I don’t know about the rest of the country, but my son and I are tuning in.[Maxwell Smart voice] And…loving it!
Game two was actually tied 1-1 for a few minutes in the ninth inning. I almost got my wish of a long extra inning game — Nick Punto was even in the lineup. For those of you who didn’t read my prediction a few posts back, I’m waiting for LaRussa to burn through his entire staff during a long extra inning game. He actually was down to his last position player last night. He even took Yadier Molina out for a pinch runner. What a tool.
Finally, on Thursday night, LaRussa’s over-managing caught up with him. He has his fireballing closer — Jason Motte — on in the 9th throwing seeds and he takes him out for Arthur Rhodes, an aging, journeyman contact pitcher. You’d think he would have at least gone to Octavio Dotel at that point, but he didn’t, and two sac flies later the Rangers were up for good, 2-1.
Ron Washington is not much better, he’s just more likable. How the hell do you remove Colby Lewis from that game. I’m sure his pitch count was well below 100, and even if it wasn’t, Lewis has shown himself to be a big game pitcher. I would rather have him out there than Alexi Ogando, who is rapidly turning into this year’s version of Byung-Hyun Kim.
My fear is that since LaRussa and Washington have, for the most part, gotten away with their revolving door style of pitcher management, that other major league managers will begin to copy their style next season pushing the average time of game to four hours.
But enough nitpicking. This has been an incredible start to the Series and I could not be enjoying it more. Well…I guess I could if the Mets were up 2-0.
What happened? I was delusional. Now where was I? Oh yeah…there has been great pitching, stellar defense, and some clutch base stealing as well. All of this may yet take away some of the sting of having to suffer through Buck and McCarver.
The World According to Keitho 