Bad Managerial Decision #2

A dissapointing Cubs loss tonight. I thought they were headed for another blowout like Opening Day against Arizona, but the Reds took their pitcher out and the Cubs stopped hitting. Kerry Wood couldn't hold the lead either, although the Reds were incredibly fortunate to get their 4th and 5th runs. With 2 outs, Rich Aurilla hit a fly ball down the right field line that a fan clearly reached over to interfere with and disallowed Burnitz from even having a chance to catch the ball. Burnitz was running full speed and hyperflexed his glove hand wrist into the wall on the play, which I thought kind of took the attention away from the fan interfering and the umpires missed it. On the very next pitch, I think, Aurilla practically throws his bat at the ball, breaks his bat, and hits a soft ground ball to the left side for a single and 2 RBIs. This was probably the slowest hit ball that I have ever seen get through a major league defense, and I am not joking when I say that. I have no idea how it skidded by both Ramirez and Perez.

Then comes the managerial move that still dumbfounds me. Glendon Rusch pitches a 1,2,3 7th with 2 SO's. He threw 14 pitches that inning. The next inning Dusty pulls the old double switch, bringing in Nomar to bat 9th, the pitchers spot, sending Hairston to LF and Perez to second base. Here's why that doesn't make sense. 1: Why take Rusch out when he threw so well the inning before? He had thrown 34 pitches two nights ago, and 14 the inning before. Run him out there again, if he doesn't get the first guy out, bring somebody else in. 2: Do you really need a double switch at that point anyway? Hairston is not a better LF than Hollandsworth. Perez is not a better 2B than Hairston. And it could be argued that Perez is on par defensively at short than Nomar. The defensive switches really didn't matter when there were only 2 balls hit in the entire inning. I know people want to blame Leicester for this one, but there's no way he should have stayed in the game after walking 2 guys and hitting the next guy.

The ninth inning was a positive. They managed to get the tying run to 3rd with 2 outs. The only AB that I had a problem with was Hairston's, who swung at 2 balls out of the zone after Nomar had walked the batter before that. Hopefully Prior can lead them tommorrow.