… but to try to understand just what on Earth he was thinking pinch-hitting for Chris Duncan in the ninth inning Saturday.
On the game threads at Viva El Birdos, this event alone was blamed for the Cardinals’ loss. Many posters there left bitter comments about the move. Things got so bad there that LBoros himself had to tell people to “chill the hell out.” On his vacation, no less.
Anyway, the move. The setup involves Aaron Miles walking to load the bases with one out. Duncan is up next, so Dusty Baker calls for the lefty Will Ohman. TLR then counters Dusty’s move by calling back Duncan and sending Juan Encarnacion to the plate.
My first reaction was one of incredulity, as Duncan has been obliterating the ball for the past couple of weeks. Why not eschew the lefty-lefty thing and just “ride the hot hand”? Well, first let’s look at Dunc’s and Enc’s splits vs. lefties:
Duncan: .222/.243/.417 in 36 at-bats
Enc’ion: .313/.336/.507 in 144 at-bats; .271/.323/.424 lifetime
There’s an obvious discrepancy there. Next, let’s look at the situation, bases loaded:
Duncan: .111/.111/.111 in 9 at-bats
Enc’ion: .300/.273/.400 in 10 at-bats
Both have had so few at-bats with the sacks drunk this season as to make the distinction virtually meaningless. But look at Enc’s same splits lifetime: .343/.373/.529 in 102 at-bats. Now we’re getting somewhere.
We all know that TLR is a slave to that little card in his back pocket, and that card told him that Encarnacion is Juan tough Dominican when the bases are loaded. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out. As my friend David Lowery once said:
We zig and zag between good and bad
Stumble and fall on right and wrong
‘Cause the tumblin’ dice and the luck of the draw just leads us on
With the benefit of hindsight, one could argue that TLR made the right move based on the cold, hard logic. But with the way that Duncan has been hitting, it seems that telling logic to go scratch might have been the better move.
What are you gonna do? Let’s get ‘em Sunday, boys.
(For more second-guessing-of-TLR fun, see the Rev. Redbird and VEB commenter sjoshi.)
