He made a good point in today's column in which he applauded JM for walking Patterson to get to Corky with the bags packed. Looking back, it was logical, because Patterson, a lefty, is such a good hitter now. But, it still took some ovaries for JM to make that decision.

How can you point that out when we could have lost the game cuz he left Gordon in, in the 8th!

Different subject. I don't know why JM went against conventional wisdom and left Flash in for the 9th, other than the fact that Flash looked soooo good in the 8th and he probably didn't have a whole lot of faith in Koch. Letting him (Gordon) face three hitters in the ninth made me wonder, though.

Patterson, while he strikes out quite a bit, does seem to be concentrating much better in key at-bats. ShamME just goes up there and flails. I'd walk Patterson to get to SoSo every time, especially on the road. ScamME is going to be useless on the road the rest of this year, if not for good. The LoveFest is over, he's just another enemy player now, and he can't take it.

He made a good point in today's column in which he applauded JM for walking Patterson to get to Corky with the bags packed.  Looking back, it was logical, because Patterson, a lefty, is such a good hitter now.  But, it still took some ovaries for JM to make that decision.

ignore the JM bashers - they complain nwhen we win, they'll b**** when we win it all.

 

Twice the Sox pitched - one intentionally, one semi - around Patterson to get to sam-me and it paid off both times big times, and it took great instincts and gyst by JM to do that. I was wondering during the game the first time if JM wasn't playing the hunches that sam-me would be the one to really pitch to since he is more prone to get the cubs out of the inning. (THe 2nd time, no doubt he weas trying to get to sam-me.) I listned to Ed & John and they were saying the same thing - JM was going after sam-me.

 

Consider the psych pressure on an already distraught egotist - the strategy worked, and as the column pointed out today, JM has done this before - twice, in what, 1999 - and it has worked every time.

 

It seems counter intuitive to pitvh around patterson to get to sam-me, but it was the perfect psych job on mr cork earplugs lack of steroids pressing buffoon. No one manager would prefer to pitch to sam-me but JM called it perfectly on Mr i am pressing and cannot hel striking out sam-me.

 

So I salute JM!

Different subject.  I don't know why JM went against conventional wisdom and left Flash in for the 9th, other than the fact that Flash looked soooo good in the 8th and he probably didn't have a whole lot of faith in Koch.  Letting him (Gordon) face three hitters in the ninth made me wonder, though.

Marte was tired - and it was a risk worth taking since we had a little cushion thanks to the Mags rbi in the 8th. I don't think it was a bad move to leave Gordon in - certainly in our section of the dstands there was no greta desire to see Koch start the 9th and worth a shot to see if Gordon could close it out.

Patterson, while he strikes out quite a bit, does seem to be concentrating much better in key at-bats

Except when he's up there in the top of the 9th, his team down by 2, bases loaded, and there's no outs and a pitcher who has struggled with his velocity is coming in.

 

Only then though.