Unbelievable……As a manager, Mike
Scioscia makes it pretty hard
to criticize him and the decisions he
makes throughout the course of a game. On this
night though, this very night not even 15 minutes
ago, he’s made it ridiculously easy to go
ape **** criticizing him while running around the
house shouting obscenities!!! Seriously, if I
can sit at home and know what needs to be done in
a certain situation, how does someone like
Scioscia go against all common sense and make the
complete opposite decision?
Trailing 4 - 9 in
our half of the 9th, as has been consistent with
the series, the Angels refuse to go out without a
fight. After a game full of base running blunders,
including one to start off the inning to account
for the first out instead of a lead off double, we
still manage to bring the tieing run to the plate
in Juan Rivera. As scorching HOT as he’s
been, he smacks a 3 run oppo shot to tie the
game!!! Amazing!! Morales goes on to make the last
out and bring us to the bottom half of the 9th,
all tied up.
Enter Justin Spier,
who’s been somewhat consistent of late, to
keep us in it and give us another chance in the
10th. After a lead off hit by none other than
Young, and a sac bunt from Murphy to get him to
2nd, Justin goes on to strike out a smoking hot
Marlon Byrd. So, 2 outs with 1st base open and a
powerful yet struggling Hank Blalock steps up. 1ST
BASE OPEN!!!!!!!! with a rookie on deck who has 1
hit thus far!!!!!! I’m sitting at home
thinking it’s a no brainer to intentionally
walk Blalock and take your chances with the rookie
who owns 1 hit and a couple RBIs to his major
league name. Instead, and downright shockingly
instead, Scioscia opts to allow Justin to pitch to
Blalock, a lefty while lefties are hitting over
.300 against him so far this season. All the
variables in this scenario seem to suggest that we
either put Blalock on and pitch to the rookie, or
bring in Darren Oliver, given Hank’s career
.229 avg vs. lefties, with only 27 of his 141
career homers coming vs. lefties. The outcome
floors me! Blalock destroys the FIRST pitch out of
Justin’s hand to straight away center field
for a 2 run walk off homer.
Unbelievable.
What a time for one of the very few bad decisions
a manager can make to so devastatingly affect the
outcome of an awfully pivotal series. We
have 3 more coming up with them again starting
Monday though, at home. So maybe not extremely
pivotal, but the questionable decision still
stings nonetheless. Especially so because the team
fought so hard to come back to tie it.
Unbelievable.
2 Comments
The managerial decision is one to criticize. Perhaps the decision might have been over the bully workload or Blalock’s history vs Speier, but the Halos beat themselves by their own grain of salt base path greed.
Even Hunter’s 3B snag was foolish. Vlad at the plate, 1st base open, 1 out…he had been out on that in AZ before why Morales missed knocking him by his double, why is he doing it again there (though he got away with it)?!
The Halos are taking themselves out of big innings by their stupidity on the base paths, the bottom line!
The managerial decision is one to criticize. Perhaps the decision might have been over the bully workload or Blalock’s history vs Speier, but the Halos beat themselves by their own grain of salt base path greed.
Even Hunter’s 3B snag was foolish. Vlad at the plate, 1st base open, 1 out…he had been out on that in AZ before while Morales missed knocking him in by his double, why is he doing it again there (though he got away with it)?!
The Halos are taking themselves out of big innings by their stupidity on the base paths, the bottom line!
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