Quote:
Originally Posted by 26 to 6
And nobody's saying shit if Crede is retired in that spot. It's not that big of a deal, he chose to go right after a guy than walk him, oh no!! That's why being a Major League manager is one of the hardest things to do. You can't always rely on numbers, and sometimes you have to go with intuition and what you're gut tells you to. It's easy to second-guess.
What if he walks Crede, strikes out Alexei, and then Swisher comes up and hits one into the gap, then what are you saying? People will always find something to bitch about and be critical towards. In the late innings this year at home (this sounds so ridiculous, which is why I prefer to NOT be a stat geek) Swisher is hitting .500 with a .500 OBP. So what if? What do you say there? Should he walk him too?
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It's not going out of the way to find something to complain about. Disregard the result and think about it with a dash of baseball acumen. He elected to pitch to the team's hottest hitter in a tie game in the 9th inning on the road with a runner in scoring position and first base open with a light hitting groundball machine on deck. You IBB the hot hitter 100 times out of 100 there. Hell, when you consider how they are hitting right now, you even do it if Swisher was on deck, which tells you how my reaction would be to your hypothetical there at the end. Walking Crede was the move. Joe didn't make it.
EDIT: Since you brought up close and late and all, more reasons why.....
Alexei Ramirez - 3 GIDP in 25 PA
Crede - .444/.545/1.555 Close and Late going into that AB, .444/.476/.777 with RISP