coming up - throwing him away with a bunt is absurd.
pull him then. you have our "best bunter" in adam everett sitting there on the bench. we are playing for ONE RUN.
First off...Everett was already in the game at SS....secondly, if Garner pulled him and we go to extras and we get to Lee's spot in the order with RISP, you would be complaining about THAT
You must not have watched the game...Everett was playing at the time and batting in Biggio's spot. Folks can gripe about Garner for other things but griping about him NOT having Carlos Lee sacrifice at any point in the game, is absurd. One other thing. His strategy (or in your opinion, lack thereof) WORKED in this situation.
Uh huh. Pulling Carlos Lee was something that "every MLB manager would do", huh? Lane, in game. Palmeiro, used. What if you don't score? Who's in left? Your options at that time were bunting with Q or Mike Lamb or Carlos Lee, or just letting your best hitter hit. And Gar's brainless?
you're right...my bad. disregard that. and no, i wouldnt have been complaining. you dont plan for the 12th inning when you have a good shot at winning the game in the 9th.
I don't have a problem with the no bunt call, and I don't have a problem with Manso putting up the stop sign. All of those made sense to me. The only issue that aggravated me about the late innings last night was the turn that Loretta took around 3rd when he saw Mansolino put up the stop sign. He didn't have to run through the sign and try to score, but a smart, aggressive base-runner will make a sharp, aggressive turn and look for the ball. Had he done that, he would have seen the fielder bobble the pickup even before he had to come to a complete stop, which would have enabled him to never even break stride and get home (I'm pretty confident he would have made it). Maybe I just got spoiled watching Bagwell all those years, but I think he would have scored on that play, because he would have put himself in a position to take advantage of any mistake like that.
Mansolino needed to be much farther down the line, so he could stop Loretta after he rounded the bag.
Ah...I was at the game. And you're right, he probably saw the ball was hit hard and was stopping him from the get-go. I would have preferred a little more aggression. JD may be the best color guy around.
To be fair, he'd done an awful lot of sucking up to and including that point. Not a snarky question, just an honest one - do you expect him to keep his ERA below, say, 4.50 for the rest of the year?
Yet he'd done just about an equal amount of good. Nobody seemed to want to mention that. He was terribly inconsistent last year. Not snarky at all. I see no reason why he couldn't put up a 4.50ish ERA. Not saying he will, not saying it's likely, just that I understand why they put him in the rotation to start the season. Pitchers mature, usually around their 3rd or 4th year in the bigs or so, will be interesting to see what track Wandy takes.
In 2006, Wandy had an ERA of 2.5 in April (along with a 4-0 record). He never had an ERA under 5 the rest of the year - and was at 8.06 after the All-Star Break. Yes, 8.06! Yikes. (only 25 innings, though)
Also to be fair, Wandy went 4-0 with a 2.53 ERA last April... before having ERAs of 5.29, 6.42, 9.28, 8.10 and 7.36 in the subsequent months. So, while I'm pleased that he's had a good start to the season, there's still reason to be skeptical. (That said, I'm not being critical because it's not like the Astros were overwhelmed with options.) EDIT: Major beat me to this... never mind.
