|
|
|
|
Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Reds Manager Dusty Baker put a bunt on with Votto at the plate.
Votto offered and fouled off a Marte pitch. He offered and missed the next. He fouled off an 0-2 pitch and then struck out on Marte’s fourth pitch to him.
Encarnacion came to the plate and battled through an impressive at-bat, only to strike out on the eighth Marte pitch he saw.
With two outs and Bruce set to come to the plate, Baker sent the reigning #1 Baseball America prospect back to the dugout in favor of...wait for it...Javier Valentin. “It couldn’t possibly be the Javier Valentin with the .222/.275/.286 line,” you say? It was. I watched it live. Valentin grounded out to end the inning.
battlekow
Posted: July 01, 2008 at 09:38 AM | 8 comment(s)
Related News: General, Cincinnati, Obituaries
|
Support BBTF
Thanks to aleskel for his generous support.
My Bookmarks
You must be logged in to view your Bookmarks.
Hot Topics
|
|
Reader Comments and Retorts
Go to end of page
Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.
Racist!
It had better have been a 1 run game in the 9th (in which case, if you're going to bunt with a competent hitter who likely doesn't bunt that often, why not pinch hit for HIM with a quality bunter? I imagine any member of the starting rotation could lay down a bunt better than Votto).
If it was anything other than a 9th inning, 1 run game -- then we're entering Don Baylor stupid territory.
I never thought Dusty was an awful tactician (I never thought he was a GOOD in game tactician, either) -- at least by the numbers, his teams never did what Don Baylor's did... lead the league in position player sacs by a 2 to 1 margin over the nearest competitor.
Down 3-2 in the bottom of the 8th, runners 1b/2b, lefty-lefty matchup, that's not a bad place to sac... I still would have done it with someone besides Votto. I mean, you can burn tomorrow's SP or the SP from the day before with no sweat.
PH'ing for Bruce was probably the wrong thing to do - but while I cannot get the #s at the moment, I think Valentin's line as a PH far exceeds his line in the lineup.
I'm not one to defend Baker - but this seems more "not smart" than "stupid".
You must be Registered and Logged In to post comments.
<< Back to main