Posted by Steve
Sorry Ned. That’s it. You need to be fired. Probably right now.
I’m hardly going to dwell on the stupidity of a sacrifice bunt with one of your hottest hitters with two on and nobody out down two. That’s not what had me screaming the loudest.
Has he ever looked at splits? Of course I’m talking about the decision to hit Kevin Mench against Dempster with the bases loaded and two outs.
He had Jenkins, Counsell and Estrada–all left handed hitters, and thus all much better options than Kevin Mench, available to pinch hit. This wasn’t even a managerial decision. You shouldn’t even have to look up splits. This was a NO FREAKING BRAINER.
I don’t care if he has the motivational influence of Tony Robbins. No major league manager allows Kevin Mench to hit there. I guarantee it. I have no idea what he was thinking, but I can’t wait to hear is post game comments.
I really, really cannot wait.
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Edit:
Apparently Ned does go by stats. He just puts more weight on 17 ABs than on thousands of career ABs by both Jenkins and Mench indicating he made the wrong move.
He said he didn’t use Jenkins because is 4-17 in his career against Ryan Dempster. Well, even if it was the wrong move to use Jenkins over Mench (it wasn’t), I’d still much rather see Craig Counsell up in that situation than He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Walked.
But instead he went with Mench because he “went with the flow of the game.” The flow of the game? What does that even mean? I honestly have no idea.
