caulfield12

Except a healthy Heyward is worth much more to an offense than Beckham, Morel and Viciedo combined.

Put this one in the managerial notebook for referencing in the future. Not good decision-making that inning to put Reed in that situation when it was avoidable. Kotchmann was hitting .143.

Dammit!! Just used Ohman way too long there and paid for it. Hannahan has been their RBI guy this year.

Thornton has to be out, you don't use Reed here against a LHB in this situation.

Greg Walker should be in the position coaches Hall of Fame in Galesburg, Illinois. Especially because they're putting up those numbers against the vaunted Phillies, give him a gold watch.

Be careful with Kotchmann, this is the kind of pitcher he can go yard against, despite his low average.

You don't really want to get beat using your 6th best reliever in a tie game at home, do you? Well, I understand the logic with the switch hitters and lefties, but playing with fire here.

Put the runner in motion?

Great insight GameDay, Joe Smith would rather go after Brent Morel than Alejandro DeAza. LOL.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 2, 2012 -> 08:55 PM) Apparently we now put defense on the board. Harrelson got a little excited, eh? He's working himself into a lather, ala Tom Kelly? Shouldn't there be a rule for those sayings that a runner should theoretically be scoring if Alexei DOESN'T make the play to merit such a call? Oh, well, nice to see Harrelson excited and energized again, compared to last year's Bataan Death March (if anyone has a family member who served in the Philippines, that's just my "wrestler persona" and I'm not actually poking fun of the very real atrocities which happened at the hands of the Japanese in WW II.)

QUOTE (K-Rock @ May 2, 2012 -> 08:52 PM) Why does Robin love using Ohman so much Because he's a GENIUS. Well, at least in this particular situation. Would almost rather see Ohman than Thornton against Hafner.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 2, 2012 -> 08:50 PM) Damon's a DH at this point. Its a 3 inning game. He has maybe one AB left in regulation and can kill you in LF. Removing him is managerial genius. Maybe it would be more genius to DH Damon in the first place instead of having Kotchmann's .143 average at 1B? And not such genius to have 3 lefty dominant hitters in a row (yeah, I know Cabrera's a switch hitter, but he mostly faces RHPers).

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 2, 2012 -> 08:45 PM) Lowering expectations? I thought Cooper works miracles. Arise, Dick Lazarus Allen, and come forth from the grave!

The Damon Experiment didn't last long. I'm sure he still looks very rusty. Maybe they can try Magglio or Vladdy Guerrero next.

That's the 2nd or 3rd guy who's escaped an 0-2 count tonight. Sheez. Not one of his better performances, but almost a "quality" start. They should change the definition after watching Phil in tonight's game. That's the end of Humber's night, 6 walks, HBP, 4 hits and 6 K's. Can't believe the game's tied at this point. Then again, you can argue Gordon makes that relatively routine play and we're up by 3 and turning it over to the pen.

QUOTE (Jake @ May 2, 2012 -> 08:38 PM) Will Ohman is the Brian Scalabrine of this team. If nobody liked Brian Scalabrine That guy always reminds me of the actor Michael Rapaport. Would anyone take a 4.68 ERA on the season for Humber and be contented with that? Probably better than the average for a 5th in the AL by a wide margin, or even comparable to a 4th for some teams.

Even Paulie in his enfeebled condition might be able to run on Damon's arm. Too bad we couldn't plate those last two, but just one clutch hit feels really good for now. We'll take it.

Yay, it exists. A clutch hit. 3-3. New game.

DeAza homered and doubled last time against Tomlin. Wanted no part of him. Now it's on Alexei. The dreaded bases-loaded situation for the Sox, something like 2/18 on the year.

Gordon, that's exactly what happens when you try to pull an outside fastball. Lucky it wasn't a DP.

Well, we're 3-0 against the Indians and 5-1 against the Central. Putting on 2-3 baserunners per inning isn't going to work against ANY team. Just surprised they didn't score sooner than they did. And Rios/AJ are no longer looking hitterish. This line-up is going to drive everyone to drink, but not unexpected coming into the season.

Of course!! Was that an error on Beckham? First it was an out, then it was an error, then a single. You can't play with fire with that line-up all night long and not get burned.

Was that an intentional walk to Cabrera? It sure looked like it on GameDay with all those pitches being up and away.

It's 100% Manto, it's magical medicine ball drill that keeps him from striding too much, lol. Bryce Harper now 4/11, 2 RBI's. Dammit Humber, the last thing we needed after scoring a run is to give a leadoff walk right back to them (see Danks, John for further reference). I'm starting to think this game is EVEN more impressive than the perfecto, because the Indians have pretty solid hitters up and down that line-up. Or he's just getting incredibly lucky, one or the other.

So far, the definition of a gutty performance while "laboring" for 10 outs on 69 pitches, almost 7 pitches to earn an out. That helped, 2 pitches, 2 outs. Now a 71 through 4. Hopefully he can at least get through the sixth and we can score some runs for him. Last time we touched Tomlin for cuatro. Orioles continuing to impress, taking it to the Yanks again, and Brandon Inge and the A's are giving the Red Sox fits. And Adam Dunn runs into an 88 MPH cutter that didn't cut, 1-0 Sox. Atta boy, Donkey Kong. As an aside for Dick Allen, Dunn's current 919 OPS means a lot more to this team now than Thome's did when the average OPS number was 50-75 points higher across the major leagues. That puts Dunn more or less on his usual 40 homer pace, and only 5 behind last year's total after less than one month of play. AJ's returned to earth again and now below .300 for the first time in weeks.