close and late

Bunch of racists.

Blame my naiveté for hoping that in the face of such overwhelming evidence of his winning contributions to this team, some folks (maybe even just one) would begin to appreciate, and stop hating Juan.

Let me just name a few non-white Cardinals that fans have adored over the years.  Ozzie Smith, Jose Oquendo, Yadier Molina, Willie Mcgee, Albert Pujols, and the list goes on and on.

SFGiants.com

Have you read any of the game threads for the past two years? People complain about his handling of the staff, his treatment of veterans vs. youngsters, his match-up strategies, etc etc etc all the time.

I'm absolutely baffled that anyone who pays the slightest attention to this blog would think that it's full of TLR apologists. That is some wacky, wacky shit.

He had given up 7 hits in 5 innings, including 2 HR, he could easily have allowed more than 3 runs, and they were hitting a lot of balls very hard (like in the bottom of the 4th, a 1-2-3 inning where all the outs were line drives that thankfully were at outfielders). He clearly didn't have his best stuff. If he's so fragile that he can't deal with being lifted after 5 innings under those conditions then he probably doesn't have much of a future with the Cards or any other team.

As for confidence, it is more important for Joel to gain Tony's trust than for LaRussa to build Pineiro's confidence. Sure he needs to learn Joel's warning signs of slipping capability within a start and probably jumped the gun a little bit, but in reality he just erred on the side of caution. It would've been bold if he had left Pineiro in the game and seen what the pitcher could do in that situation. But given the nature of batted balls against him (not to be confused with the results), the chances of him getting smacked around by the two best hitters in the Cubs lineup were pretty high. Plus, Tony has yet to give up on this season and probably thought it more important to utilize his rested bullpen (that is one of the best in the league) to hold the lead than risk further shaky performance from his new-ish starter.

If you want to rip on the pitcher batting eighth, swing away, by all means! I just think that he is trying something to stimulate offensive production. And whether it is actually something useful or just a placebo, the Cardinals record has improved since then, so I'm not going to bitch about it (I will maintain a minimum level of skepticism, though, as I do for most things).

As for getting your ideas shot at, that is simply the nature of the blogosphere. You want to post a thought out here (or anywhere in the public internet), you better expect it to be tested, poked, prodded, examined for every weakness. You have a few options:

• Drop a simple idea out there, expect that it will be shot to hell, and revise it. Rinse and repeat.
  
• Spend several hours devising an unassailable set of ideas, agonizing over every single detail, so that no one can make a logical argument against you (and still have to deal with a few contrarians/trolls who just respond to watch you pitch a fit).
  
• Spend several hours writing a rambling three page piece that nobody has the patience to wade through and just assume that the lack of replies means that you must be correct. (I've done this a few times unintentionally.)
  

However, if you plan on posting borderline vitriolic criticisms of Tony on an active baseball forum, you might consider preparing yourself for some equally vocal rebuttal...especially when your cited rationale happens to be contrary to almost everyone else's view of the move(s) in question.  No one is saying you can't criticize Tony.  Hell, pretty much everyone here does so numerous times each season.  It's part of the deal.

The fact is, however, if you had done some actual reading/research here on VEB you might have found that many of us feel that Tony is often too old school for this ball club.  Indeed, many of us have been vocal in our support of possibly finding a new manager for the club, citing various reasons (from the much needed influx of youth rather than reliance upon aging vets, to the Managerial "Mind Games/Drama" that seems to be so prevalent this year).  That's part of the reason we were so excited to see him stray from his usual pattern of predictable, stubborn refusal to consider anything other than "Frankin is our 8th inning guy, and Izzy only comes in for the save".  Many of us have argued (quite cogently) that a better way to manage the bullpen might be to use your best guys in higher leverage situations when the game is truly on the line, even if that happens to fall before the 8th or 9th inning.

>The fact of the matter is that he played the
>sixth inning yesterday as if he was trailing

That's a very interesting perspective, since I think nearly all of us see his moves as exactly the opposite. YMMV, I suppose.

Anyway, I won't belabor the point...except to add one more thing:

>And you probably think that batting the pitcher
>eighth is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Actually, truth be told, back in '98 I thought it was pretty ridiculous.  Then, years after having already made up my mind because the "stunt" seemed so counter to "tradition" or "common baseball wisdom", I actually did some reasearch.  And you know what I found?  Simulations show that putting your weakest hitter 8th (presumably your pitcher) and a better OBP guy in the 9th slot typically INCREASES the number of runs any particular lineup is likely to score.  Simulations repeatedly bear this out.  Thus enlightened, I now see the merit of such a "radical" approach and smile bemusedly when it is roundly panned as "crazy" or mocked as "ridiculous".  The really funny part, though, is that Tony isn't even really following that model...since for a lot of the games he's used this approach, the #9 hitter was Kennedy, whose OBP was typically LOWER than some of our decent-hitting pitchers.  Ah, well.  ;-)

I can get it at any corner bar.

Criticizing a manager for trying something that makes sense (batting the pitcher 8th) and managing his pitching staff to win a game?

As for a new starter down the stretch, Mark Mulder went 4 shutout innings last night. We may have a good shot in the arm coming in September. May the current rotation continue to make the decision difficult on La Russa and Duncan as to who he replaces.

Do your best to enjoy the baseball season.

also, regardless of how much credit you give tony for his teams' successes and how much blame you give him for their losses, a tragic flaw requires a tragedy, and tragedy is determined by outcome. tony's a future hall of famer who just managed his team to a championship. that's a comedy.