Motte threw 12 pitches. Twelve. Eight for strikes and 4 were either hit, or foueld off.

You are even saying that one hard hit ball is enough to consider the 2 innings of relief work by the cardinals a failure.

Then again, he didn’t get the opportunity to right the ship.

We are not monday morning QBs; we QBed that mo-fo as it went down and we now stand by those decisions.

Either way, I agree that TLR should have left Motte out there. He was better equipped to get out of the jam.

I have a hard time blaming Arthur Rhodes for a loss when he came in and gave up a fly ball out.

That being said, this game was lost due to a bloop single, a ballsy steal, a missed cutoff and two sac flies. I hardly blame LaRussa for that.

Fly outs?

TLR regularly makes dumb moves that work out anyway, the game of baseball is like that….but when you keep making moves that reduce the likelihood of your team winning….well, you are not a good manager.

Problem solved.

My work here is done.

Fun to see Nolan Ryan suffering through it, not as in glad to see him suffer, but in his watching without being able to do anything about it. He is a classy guy.

You can just feel the tension in the stadium.

If the headline yesterday was about TLR pushing all the right buttons, then the headline today should be about his multiple questionable decisions leading to a Rangers comeback win.

In the 8th he replaced Freese with Descalso. There is a very small difference in their defense and a huge difference in their offense. No ball was hit to Descalso (of course), but he did come up with two on and two out in the bottom of the 8th and predictable weakly grounded out. Having Freese up then would have been nice. As usual, replacing superior players with inferior ones in a close game is a bad idea.

In the 9th, as in most of the game, he had the OF playing way too deep. TLR has been doing this late in close games all year, calling it the no doubles defense. Obviously, this is a suboptimal deployment of defenders or teams would do it all the time. TLR deploys his defenders in a way that he knows decreases the liklihood of a batted ball being turned into an out in exchange for a reduction in doubles and triples. Of course, getting outs is the most important thing. Kinslers bloop would have been an easy out if Holliday wasn’t playing just in front of the warning track and the 9th inning probably ends after 3 or 4 batters with no pitching changes.

Replacing Motte with Rhodes was one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen any manager do. In that situation you need a K or a ground ball…not just any old out would do. Motte against a one-legged Hamilton was a better matchup than Rhodes, who has an xFIP of 5.41 against lefties this year.

Pinch running with Laird didn’t matter, but it also made no sense….that is like pinch hitting for Garcia with Carpenter. Why bother?

To top it off, he has Punto bunting after a 5 pitch walk to Molina was all kinds of stupid. Feliz wasn’t within a foot of the zone on most pitches (Feliz threw 6 of 19 pitches in the zone). Instead of having Punto take pitches until he gets at least one strike, he’s up there throwing the bat at high fastballs, none of which were strikes and the ump wasn’t giving high strikes all night.

All TLR had to do was nothing and the Cardinals are probably up 2 games to none. His job is to put his players in the best positions to succeed, and in these cases he failed….and he didn’t fail by inaction, but by doing a bunch of unneccesary things. Tony, I know your are bored in the dugout, but please try not to interfere with the players ability to win games from here on out, okay? Thanks.

Definitely, entertaining baseball. What a play by Andrus to end the fifth! Hoping for some fireworks in the warmer climate of Texas.

Three things sticking in my mind,

Allen Craig’s (identical twin) pinch hit go ahead rbi’s game one and two, that is proving it.

Spectacular middle infield defensive gems by shortstop Elvis Andrus, in tandem with second baseman Ian Kinsler. Unity and cohesiveness, more than graceful, an artful craft to be sure.

Both Texas and St.Louis pitching, starters and relief, there really shouldn’t be any complaints.
Try throwing or hitting a baseball with temperatures in the 40′s if you haven’t.

These two teams are so evenly matched, it’s beautiful. The tactical decisions alone make for compelling baseball. Gotta love it.

I DO want to blow a raspberry at Tony La Russa for rewarding my nice comment about him with his continued stubborn insistence on replacing Freese with Descalso in the 8th. It’s become a damned fetish (unless, as I’m beginning to suspect, Freese actually TURNS INTO Descalso upon hearing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”…?), and it’s hard not to wonder whether things would have gone differently if the former, rather than the latter, had come to bat with two men on base and the Cards desperately needing an insurance run.

I hardly think a pop up and a single constitute “cracking”

Saturday in Arlington, in the warm, too. Goody.