Note to Dusty: Mitre's Good at Getting Ground Balls
Why does Dusty do this to us?
Is there a man, woman, or child over the age of 18 months alive in the world that wasn't screaming at Dusty Baker to walk David Eckstein in the eleventh inning tonight to set up a double play? I suspect even the Cardinals fans were groaning, just in the interest of sportsmanship.
A quick recap in case you mercifully happened to miss it: John Mabry leads off the bottom of the 11th with a triple against Sergio Mitre. Now, most sentient beings would figure that on the road, with no outs, you need to walk two batters to load the bases, in order to set up a force at every base. Especially since Mitre has an insane GB/FB rate (3.71). But the Cubs pitch to So Taguchi anyway, and fortunately get a ground ball that Neifi Perez fields without allowing the runner to score.
So, one out. The decision making's a bit shaky so far, but no harm done. And SURELY Dusty will walk Eckstein to set up a double play, right? After all, he thought nothing about ordering two intentional walks against Cincinnati yesterday in the eighth inning, one of which (of course) came around to score. After all, if there was ever a situation in which an intentional walk was called for, a tie game in extra innings on the road is it. And again, not to belabor the point, but the one area in which Mitre's excellence is unquestioned is his ability to get ground balls.
But no, he elects to pitch to Eckstein. Len Kaspar, presumably remembering Steve Stone's fate, tries to cover for him by pointing out that a left-hander, John Rodriguez, is on deck. What difference this makes, I can't begin to guess, since Mitre would have had to pitch to Rodriguez anyway (there was only one out). Anyway, Tony LaRussa at this point notices that Dusty has given up, puts the squeeze on, and the Cardinals end up winning.
Simply maddening - even video games will walk a batter in this situation. But it seems like Dusty gets out-managed by the GameCube a handful of times a year. It's high time somebody in the organization held him accountable for things like this, or at least had someone around to point out to him that Sergio Mitre, whatever his flaws, is pretty darn good at producing groundballs.
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Zambrano
As for the good news, Zambrano pitched simply wonderfully tonight, going the first nine innings, striking out 12 to match a career high, and for only the second time all year, not allowing a walk (though he only pitched 3.1 innings the first time). He even went 2-3 with a double. They certainly did not lose this game through any fault of his.
Zambrano v. Pujols
Zambrano's duel with Pujols in the 9th was great. Got him down 0-2 by fooling him on two sliders, then overpitched with a fastball (98mph) and a slider on the next two. You could feel the adrenaline rushing through him and the crowd. Then a foul ball. Then classic Zambrano -- easy grounder to short.
How many great matchups could these two have over the next decade?
Walker's Night
One of the frustrating parts of tonight was Jerry Hairston going 4-5 with a double and triple out of the leadoff spot, and yet the Cubs managed only one run. (Game log.) Todd Walker demonstrated how a #2 hitter can negate a leadoff hitter's good performance. Walker did get Hairston over to third in the 3rd inning to allow the Cubs to score their only run. But then he got a bit too happy hitting it to the second baseman. In the 5th, he grounded into a double play with runners on 1st and 2nd and 1 out. In the 7th, he again grounded into a 4-6-3 double play with runners on 1st and 3rd and 1 out. He ended rallies twice in three innings, rallies started by back-to-back base hits by Zambrano and Hairston.
For good measure, after Hairston tripled with 1 out in the top of the 10th, Walker grounded out to short and Hairston was forced to hold.
Walker did make a nice play on a hard grounder by Larry Walker in the bottom of the 10th, but his offensive performance was no doubt very disappointing to him, especially given how good of a hitter he is.
re: Walker's night
Yeah, Walker had a rough game. I like Walker a lot, and he's been very productive overall this year, but I was cursing his very existance after that grounder in the tenth. It's just one of those games.
Frustrating
New member here.
I agree completely with you; I'd express my comments but I already posted them here. Ah, a loss like this one is tough to get over.
Baker on the squeeze
"We knew they were probably going to squeeze with [Eckstein]. We just didn't know when. I didn't think they were going to do it right then." (Chicago Tribune.)
Cardinal fan calls the squeeze
I went to an astronomy party last night at the home of some die hard Cardinal fans. They live out in the country where it might be a bit darker than in the city. Last year they hosted a World Series party where they used a video projector to watch the game on the side of a barn.
We hooked up my camera to the telescope and came up with this photo. I'm tried zooming in on the image, but I'm still not getting the same result at full zoom that moon.google.com has. Imagine that!
Ok, have I taken your mind off the pain of last night's game yet? Well I tried.
Anyway, we arrived at the party during the ninth inning, so we watched the game while waiting for it to get darker outside. (Yeah, that's it.)
In the bottom of the 11th with the runner on third, our Cardinal fan friend told us to watch for the suicide squeeze, saying that LaRussa likes that kind of thing.
Sure enough, there he goes...and there goes the game from our point of view.
The C-fan has Dish Network with PVR service, so he backed it up and showed us when the runner broke for home and when the pitcher was committed to throwing to home plate and went on to explain some of the ways a balk can be committed.
Did anyone see Derrek Lee after the game? He was the most visibly upset that I've ever seen him. Hopefully he didn't kick any electric fans or similar items.
BTW, that Dish Network PVR is rather nice. I liked that 300x FF and rewind and the frame by frame was wonderful. Much better than the nasty HD-PVR our local cable dudes provide.
Did anyone read Ryne Sandberg's predictions for this series?
Prediction: The Cubs win two of three games. They always have a tough time with Matt Morris (he'll throw on Saturday), but they'll win Friday and Sunday.
Okay, I sense you're still bummed about the charmin game (please don't squeeze)so I'll try and cheer you up with a photo of a very cute dog who came by to visit earlier this week. We have since found his owner.
Go Cubs!