Braves 3, Mets 2: David Wrong

I’d like to hear Keith’s thoughts.

to be concerned. The guy is not (W)right right now. In an odd way, maybe this nadir could be good for him — he knows it’s rock bottom, so he resets. I’d love to say it’s just a flukey outlier of a game, but we could see this coming.

I know between the Castillo-failing-to-drive-in K and the error it’s going to be a tough assignment, but there were a ton of other contributing factors to the loss here, starting with the bizarrely constructed lineup’s inability to make Medlen work in the early innings and continuing through the inexplicable weirdness of GMJ pinch-bunting. This was a team loss, and it’s really not fair to lump it all on the superstar who had a crappy (though yes, very crappy indeed) day.

I spent my time in business and there was a simple rule of management: if one person is performing below reasonable expectations, the it’s probably that person; if a group of people is performing below expectations, they are probably being managed incorrectly. It’s a matter of analyzing 24 people versus a few. A corollary of the law of large numbers indicates that a group will likely not get worse together unless they are being deployed incorrectly, and Jerry has been using the doctor as the village idiot for a while. So yeah, they have been underperforming (or at least a large cohort have) but this still should not deflect the blame from management. Also, mistakes tend to fall out of the mind’s eye when, say, the good guys have a few run lead in the 9th, as opposed to the game being tied by prior errors in management and deployment.
“You see Bob, it’s not that I’m lazy, it’s that I just don’t care.”
“Don’t… don’t care?”
“It’s a problem of motivation.”

The moves he makes and the explanations he gives he must have some good stuff

but the Mets just don’t play good fundamental baseball and Manuel doesn’t make good management decisions.
There was, for instance, no reason to pull Santana after 102 or 103 pitches. Made no sense. He’d retired 13 in a row and was in an obvious groove – pitching easy. If Blanco had reached base, okay, but with the bases empty, it was a stupid move.
This team is going nowhere, the lineup outlay sucks with raw rookies hitting third and fifth tonight. Gary Matthews hadn’t had a sacrifice bunt in SEVEN years and is hitting .173 and though it worked out (largely because the umpire missed his bunt movement on the second pitch) on this occasion, it’s just symptomatic of everything that Manuel does that’s just plain stupid.

Early in the game thread I mentioned the ‘08 game where Dubs didn’t get Murphy home from third after a 3-0 count. I was only using it as an example that “an out is an out” is not a true statement. I invited bad mojo.

It’s not that Wright isn’t playing good baseball, he is. It’s that he’s 27 now, he should be at the absolute top of his skills, and he’s not as good as he was 2 years ago. He’s regressed, and if you can’t see that, sorry, you’ve got your head a little in the sand. Average righties K him so damn easy. He’s on pace for 225 Ks and only 64 extra base hits. He’s a guy that should get 75-80 at this point in his career. Keep in mind 4 of the HRs are in band boxes, and he’s only got 1 in Citi, plus 2 more in Colorado. He doesn’t play his home games where Mark Reynolds does, so those hoping for a 35-40 homer season are going to be disappointed. Only time will tell if he can keep up the power and the walk rate while the K rate continues. I really don’t think he can, but none of us know for sure. I hope to hell I’m wrong, but I think he’ll have to get the K rate down to be successful for a whole season.