Saturday, October 29, 2011

My kingdom for a strike!

Last night's St. Louis victory in the world series magnifies the two moments, TWO, when Texas in game six was one strike away from their first world championship. They didn't get either one, St. Louis heroics managing to get major clutch hits.

But there's another moment that haunts me and haunted me at the time. In the top of the 11th in game six, the score 9-9, Texas up with two outs, a man on first ... and the pitcher due up. Here was a pitcher who finally was performing well. So I was shocked when he was taken out for a pinch hitter. I understand Texas wants a rally and with one out, I could see it, or in a low scoring game. But St. Louis batters were killing the bullpen -- but here finally was a pitcher working well. Why take him out?

Well, Texas did, the pinch hitter did nothing, and the new pitcher came in -- and his first batter hit a home run to win the game. Lack of patience lost them the game in my view. They should have let the pitcher bat and kept him in, thinking they could get their rally in the 12th.

St. Louis had a miracle season. They earned it.



First reading of midterms. Some good stuff, some errors they shouldn't still be making. I'll respond to them with a second reading tomorrow.

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