8/30/07 Brewers (Parra) vs. Cubs (Lilly): 7:05 PM CDT

[davego]

What did he say? I missed it.

[milwaukeesportsfan]

Well, I just got back from the game, and I gotta say, Wrigley is a dump! I hate everything about Illinois. I never want to go back. I hate the Cubs, I hate Cubs fans, I hate Bud Light. Oh, and I hate losing, too.

[1992casey]

What did he say? I missed it.

AJAY covered it in the Yost thread. I'll repost Tom Haudricourt's blog entry.

Yost went down with Mench
By Tom Haudricourt
Thursday' date=' Aug 30 2007, 11:39 PM

Chicago - Manager Ned Yost doesn't start outfielder Kevin Mench against right-handed pitchers because he doesn't hit them very well. The right-handed hitter was batting .215 this season against righties entering play Thursday night.

Yet, Yost allowed Mench to hit against a right-handed pitcher with the Brewers' biggest game of the year on the line in the ninth inning. Mench bounced out against Cubs closer Ryan Dempster on the first pitch he saw with the bases loaded and the Brewers lost a game they couldn't afford to lose.

Sitting on the bench, available to hit, was Geoff Jenkins, who is batting .271 against righties this season. Yost said he didn't turn to Jenkins because his career numbers (4 for 17) against Dempster were not compelling enough.

Yost makes a lot of his in-game moves based primarily on the career numbers of hitter/pitcher match-ups. Why Mench's .215 average against right-handers didn't supercede Jenkins' luke-warm numbers against Dempster, only Yost knows.

But the fact remains that Yost doesn't start Mench against righties but he still allowed him to hit against one with the biggest game of the year in the balance. What do you think?[/quote']

[tomwopat]

http://lj.marginal.net/license_20050923180758_81940.jpg

 

When Haudricourt realizes it, you know it's obvious.

[SeriesFinale]

The more I sit on this 9th inning the angrier I get...who knows what would've happened if Jenks or Counsell had come up instead of Mench; there are no guarantees. Still, you know those two would've given us a much, much better shot at what would've been an instant classic, and more importantly, a win.

[Brian the Automator]

Yeah, I slept on it, and I'm still fuming.

 

Bring on Davey Johnson!

[brewers19]

In the past, I haven't really thought it was worth the effort to feel one way or the other about Yost. But after last night, Ned is dead to me. Simply unforgivable. Choosing 0-1 over 4-17, even disregarding the righty/lefty splits, is mind-boggling.

[brewcrewkid14]

Last night's game gave me the feeling that he has given up on this team. That continuous smirk he had every time they showed him just irked me beyond belief in the ninth.

 

I could be completely off on my observation, but it's just the feeling I got. If the manager is giving up, then what is the team going to do?

[BrewCrewForever]

This loss belongs to two people more then anyone else. Ned Yost and Chris Capuano. Yost for not pinch hitting for Mench and Capuano for getting 2 outs and then allowing back to back HR's. Just awful.

[BrewCrewForever]

That strike three to Hart in was it the 7th? That ball was so outside by Marmol it crossed the chalk on the left hand batters box. That is horriable. So I have noticed that others like myself who were die hard Yost supporters are all slowly getting off his bandwagon. I know how they feel, the guy just is making idiotic move after idiotic move. And we can't take it anymore.

[Loopee]

I have more or less been a Yost supporter; at least to the extent that this team should wait until the end of the year to consider a managerial change.

 

The failure to pinch hit for Mench really gets me though. I'm putting Ned on double secret probation. One more screw up like that and Mark and Doug need to switch to a Steinbrenner-esque "Off with his head" mode.

[SlideBernieSlide]

Here is Ned's head. I have this uncanny ability to think like Yost. Not saying thats a good thing. His thought process last night..."You know last night against lefty Scott Erye. I let Jenkins bat and that worked out Great. Yeah Great! I should do that with Mench against Dempster. It just might work. It worked last night. Alright Mench!"

 

The big question coming into this stretch drive by all the national pundits and sportswriters was "How will the Brewers young talent handle the stress of a playoff race." But now I think the bigger question is can Ned Yost handle it. Not sure he can? Especially after these two incidents (The Soup 82 pitches debacle and what happened last night) from arguably the biggest series in franchise history since 1992.

 

I actually feel a tad better about this team (the players not the manager) than I did a week to 10 days ago. Weeks is getting on-base. Hart is hitting again. Gross is putting up numbers since his return. Braun and Fielder are Braun and Fielder. Jenkins is having his late summer moments. Soup's last 2 starts have been better than good. Sheets is back. Bush has been the most consistent starter since June. Now if we could just get Billy Hall figured out and the middle relief squared away.

[Bucky Rules]

Actually, Yost's decision was defensible. The reasoning that he gave was that Jenkins numbers against Dempster weren't good enough (even though they were decent) to bring him in cold off the bench over the guy that was in the game. And Counsell was 1-10 off Dumpster. What Yost didn't say -- possibly because he doesn't want to bash Jenkins unnecessarily -- is that he has sucked on toast for the last week or so (2-22). Agree or disagree, he had defensible reasons. Basically, when all options suck, go with the guy who has seen live pitches in the game.

 

At the time, I was thinking we'd see Jenkins as well. But all things considered, I can live with the reasons we didn't.

 

I'm more ticked that Mench swung at the first pitch after Dumpster walked in a run. If you're going to swing at the first pitch in that situation, you better smoke it, not ground out weakly to SS.

 

When they walked Fielder to get to Hart, I said to myself "just don't walk this guy." I can live with losing the game with Hart swinging the bat. I just didn't have any confidence in any option they had coming up after him.

[endaround]

No it isn't defensible. Mench should have already been gone.

[craigharmann]

Thank God I missed the end of the game. After Crappy gave up the back-to-back jacks, I turned the TV off in anger. I knew there was no coming back. I didn't care. I have never done that this season. I guess I was prophetic earlier in this thread by saying there is no logic with Ned...just when you think you've figured him out...it changes. It's unbelievable. I have tried and tried and tried to support him this year, but he's not the guy. If this team does make it to the playoffs this year, it will be in spite of him and his stupid moves, not because of his moves.

[BrewCrewForever]

You know things are bad when Woogie comes back for the first time in over a month to do the IGT and we still can't pull a W.

[uecker9]

I see last nights loss as the usual group effort, culminated by Yost being a moron.

Leaving the bases loaded in the 1st, not catching a ball hit right at a guy in the 2nd, 2 on with 1 out in the 3rd,

back to back jacks in the 6th, 1st and 3rd with 1 out in the 7th.

All those came into play in a 1 run game.

[jhart05]

This loss belongs to two people more then anyone else. Ned Yost and Chris Capuano. Yost for not pinch hitting for Mench and Capuano for getting 2 outs and then allowing back to back HR's. Just awful.

I still don't think you can blame Cappy for the Soriano HR. That pitch was at least 3 inches inside and 3 inches low. Nowhere near the strike zone. Soriano had no business swinging at that pitch. But he did, and he hit it out, against the wind, no less. Pure dumb luck on Soriano's part, and pure bad luck for Cappy.

[Brian the Automator]

I still don't think you can blame Cappy for the Soriano HR. That pitch was at least 3 inches inside and 3 inches low. Nowhere near the strike zone. Soriano had no business swinging at that pitch. But he did, and he hit it out, against the wind, no less. Pure dumb luck on Soriano's part, and pure bad luck for Cappy.

Yes and no. It was out of the strike zone, but in Soriano's known golfing zone. If that's where they were trying to pitch him, it was bad planning.

 

[rluzinski]

Cappy gave up 2 runs in 4 IP. What the heck do people expect? Can't we at least wait for a bad performance before we pretend that 1 player can be blamed for a loss?

 

Actually, Yost's decision was defensible. The reasoning that he gave was that Jenkins numbers against Dempster weren't good enough (even though they were decent) to bring him in cold off the bench over the guy that was in the game. And Counsell was 1-10 off Dumpster.

 

What's not defendable is trying to use a 4-18 sample to suggest a player can't hit a particular batter. So, if Jenkins had gotten one extra hit, he would have a .278 BA against Dempster and would have been a fine pick to pinch hit? Please. You don't need to be a statistician to see the issue. You just need common sense.

 

Yost is right about at least considering that a pinch hitter comes in cold but in this case, it wasn't even close. When neither are pinch hitters, Jenkins might make an out against a righty 10% less often than Mench. Coming in cold would have used up some of Jenkins' advantage but certainly not all of it. Of course, you'll also notice that Jenkins might have increased the odds of winning by less than 10%. Not insignificant but not nearly as a large as some suggest.