Losing cool, then the game
Sometimes a coach who takes on an umpire only to be ejected from the game fires up his club. Wednesday in Arizona, Dave Duncan’s spat with umpire Dale Scott (oddly overlooked in the PD’s dispatch — perhaps it occurred too late) led to another demoralizing late-inning loss. Some notes on those last three innings — starting with the bottom of the seventh, when the Cardinals led 3-0 with Kyle McClellan relieving Kyle Lohse, who pitched an outstanding 68-FIGS game (and deserves credit for his pro-Jamesian position on starting-pitcher wins and losses: “I could care less about whether I get the win”):
First, let’s look at the plate appearances immediately preceding Duncan’s temper tamtrum, including Miguel Montero’s walk. Assuming that Duncan was upset over perceived shoddy ball-strike calling, was he in the right?
Nothing to argue with there. Perhaps it was something from Lohse’s time on the hill, or some slight from years ago. But McClellan wasn’t victimized.
As soon as Duncan was tossed, broadcaster Mike Shannon asserted "He’s gonna squeeze him now." But did the Cardinals experience any discrimination? Let’s see how their pitchers had their pitches called after Montero’s plate appearance:
If there was any bias, it wasn’t against the Cardinal pitchers. What about their batters? That is, did the Diamonback pitchers receive any breaks?
The Diamondbacks had the benefit of one extra called strike a couple of inches at most off the plate. Credit Dale Scott for his integrity.
Last point: One of our baseball rules of thumb is to not get beat by the other team’s best hitter unless you have to. Adam Dunn is Arizona’s best hitter — his .307 GPA leads the club — so, with a runner on first, one out, the game tied and a less-accomplished, righthanded hitter in Mark Reynolds on deck, the Cardinals didn’t need to pitch to Dunn. Yes, a base hit by Reynolds wins the game, whereas it took an extra-base hit by Dunn to do it. But which was more likely, Dunn or Reynolds reaching base against Perez (though switch-hitter Tony Clark would’ve likely hit for Reynolds)? As Perez admitted in a bit of understatement, "He’s a good hitter," and La Russa confessed, "Good hitting against him." It’s the prerogative of a blogger to manage from the comfort of his computer, but we would’ve walked Dunn. Put another way, would you pitch to Pujols in the same situation with, say, Josh Phelps on deck? It was another tough loss, but, as Pujols himself said afterward, "five and a half games is not a lot of games."
Trivia question of the night: What do Cardinal outfielder Joe Mather and Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin have in common? (They both hail from Saindpoint, Idaho.)