Pitchers sometimes have bad games and give up 10 run leads. Sometimes, umpires blow important calls at the ends of games. People make mistakes. Neither of these things really upset me about the game Monday night against Oakland. Sure, this was all frustrating as hell, but it didn’t make me angry. These things happen all the time.
What doesn’t happen all the time is an apparent Manager of the Year candidate sending someone who hasn’t bunted (Mike Redmond) in 3 years to the plate with 6 outs left to the plate to sacrifice someone over. Let’s see, 27 runs already, right? You had already blown a 10 run lead, right? Personally, I would try to go for the gusto, scoring as many runs as possible without sacrificing any outs. Given the same number of outs (had the Twins scored), I wouldn’t trust my pitching staff to hold the A’s scoreless over two innings. If I were to try to execute such a strategy, however, I certainly would have tried to do so with someone actually capable of performing the task in question.
In case you don’t remember, after flailing in his attempts at a bunt and a hit and run, Redmond was down in the count and had to take a defensive swing to prevent a strikeout. Instead he grounded into a double play. As much as the pitching staff and the umpire’s call at the end of the game affected the game, don’t pretend that bad decision making from Gady didn’t have a role in that atrocity last night.
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