3 Outs is 3 Outs is 3 Outs
Today was a shit day. Instead of being nestled comfortably at my desk surrounded by copious amounts of early baseball games I was stuck in a godforsaken conference room in Thousand Oaks being lectured along with 20 or 30 other poor saps about how the economy really isn’t that bad and we can sell temps if we just try (note: this was the second day of this mishmash, yesterday was even worse and involved tremendous amounts of scrotum chilling Role Playing. Whatever you are imagining in your head, trust me when I say that it is worse than that).
Anyway, on the drove home, while stuck in the usual Camarillo traffic I had the pleasure of listening to the Dodger bullpen choke away three runs in the 8th and then blow a leadoff triple in their half of the 9th to lose by one run to the lowly Padres. Am I mad? Yes, but not for the reasons you might think–look, it’s a long season, there are going to be other bullpen boners and stranded runners (I’m looking at YOU, Casey Blake) so crying about something like this isn’t going to do any good. It’s the overriding notion that “the ninth inning is sacred and reserved only for THE CLOSER and THE CLOSER shall never pitch any inning other than the ninth inning so help me God” that’s got me creased (Joe Maddon, you and your three-headed-monster in Tampa Bay get a free pass here). Let’s review today’s pivotal inning, shall we?
Bottom 8th: San Diego
| - W. Ohman relieved B. DeWitt (double-switch) |
| - R. Furcal at shortstop (3 days in and needs a day off already) |
| - B. Giles grounded out to shortstop (yay!) |
| - A. Gonzalez homered to deep left (boo!) |
| - C. Wade relieved C. Wade (yah, that is not correct Yahoo, but we know what you’re trying to say) |
| - C. Headley lined out to first (yay!) |
| - E. Gonzalez tripled to deep center (oh no) |
| - E. Cabrera ran for E. Gonzalez (huge upgrade, i’m sure) |
| - N. Hundley singled to left, E. Cabrera scored (of course he did) |
| - L. Rodriguez doubled to deep right center, N. Hundley scored, L. Rodriguez to third on shortstop R. Furcal’s throwing error (figures) |
| - G. Mota relieved C. Wade (day late, dollar short) |
| - J. Gerut intentionally walked (the mighty Joe Gerut drawing a free pass) |
| - D. Macias hit for C. Meredith (who cares) |
| - D. Macias grounded out to second (elusive third out, BG bangs face on steering wheel) |
| 3 runs, 4 hits, 1 errors |
| LA Dodgers 3, San Diego 4 |
So in the 8th the Pads are rolling Giles-Gonzalez-Headley up there…not exactly Murderer’s Row but still, their three best hitters, right? Now in retrospect only one of the three did any real damage (even though Headley’s ball was smashed and happened to find Loney’s glove) but wouldn’t it make the most sense to bring Jon Broxton in in the 8th and let Mota or some combo finish off the dregs of the Padres’ lineup in the 9th? I am far from being the biggest J. Brox fan in the world but the guy undoubtedly IS the best pitcher out of the pen–why not use him against the best that San Diego has to offer? Yes hindsight, yes blah blah blah, and yes if it doesn’t work out then Torre has to answer 1,000 questions about using the Closer out of order from Steve Phillips (you are a terrible, terrible commentator, Sir) but that’s just because people ask a lot of dumb questions regardless of what actually occurred anyway.
So yeah, shit day. At least there are 2 Offices on tonight. Or is it 2 30 Rocks? Whatever, it’s a win-win either way.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
