OK, I know the team has had a lot of injuries, but I'm getting a little tired of seeing and hearing Mike Quade and Jim Hendry using this as an excuse. They had their entire starting roster together for quite a while early in the season with the exception of their fourth and fifth starters and they still played shoddy, incompetent, selfish baseball. They couldn't hit with men on base, couldn't score runs even though their first three hitters had a collective OBP of nearly .500. Nor could they catch or throw.
Now their fourth and fifth starters are a combined 4-18 and the team's record in these games is 8-24, which coincidentally is 16 games under .500 which is where the team's record now stands. Fine, but that does not mean you need to manage all of these games with the assumption you are going to lose. Looking back on this horrendous record, that seems to me what Quade routinely does, and that is one reason why I think he should be fired immediately.
Today's double-header loss to the Giants is just the culmination of this trend. The first game hinged on a single decision. With the team trailing 6-3 in the 4th but still in the game and still playing pretty well and taking good ABs against the Giants' starter Vogelsong, Doug Davis was due up with Soriano on 3rd and two outs. A pinch hitter was clearly in order. Davis was throwing batting practice through four innings. A run would bring you within two runs and bring up the top of the order. Instead, Quade let Davis bat and make the third out. Davis then proceeded to allow four more runs in the top of the 5th, letting the game slip out of reach. One decision, five runs. Incidentally, Davis should be DFAed tomorrow to make room for Barney on the roster.
Game 2: One out in the fifth. Sandoval hits a fly ball to center and Johnson appears to have thrown out the runner at the plate when Soto, carelessly flipping the ball from his glove to his hand to show the ump, drops the ball. The runner is called safe on a questionable call. Lopez, the Cubs pitcher, apparently loses his concentration and allows two hits. Quade summons the genuinely awful Grabow to put out the fire. Grabow, who should never ever be used in a game situation, proceeds to allow three consecutive hits to put the game on ice for the Giants.
Quade said after the game that he liked the matchups and that he liked the way Grabow performed in the first game. That's the problem right there. Grabow allowed a home run in the only inning he pitched in the first game. How do you figure that is a good performance? Also, Grabow has never been a solid left-handed specialist. His record against left-handed batters through his career is only slightly better than his record against right-handers and they are both pretty awful, to tell the truth.
Granted he hasn't got the greatest arsenal of quality relievers out there, but you cannot put in mop-up guys when all you need is one out in a tie game. That's losing baseball. That's the way you act when you have already lost the game in your head before it has even begun.
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