The O'Finky Factor

Rays Diary 9/12/13:  “Say It Ain't So, Joe”

Amazingly, just when it seemed that the tortured Rays players could not be managed any worse, the seemingly impossible was again achieved by “Clueless Joe” and the entire “Peter Principle[1]” family of Rays coaches.  Confronted by the irrefutable fact that they could win as many as twenty more victories this year by playing “smallball,” nonetheless, Rays management has forbidden the use of this type of winning offense.

Between the second, third and fifth innings a total of at least three easy runs were squandered by the flat out refusal of Joe and company to permit even one bunt to advance runners out of routine double play situations and into scoring positions.  As a result, the game went into extra innings, where “Clueless Joe,” who claims that he “plays the percentages, “ did not and the Rays went down to still another quite ignominious defeat.

Before the game, in a radio interview, Rays batting “coach” Peter Shelton Principle, “Clueless Joe’s” personal choice to replace Steve Henderson who had done so much to help the Rays  reach their only World Series, was asked what it would take to beat Boston pitcher Dempsey.  Expecting Dempsey to “live” mostly on the outside corner, Principle suggested that Rays hitters would have to force him to throw more pitches over the plate.  When asked how this was to be done, apparently the exhausted coach, like his manager, was equally “clueless.”  Of course, the answer is to “pound the outside pitches to the opposite field until Dempsey is forced to come inside to the power part of the swing.”  Unfortunately, there is nobody on the Rays who can teach anyone how to drive the outside pitches “the other way.”  Neither Joe nor Principle has ever been able to hit inside or outside pitches in their lacklustre experience as “players.”  Meanwhile, except for Loney and Longoria, it seemed that everyone else in the lineup spent the entire game foolishly trying to pull outside pitches, while pulling off of the plate as they have done most of the year.  “Clueless Joe,” busily consulting with his favorite computer and batting coach Principle, picking his nails and talking to the wall of the dugout did not seem to notice.

Stay in touch Rays Fans, with a little luck, perhaps we can interview Andrew Friedman or some other VIP in the Rays Administration.  Perhaps we can ask him if the obviously otherwise intelligent “Clueless Joe” and batting coach Peter Principle have “self destructed” the Rays through their own incompetence or does it have something to do with demented amateur wannabe baseball “experts” higher up in the Rays organization just making them look stupid?

Al Finkelstein,  9/12/13