Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
July 16, 2008
Tiring, But Good

It was a long game to watch, but there were plenty of exciting moments. Good pitching, scoring threats, errors, a home run, stolen bases, close plays, the game had it all. Everyone got to play, I believe.

That's 11 wins and one tie for the AL in the last twelve games.

Update: Drew wins the MVP.


Posted by David Pinto at 01:41 AM | All-Star Game | TrackBack (0)
Comments

According to postgame reports, both managers were told by the Commissioner's people that the game would keep going until there was a winner. When they had the tie in Milwaukee, World Series home-field was not riding on the outcome. Now that there is something at stake, you can't have a tie anymore.

Francona basically said it was one of the most tense nights of his career. Clint Hurdle was asking around for emergency pitchers among the position players. Wouldn't that have been sweet -- to have World Series home-field decided by someone who hadn't pitched since Little League?

Posted by: jvwalt at July 16, 2008 06:55 AM

Question but why didn't both managers hold out a starting pitcher - I know Tito used Kazmir but Hurdle had Lidge warm up six times then put him in for the 15th.

Posted by: Bandit at July 16, 2008 10:10 AM

Thank you for correctly stating that the American League has won 11 of the last 12 All-Star Games (as opposed to 11 straight). The mainstream media usually gets that wrong, although, to be fair, it's not nearly as bad as when people used to say that the Braves won 14 straight division titles (conveniently forgetting Montreal's division-best mark in 1994).

Posted by: Brian at July 16, 2008 10:23 AM

re: AL wins the all-star game

i'm not sure what any other person's interpretation was of what happened to cause the NL to lose, but to me the key move was lifting the right handed reliever in the bottom of the 8th to insert billy wagner.

wagner is a 9th inning closer, not a setup man, and he's been far from lights out this year even though he's been effective.

worse, as a setup man, he's horrible in an all-star game because he only has one pitch, the fastball. all-star hitters can sit on it and wait and hit it--something normal players have trouble with. Wagner makes his money striking out bad hitters, not good ones.

consequently he came in and gave up a run in a critical hold/save situation so fast that it was pathetic. Not only that, but the run had been manufactured through hard work and hustle by Miguel Tejada and should have been the margin of victory.

The NL would never see another lead.

The blown hold/save by Wagner was the ballgame for the NL, and though they held the AL the rest of the way for 8 more valiant innings, and a tired Brad Lidge who was up five innings in a row finally came in the 15th (also not used that way in philly) and gave up the winning run, the fault lies with the NL manager and with Wagner, who is not a winner in my book.

I would also note that Wagner was a whiny crybaby when he was here in philly, and now that he's on the mets, he's a clubhouse cancer and still whines about the phillies and anything else that bothers him.

Brad lidge is ten times the closer that Wagner is.

--art kyriazis, philly

Posted by: art kyriazis at July 18, 2008 02:57 PM
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