Chris Coste, who is a catcher/first baseman (and has catcher's speed basically) was on 2nd base with nobody out as the winning run in the bottom of the 9th in the most important game of the entire season thus far versus the division leading Cardinals and Cecil Cooper refuses to pinch run for the guy. A slow ground ball single to left field, in which the left fielder was pulled over into left center and had to hurry to field it, did not get Coste home. After a pop fly out, a ground ball to 2nd is bobbled and the throw very high to home plate and Coste is still out trying to score the winning run (he didn't even attempt to slide as he is obviously a very poor baserunner). Good grief. Miguel Tejada bailed him out with a single to win the game. He's still an idiot, however.
team is a game out of 1st with less talent on their roster than the Cubs and the Cards in the same division. You're probably the worst fan ever.
Agreed. Thus Tony LaRussa is the most overrated manager ever. His pitcher still bats 8th and no one on Earth can explain an actual benefit of it.
Nah, just telling it like it is. Even the guys on MLB Network had to bring it up and agreed with me. If it wasn't so egregious, I would have let it go. You can't get a pass on something as bonehead as that. Baseball 101.
Matsui was on first so pitching to Tejada was the move unless you felt better going at Carlos. Pitch running would have been the move except with the injury to Lance our bench is pretty short. Michaels was the last position player and if the game went extras Hampton would have to pinch hit. (edit: Quintero was also available but he isn't any better than Coste) the real bone head play was Thurston not trying to turn two and ending the inning.
you wouldn't get looked at as a lunatic by me when you say stuff like this if it wouldn't be a different manager on your hit list every night. I mean, how can you say a dude with plenty of rings on his fingers is the most overrated ever? That's silly talk.
Well he has exactly 2. And the one against Detroit in which his team won only 68 games during the regular season actually didn't happen. I am convinced of that.
Yeah Michaels and Quintero were left. I wouldn't have felt very comfortable with Quintero being the only position player left. I guess you could have used a pitcher but other than Hampton I don't think they would have been any better than Coste.
I would have used Hampton as the pinch runner. That leaves you with 2 pinch hitters on the bench left. That's enough heading into extras. You have to be aggressive in that case and win the game right at that point.
