Dear Sirs:
I am writing to let you know that I’d be happy to manage the Rockies for 10% of whatever it is you happen to be paying Clint Hurdle.
In fact, allow me to sweeten the offer: if, in the unlikely event I don’t win more games than Hurdle has won in any one of his seasons as manager, I will refund fully half of my already reduced salary, then announce my retirement while wearing a string bikini and stiletto heels, and clutching a large black dildo.
One thing I will not do, however, is remove my starter, who is throwing a 4-hit shutout, after 71 pitches just because my managerial cue cards tell me that in the 7th inning I’m supposed to bring in a reliever—in the case of tonight’s game, a rookie reliever with a history of control problems.
Because that would just be completely and utterly imbecilic.
Yours respectfully,
protein wisdom
Well, would you settle for a straight-up trade, Hurdle for Sam Perlozzo?
Perlozzo pulled Jeremy Guthrie after six innings today, when the kid had thrown 67 pitches and allowed one run (to Tampa, the second-best offensive club in the AL.)
Go O’s.
You know… the whole pitch count/relief thing really is destroying pitching. Especially in the beginning of the year when the starters can’t rely on relief to keep the game going. Pitchers will be cruising along and the managers go “oop, 100 pitches, gotta yank em!” (for best effect, imagine Goofy saying that phrase).
The reverse of course is Dusty “white men can’t take the heat” Baker who thinks that if a pitcher doesn’t put up Jack Chesbro-like numbers he’s slacking off. Dozens of pitchers can attest to Dusty’s arm-destroying inclination.
Last year, the Rockies bullpen—one of the best in baseball in the first half of the season—fell apart down the stretch. They were fatigued (Jose Mesa made something like 80 appearances at the age of 42).
Hurdle has a set schedule. And, on the rare occasions he deviates from it and gets burned, he uses that as an excuse to play it safe the next time around.
Play the game to win. The game was on the line in the 7th, after his first reliever got into trouble. At that point, bring in either your premier setup man or your closer. Get the outs when you need to, not when your “How To Manage a Bullpen” book tells you to.
Jeff,
I’d have the string bikini laundered and ready. The Rockies may be just desperate enough to go for it. And as skilled a manager as you would be, fate can jump up and bite you in the ass.
It can’t be as bad as losing two in a row to the freakin’ D-Backs. As much as I love Burnsy, when he’s you’re best-known position player, you suck.
All I’m going to say is that there is a reason I let my half of a season ticket package go a few years back.
Although, if you were to get the job and promise to wear the string bikini for every game, I might reconsider my position.
Wait a minute. I’ve seen this movie. You’d play Tom Hanks, the gruff but lovable manager.
“There’s no crying in baseball!” you’d tell them!
Same thing happened the last time I managed to give a crap about baseball…
According to schedule, Fregosi puts in the “Wild Thing”, who had already told him he was used up and useless…
Bye bye, World Series.
Mattingly, subbing for Torre, did the same thing Sun. Kid pitching 7 one run innings and at 89 pitch count is taken out for……Farnsworth. Oy, there goes lead then Mariano blows game. In fairness to Farnsworth, the ump apologized about that non-caught stealing but the kid was flat out cruising.
How is Willie T doing in centerfield? We miss his speed and prowess in the filed here in H-town.
I’d rather you forget the heels, bikini and dildo and go get some hhits for the White Sox instead. Were it in my power, you could keep all the $ you would get if you could just stay above the Mendoza Line.
I’m reasonably certain that your comment constitutes cruel and unusual blogging. Be prepared for a lawsuit really, really big on pain and suffering.
Clint Hurdle is Jim Fregosi, without the gargled with Drano voice.
My sympathies.
I could not believe it when he went to the bullpen. I wonder if he makes that move if he didn’t have a new contract already?
I tell you one thing, Goose Gossage’s mustache would have kicked Clint’s ass last night.
The bats have finally started to waken just a tad with Taveras, Helton and especially Holliday getting in their grooves. Now, the Rockies have to contend with a manager who thinks he has a 15 game lead in the division with two months to go. What is he saving arms for?
Game tied 2-2, top of seventh. Runners on first and third, two outs. Pitcher Eaton due to bat. Ryan Howard is available to pinch-hit. Ryan-frickin-Howard. Ryan-Rookie-of-the-year-Howard. Ryan-MVP-Howard. Ryan-149-rbi’s-Howard.
Aw, what the hell. Let Eaton bat.
Ground out.
Botton seventh. 2 outs. DBacks send up Clark to pitch-hit for pitcher. Here’s the throw from Eaton and … it’s outta here. Home run. Game over.
when37 will the Phils ever get it right?
What bothers me most is with some decent managing, the Rockies are right around .500—and this with a HOST of important injuries.
Hell, they’ve lost half their bullpen and 40% of their starting rotation (not to mention kept Josh Fogg over Brian Lawrence), their number 2 hitter, their leadoff hitter (who had gotten his average up over .300), and Atkins hasn’t started to hit.
This is a team that, when it’s clicking, is going to win a lot of games. Even the games they’ve lost they’ve managed to keep very close. So at .500 now after a brutal schedule to open the season, they’d be in good shape for June on, when Lopez and Matzui return, and when management finally wises up, puts Bucholz or Jimenez in the rotation, and brings Spillbourghs up for Mabry.
Instead, they’re 5 games under—despite a middle of the lineup that’s hitting a combined .385 with an on-base percentage of over .500, a regular leadoff hitter over .300, and a current number 2 hitter who has raised his average over 100 points in the last month.
Bautista, who they brought in last night for Bucholz, has a great arm. He was hitting 100 on the gun (when he wasn’t hitting Eckstein in the back), and has been dominant at times.
Once you bring him in and he loads the bases with one out, though, you don’t replace him with another rookie in a 1 run game.
The guy throws 100 frickin’ miles an hour, and has a slider that can’t be hit. You stick with him and hope he gets a strikeout—not bring in ANOTHER rookie with the bases loaded.
Me, I’d have brought in Corpas, who throws that sinking fastball that dives away from lefties to try to get Spezio to roll over it into a double play, or else strike out trying to reach it.
If I needed to, I mean. Because Bucholz, who had just gotten through the top of the lineup the inning before would’ve still be out there until he got himself in trouble. Given the injuries to the Rockies bullpen, if you can get 7 innings from a starter who’s cruising, you do it.
Would you rather have Uncle Chollie? Probably not, this sounds like thh kind of thing he would do. Or, he would leave him in too long (to get the CG) and thusly ruin his next three starts (See Hamels, Cole).
But it was his turn48!
Must be something in the air…the ChiSox gifted my Twinkies a win last night, with Guillen pulling Vazquez at just over 100 pitches despite a very strong performance.
Sox relievers allowed the Twins to tie the game in reg, and Morneau hit a walk-off dong in the 10th.
Bert Blyleven is fond of saying, “I have yet to see a pitcher’s arm explode after he throws his 100th pitch of the night.”
My Giants are playing you guys this weekend, so I will defer comment until then.
Heh!
I never fail to marvel and the length and breadth of Phillies angst on display within teh intertubes.
Fellowship in Misery!!!
Estaban, that was a tough call. Eaton was really pitching well (for a change) and the bullpen is shorthanded and struggling. Hindsight is foresight but I can see the logic for either move.
Yanking an effective pitcher whose only thrown 71 pitches? Not so much.
Joe Torre doesn’t get much credit for genius (managing the uber team will do that.) I do remember in 2003 the contrast when he took Rocket Roger out of game 7 in the fourth inning while Grady Cluelesson left an obviously spent Pedro Martinez to get shelled in the seventh, blowing the game. Formulas are less important than managing situations and personnel. We should be willing toconsider the notion that, sometimes, a manager only has his instincts, right or wrong, to guide him in some circumstances.
Apparently when Hurdle retired from playing, so did his instincts (either that or it’s buried in the Insight Graveyard with Jim Fregosi’s and Grady Cluelesson’s.)
Is there a more apt definition of masochism than to proclaim I root for the Phillies and the Red Sox?
Can the Braves get some relief pitching too? Cause I’d love to not panic going into the 8th, even when we are up by 2.
Large black dildo?
RACIST!!!!!!
According to schedule, Fregosi puts in the “Wild Thingâ€Â, who had already told him he was used up and useless…
Fine, bring that up again. The worst part of it is that LA had mowed ‘em down the previous inning, even though he looked like he could keel over from a heart attack any second. They asked Fregosi about it after the game, and he said “We’ve been doing it that way all season.” DUMBASS.
I didn’t think there was any way that team could lose after the comeback in, was it Game 4? Tourette Boy started the inning by beating out a bunt, and they rallied for about six runs or something to take the lead. I was never prouder of a team. Can we guess what eventually happened in that game?
BJTexs,
I agree, it was a tough call and I can see the logic in either move, especially since the bullpen is going down the shitter, and Ryan is hitting around .200. And I am one that takes the view that the Manager’s instincts are more important than situations and personnel. And that he’s probably right a lot more often than he’s given credit for, especially in Negadelphia.
But it’s the knowing that, as soon as Clark came up to pinch hit, and as soon as Wheeler or Kalas said “he a great fastball hitter”, that you knew, damnit, you knew the next very next thing you’d be seeing would be a ball leaving the park post-haste. And … game over.
Rather than57 watching the rest of the game, I went to bed, knoning the Phil’s wouldn’t score another run.
CraigC, just for you. Mitchy-poo blew two games that series; you could argue that that was the difference. But he had a five out save in game 2, which I forgot about, though it was not exactly easy.
TW: full93. How about that!
All I can say is Thanks to Mr. Hurdle—the Cards need all the help they can get right now.
Spezio hit the first cards extra base knock in—oh—maybe eight games.
Again—Thanks Mr Hurdle—much appreciated!
Not to belabor the Mitch Williams Game Six thing but…
One of my long time business associates is a former Major League pitcher who had a ten year career with Montreal and the Angels (he pitched for Fregosi whom he called the worst pitcher’s manager evah!)
He took an MLB alumni cruise in the winter of ‘94 that included several members of the Blue Jays World championship team (Carter, Molitor, et al.) To a man, they told him that Williams was done and everyone in that dugout knew this. They continued by saying they were convinced they would win game six once Mitch was in and were thrilled when Larry Anderson was removed.
Salt on the wounds, my friends…
Well, it kind of cuts both ways. When Pedro Ramirez was pitching for Boston, he’d be doing great right up to about 100 pitches. Francona would leave him in, and immediately, he’d give up a big home run. It’ happened every time, to the point where guys in bars would be going, “Pull Pedro NOW, Jackass!”
So, you know, it really depends on the individual pitcher.
It never ceases to amaze me that people in this town think that the Rockies are ever going to be a good team.
Kiszla’s columns recently have been putting forth the premise that if the Rockies only spent like the Yankees, we’d have winning baseball in Denver. Kiszla is a dumbass–he seems to conveniently forget that the whole reason the Monforts are trying the “Moneyball” approach is precisely because the team tried spending like drunken sailors a few years ago and still couldn’t play above .500 ball.
The whole history of this franchise has been based on the premise that Denver’s residents would be so insecure about the need to be seen as a “world-class city” that they would turn out in droves for major-league baseball no matter how crappy the team was. The problem is that after Federico Pena, Roy Romer, and the local news media suckered the metro area into paying for a brand-new stadium(after promising that half the costs of construction would be paid for with private funds, it turned out 90% of the costs ended up going to taxpayers) and played on those insecurities enough to convinced us baseball was the town’s salvation, they thought we’d be so happy to have baseball we would never demand a winning product. Never mind that the Broncos and the Avalanche take up most of the town’s loyalty. Hell, even the local indoor lacrosse team is becoming more popular than the Rockies.
The local media (whose incestuous relationship with the team is particularly obnoxious) seem to be realizing this, and are now floating rumors that the Rockies might be bought up and moved to another city, with all the civic disasters such rumors imply, all in an effort to cover up for the fact that they can’t snow the city’s residents into blindly supporting the team anymore.
Who’s Pedro Ramirez?
Wait, you can put in releivers BEFORE the 9th inning?
Hmmph. I wonder if that’s why I’m not managing in Boston anymore?
The organization spent like drunken sailors for pitchers in the pre-humidor era. Now, Coors plays smaller than a lot of NL parks.
The Rockies don’t need a bunch of free agents. But they could have signed Eric Byrnes after trading for him (where the hell is Larry Bigbie, anyway?), and then signed a starting pitcher to anchor what is a fairly decent starting rotation.
The lineup, when healthy, is a good one. The Rockies aren’t winning now because they are used to losing, and because Hurdle constantly sets them up for failure.
Bigbie is playing for the Dodgers’ AAA affiliate in Las Vegas, with the Dodgers’ best outfielder (Kemp), best first baseman (Loney), and best left handed starting pitcher (Kuo).
Even though they’re a no-name team, the D’backs are good this year. They could easily win the NL West. Hurdle is the main reason I don’t lose sleep over what should be an ascendant threat in the mountains.
*Tampa, the second-best offensive club in the AL*
As a Tampa resident, I beg you not to jinx Tampa’s offense by talking about Tampa’s offense.
Make fun of their pitching or bullpen instead- cept for Kazmir, its doomed already.
Hee, hee!
That just might explain Grady Littlebrain’s problem in ought three:
“Hey, skip! We need to get Ramirez out of there!”
“Hm, since Martinez is pitching, then we’re OK! STAY THE COURSE!!!”
Hey, it makes as much sense as what actually happened.
I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of Delaware Valley residents cried out Mitch Williams’s name in terror and were silenced by Joe Carter.
By all means, let us belabor the Mitch Williams Game Six thing, as it was the worst managerial decision of my lifetime. Grady Little’s leaving in Pedro doesn’t even compare…
1. Pedro was the best per-inning pitcher in the AL in 2003. Mitch Williams was throwing 85 mph fastballs in October 1993, and he had no other pitches.
2. Even though Pedro coughed up the lead, the Red Sox had 3 more innings to score. Mitch blew the Series.
3. Two of the last 3 batters Pedro faced were switch-hitters, so there was no platoon advantage to be gained by bringing in Timlin, and only 1 batter for Embree. Mitch faced 4 batters in the 9th: 3 right-handers and one switch-hitter. Fregosi turned a 3 out of 4 advantage for Andersen (whose slider was always tough for right-handers) into a 4-for-4 disadvantage for Mitch (who admittedly had no real platoon differential).
4. Pedro was mediocre in the ALCS: 0-1 with a 5.65 ERA. Mitch was utter dog shit in the World Series: 0-2 with an ERA of 20.25.
5. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
The prosecution rests.
What’s odd about the Mitch Williams choice is that he’d already blown an important series for the Cubs in the 9th because he falls off the mound and can’t field. The Giants win the pennant (so the saying goes) and Mitch goes to another team to blow another important game.
I was not a huge Phillies fan, (although who couldn’t like a team with John “I’ll take my ball and go home” Kruk, “nails” Dykstra, and Dutch Daulton on it) but I’m an NL fan so I was rooting for them to win. Then I watched in horror as Mitch Williams takes the mound. This was even worse than Bobby Cox’s post season decisions. You could just hear the disaster approaching.
Thank God for the Rockies. I was beginning to wonder if my beloved Cardinals could beat anyone.
John Kerry’s second favorite Sox player, after Manny Oritz.
Thanks, Patrick, that was very cool. I could have sworn that Eisenreich led off the 5th bunting for a hit. Anytime Head bunted, especially for a hit, that should be marked down.
Think about it…What if he said, “Large white dildo”? Then someone would have posted the following:
MYTH!!!!!
Jeff,
On behalf of myself and CARDS fans everywhere, I apologize for our Redbirds taking advantage of Mr. Hurdle’s ineptitude.
On the other hand, nyaah nyaah nah nyaah nyaah!!
And JD, not to worry, they’re just getting warmed up.
I thought that was David “Big Papi” Papelbon?
They windsurf together in the off season.
Long ago stablished that Jeff is racist.
I’m thinking “High Altittude Jews” instead of “Rockies”
Make every year a contract year.
I apologize for any racially insensitive comments,
TW Privateballs81
Its … prophetic.
Hey, the Rocks just started another of their patented one game winning streaks!
WATCH OUT, BITCHES! AT THIS RATE THEY COULD BE AT .500 BY SPRING TRAINING NEXT YEAR!
Ah, Jeff.
We Phillies fans bath in your bitterness like a stinging waterfall of foul smelling necter.
Please pass the Klonipan…
thanks you
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