Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
October 07, 2007
Switcharoo

Clint Hurdle employed an unusual double switch last night:

When he brought in Brian Fuentes to pitch the eighth, he pulled a double switch with center fielder Cory Sullivan, even though that meant Fuentes, who went into the seventh spot in the lineup, would hit before Sullivan.

With Philadelphia having only one left-handed reliever, J.C. Romero, Hurdle wanted to put Phillies counterpart Charlie Manuel in a bind.

Had he put Sullivan into the seventh slot, the Rockies would have had three left-handed hitters in a four-batter sequence.

As it turned out, Romero did come in to face Todd Helton with one out in the eighth and got Helton to fly out. After Garrett Atkins singled, left-handed-hitting Brad Hawpe bounced a single off the glove of diving second baseman Chase Utley.

Then, instead of having Sullivan coming up, Hurdle was able to call on the right-handed-hitting Baker, and Baker delivered the game-winning single in his postseason debut.

A big difference in the series was the performance of the bullpens. The Rockies showed that their relief corps is a force, allowing just one earned run in 11 2/3 innings of work. They allowed six hits and four walks while striking out ten. The Phillies were in for 9 2/3 innings, giving up seven earned runs. And that doesn't include the Lohse's entrance with the bases loaded in which get gave up the grand slam to Matsui. Three of those runs get charged to the starter.

Finally, congratulations to Kaz Matsui on a tremendous series. He didn't turn out to be what the Mets expected, but in Colorado he's improved to a useful player. During the regular season in 2007, he hit much better in the day than at night, and with two day games in this series he just pounded the Phillies. He collected five hits, four for extra bases, including two triples and a grand slam.

The NLCS pits Mountain Standard Time versus Mountain Daylight Time. It also means the team with the highest run differential meets a team with a team outscored by their opponents. The action starts Thursday.


Posted by David Pinto at 09:34 AM | Strategy | TrackBack (0)
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