C.C. Second Guess …
Posted: October 19th, 2007 | Filed under: Baseball | 6 Comments »
Whoops. I mistakenly killed the live blog I was doing during Game 5 of the ALCS. I would have mistakenly killed the game itself, but that was beyond even my almost limitless lack of computer skills.
I would normally have been upset about the computer kill, but there really wasn’t anything worth reading in there. A few shots at erectile dysfunction commercials. I have no idea why those are allowed to appear on television. They erectile dysfunction lobbying group must offer some very nice gifts. I also wrote about my dislike of Coco Crisp’s game, my odd sympathy for George Steinbrenner in this Joe Torre deal, and added a few jokes about how old Kenny Lofton is (a friend of mine, the New York Post’s resident genius Mike Vaccaro, and I have been calling Lofton “Cool Papa†for quite some time … apparently, according to our own Paul White, Sports Guy Bill Simmons called him Cool Papa in a column a couple of days ago. I had not read that yet but, hey, great minds and all that).
But I guess the main point is that Eric Wedge had his first major blunder of the postseason. Personally, I think Wedge has made numerous questionable moves that could have backfired on him, but did not. This one did. The Indians were losing 2-1 going into the seventh inning, and by then Sabathia had thrown 106 pitches. He had been laboring all night. He had been lucky. From afar, it was clearly time to take him out.
But Wedge sent him out there, which I think was a shaky move but certainly forgivable. Sabathia has been the Indians horse all season. He threw 241 innings. One of Wedge’s most prominent traits as a manager is his unshakable faith in his players. That is what he believes got the team this far, so he sent Sabathia out there to start the seventh.
Then Dustin Pedroia led off the inning with a double.
And that to me is when Wedge made a move that is almost impossible to defend. I know I just wrote about how it’s generally silly to second guess managers but I don’t even understand how this happened: Wedge left Sabathia in there to face Kevin Youkilis. Think about this for a second. Pedroia is the whole game. Everybody understands this. Josh Beckett was dominant. Virtually unhittable. Jonathan Papelbon was fresh. If Pedroia scores, the game’s over. Wedge certainly understood this. He knew that at this point, he needed to do whatever he could to prevent Pedroia from scoring.
Wedge decided his best chance to do this was to leave Sabathia out there to face Youkilis. I have no idea how he could have come to this conclusion. Youkilis has always hit Sabathia hard (including the home run he hit off Sabathia in the first inning). Plus Sabathia was clearly done. Plus he had thrown 110 pitches. Plus, he hadn’t been that good all game. Plus, he’s a lefty facing a righty (righties hit .275 with 46 doubles against Sabathia this year). Plus he’d thrown 110 pitches. Plus Rafael Betancourt, who had been unhittable all postseason, was in the bullpen and ready to go.
There was no way that Wedge could leave Sabathia out there. And yet, that’s exactly what he did.
Of course Youkilis tripled, but the point is not the result. I don’t think this in any way cost Cleveland the game. The way Beckett was pitching, the Indians were not going to win this game no matter what. Here’s what mattered, I think: This was a bizarre decision by Wedge, and a disconcerting one. It had a little bit of Grady Little in it. Look, it’s great that Wedge has faith in his players. But he was also one game away from the World Series. He remains one game away from the World Series.
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Anyone notice that it seems that Mark Shapiro is shown more during the games than any other GM in history? I think they show him about every two innings.
Also, did anyone see where SI completely ripped TBS’ playoff coverage? I thought TBS did a good job with the camera work and I appreciate them not having Transformers ads all over the screen and the dumb robot noises and graphics that Fox has been using for years. I agree with SI that Ripken and Frank Thomas were pretty lame studio guys. I was surprised though that they didn’t say anything about Bob Brenly. I thought Brenly took a lot away from the broadcasts and overshadowed Gwynn. Half the time Brenly had something to say it was about how much better of a hitter Gwynn was than him. Why was Brenly there? Did he get fired by WGN? A two man crew always seems to work better.
As for the ALCS, I’m just hoping the whole Chief Wahoo debate/political hate match doesn’t jinx the Indians.
Fox does seem to have an odd fixation on the Shapiro family. I also had to laugh when McCarver nearly crapped his pants over Manny’s turning a double into a single on the almost-a-home-run play.
For some reason, I can’t get enough of Ortiz’s spit-smack routine before stepping into the box.
The best part of the Manny one-base trot (which was definitely a lousy thing to do) was the fact that Lowell struck out after him, ending the inning. It wouldn’t have mattered if Manny made it to *third*.
Of course, McCarver did not mention that.
I liked Buck & McCarver’s fixation on Manny’s lack of hustle on that play instead of any mention that he, you know, just put the Red sox on top in an elimination game with Beckett throwing lights out. Fine, he didn’t make it to second base. He should have hustled. Granted. But aren’t we missing the bigger point here fellas? Could you make ANY note that he remained red hot despite the controversy swirling around him? Any note that he put his team ahead? Anything? At all? Bueller?
Re: the Shapiro fixation – did you look at his wife? She’s hot!
Lost in the whole Manny single shuffle was the fact that Big Papi scored from first base on a single! (And anyone who thinks that was the longest single ever hasn’t seen some of the wall ball singles in Fenway – think Lofton in Game 7)