Rays Diary 7/28/12 - 7/31/12
Watched another pretty good pitching job by the Rays. Saw players busting their tails, trying hard to answer management’s prayers. Trouble is, the only hope the Rays had in the 7th inning was for Roberts to bunt to advance the runners with no outs and men on first and second. A bunt was called for as usual, but the predictable pop fly ensued. At least it’s better than the usual double play that I expected. Unfortunately, the fly to deep center that followed didn’t score the runner that should have been at third and the next batter struck out.
It’s strange how management’s screw up in the seventh inning also affects the eighth inning. With a fast runner on first, Upton is instructed to hit for the perfunctory ( I’m sure getting sick and tired of having to use that word) pop out instead of the bunt. This is partly because management is praying to the “Laughing God,” (what self respecting god could take a silly game for money seriously?) for two hits in a row to score one runner from first by a team that can’t get two hits in a row in batting practice! I’m assuming that they have batting practice. I know for sure that they take walking practice, their manager and batting coach’s favorite play. Of course, if they had scored that run in the seventh, behind two to one, they would have advanced the runner in the eighth with no outs, right?
The silence really is deafening, because so many times this year, down one run late in the game, management has not tried to advance a runner with no outs! Needless to say the Rays have lost almost all of those games! It’s not baseball that I have been watching all season. It is whining and bitching by general management about injuries and lack of money, all of which is justifiable. It is their handcuffing the players and the manager and not letting them play to their potential that is so aggravating. Wheeling and dealing and finding adequate talent is an art in itself, but it does not equip someone who does not know how to manage with the requisite skills to do so. Someone in the Rays organization needs to flush his “philosophy” down the commode and let managers manage and players play.
Rays Diary 7/29/12
Watched the Rays eke out a victory. Great pitching, aggressive running, even an attempted bunt to my utter amazement. Bunting with two strikes instead of taking a “half swing” is pretty incompetent, but what can you expect from Joe Maddon’s little dog, the one that thought of the play? A win is a win, and I didn’t throw up watching how the game was managed, only a little nausea.
Rays Diary 7/30 - 7/31/12
Trying to figure out who the biggest idiot is. Is it me for staying up til three o’clock in the morning to watch the Rays’ brain trust totally mismanaging a clear victory into a morbidly stupid and ignominious defeat? It must have been Joe’s goldfish who advised him this time not to bunt in that 14th inning with no outs and men on first and second, especially with the next two hitters batting a combined .092 or some such number probably even lower! A simple bunt, the ensuing “sacrifice” that was instead wasted and voila, a victory. Instead, it’s time to fire the dog and the goldfish! Dumb animals that they are, their judgement is just not acceptable anymore. The point is moot, however. This year’s Rays are, beyond a doubt the worst managed baseball team that I have ever seen in over sixty years of following baseball!!!! The fourteenth inning represents well over a hundred extra runs the Rays “mismanagement” consortium has thrown away. The tragedy is that through all of management’s bitching and moaning about injuries and bad luck, the players have never given up! Why has their upper management given up?
Al Finkelstein, Rays Fan 7/31/12