Manuel Managing Report Card: Game 42, Omir Santos?!?!

STARTING LINEUP: D+

The response to losing Ryan Church was to...play even more guys who can't really hit.  This has to be the wimpiest lineup we've thrown out since 2003.  Granted it was against Varitek, but this was a perfect opportunity for Castro and Tatis, especially the latter because of his prowess against the fastball and Josh Beckett's reliance on it.  

What did Manuel do right with this lineup?  Well uh...he didn't bat Sheffield, Wright and Beltran 7-8-9, I guess.  Murphy and those three are the best five hitters we have and four of them are in the top five spots.  Hitting Pagan second is inexplicable.  As Eric said, for one day we could be happy to have Santos and Martinez on the field: that doesn't change the fact that they aren't qualified for it.

BULLPEN MANAGEMENT: B

Another strong start by Mike Pelfrey left Jerry without many innings to eat, and as we've seen, when you keep it simple, Jerry can figure it out pretty well.  Pedro Feliciano got the 8th and pitched it pretty well, even getting out an all-star caliber right-hander.  I'm very happy he got to pitch a full inning.  However, in the ninth with Rodriguez unavailable, I'm begging for more Parnell after Friday's outing, and instead he went to Putz, who got three outs that would've gone about 900 feet if we didn't have guys with gloves on the field.  Better lucky than good, but I'll take Parnell there next time, Jerry.

IN-GAME TACTICS: C+

There wasn't much to manage at all in this game, mainly due to the lack of baserunners.  Manuel only had a few steal situations against Varitek, with Martinez in the 5th and Reed in the 7th.  I think not sending Reed in the 7th was a mistake, but given that it's the tying run and you really don't want that one thrown out, I can be a litle forgiving on that one.  The problem is none of the guys behind Reed are likely to get extra bases anyway, so you pretty much need to get him to second to score him.

I also think in the ninth that you have to pinch-hit with Tatis and Castro, alhough I'm definitely not complaining about how that worked out.  I wonder how far away we are from being able to completely judge Jerry on this move.  He trusts Santos over Castro more against hard fastballs because of his quick bat, but I wonder when we'll get to the point where we are checking bat speed for every batter.  I'm not unopen to the idea that Jerry is right here, because even when he pinch-hit for Castro against Lindstrom, Santos got the ball on a line.  But I'd love to see some more research on something like this.  This is the kind of scouting axiom that I'd love to see a big check-up on, replete with graphs and percentages.

 OVERALL: C

I'm just stunned.  I've been stunned since the ninth.  This is probably the most improbable Mets win that I can remember since the huge come from behind at Turner.  I mean, Papelbon against the bottom of the order.  That game is OVER.  I can't even speak to Jerry right now, I'm still in shock here.