The boos rained down last night, leading to fertile ground for growth. Of course, all that grew was the Mariners runs total. Ollie was awful. Vargas was bad (and was DFA'd at the end of the game, welcome back Carlos Muniz). The offense was putrid (which was to be expected, considering DW was sitting this one out, Delgado stinks, and the rest of the lineup save for Reyes and Beltran is not so good). Heck, Tatis had 3 hits, as did Schneider, and Marlon had 2. That was it folks.
The highlight of the night was Jerry Manuel getting run. You've all either read the stories, or saw it on TV (or in-house), but let me tell you, it was a sight. Rungee no doubt baited Beltran. Jerry did the smart thing coming out to protect Carlos, knowing that if he got tossed, things would go from bad to worse. Rungee decided he would bump Manuel, who went nuts. After Jerry got run, Beltran got fired up and went nuts on Rungee. I will be shocked if Carlos isn't suspended (he does NOT deserve it), but not shocked if Rungee isn't. I'm sorry, an ump should not initiate contact with a manager or player. If a manager does that, he gets suspended. Rungee has no fucking business doing that, and he should be banned from umping tonight. His strike zone was for shit last night, low pitch after low pitch was called a strike. It was like he thought T** G****** was on the mound (circa 2000 G******, not the most recent incarnation). Good for Jerry trying to protect his guy, and good for Carlos for calling Rungee on what he did. The good news was that Marlon Anderson was not put in center to replace Beltran, Send 'Em Sandy put him in left, moved Trot to right and Endy to center. Trot did show off an arm on a couple of plays.
After the game, Jerry said:
"It could mean some tough decisions," Manuel said. "Could be lineup changes, could be rotation changes, could be all types of changes. We have to do what we have to do to get this team on track. We have such great fans and they're just waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting for us to do well."
Now, that's nice Jerry, but what are you going to do? Half the team is hurt or sucking. Who replaces Delgado? Who replaces Ollie? Castillo? There is little in the minors that is ready (Sorry folks, Mike Carp is not ready, and Anderson Hernandez (called IPOR for a reason) is not an option).
I've been a big supporter of Ollie, but he has something seriously wrong. Is it stuff or mechanics, I don't know. But this team cannot afford to have him blow up like this. Billy Wagner was wrong to voice his displeasure a few weeks ago in the press, but he was right. Ollie needs to do better. Hell, they all need to do better.
We can hope that the day of rest for DW helps him find his swing against righties (do yourself a favor, don't look at the splits. You will get sick). We can hope that Church comes back healthy, same for Alou. But the bottom line is that this team has many issues that need to be fixed. It wasn't all on Willie.
I hope Omar is able to pull something out of his hat. Jerry showed fire last night, but it didn't do squat.
No series win. Tonight, a face saving game.
Still, I gotta say it:
LGM
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