Who Ya Got?

Prince Fielder v. Guillermo Mota, the entire Los Angeles Dodgers security staff, and possibly a stray hot dog vendor. I gotta say, I'm leaning towards Prince on this one. I would be SHOCKED if someone on the Dodgers didn't get drilled tonight. Say what you want about Prince (and a certain someone on this blog has), I believe he is looked at as a leader in the locker room, and someone is willing to take a fine/suspension for him. I'm not going to lie and tell you that I stayed up until 1 a.m. to see this happen live, but with 2 outs in the ninth inning of a THIRTEEN run game, it sure looked bush league to me.

Also, that loss should count as 2, or perhaps 2.5 losses. You have your "ace" out there, and you lose by THIRTEEN RUNS. I bet there is a statistic out there that says that if you lose by 13 runs, your chances of being in the playoffs are pretty fucking slim. I'm glad it was on at 3 a.m. CST so I wasn't tempted to watch.

Mota

I'd love to say we should cut the son of a bitch right now, but he's due 3.2 mill, at least this is the last year of his contract. Which by the way was a stellar signing by the Mets. 2 years, 5 million, Mota spent 50 games last season on suspension and only had to pitch well for 20 games this year to cash in on a fat 5 spot. I say we make him start tomorrow and pitch him until his arm falls off, that way ned yost will never again be tempted to put him in a game again when we are within 10 runs, down or up.

Doom and Gloom

I went from celebrating a pretty darn good road trip in my head, to nearly crashing my car as I listened to the bullpen ruin a perfectly good day. I haven't heard any Yost comments yet, but imagine it sounded something like "Fuck you."

What the fuck happened to Guillermo Mota? Did Derrick Turnbow paint himself black? I'm not very happy about it.

Good news is there is a 10 game homestand against three shitty teams coming up. Anything less than 7-3 is a failure.

More Yost Infection

I'm just going to go ahead and quote a large portion of Bear's buddy Tom Hardicourt's notes article from yesterday on JS Online because it will save time (then I'm going to put my comments in italics):

"Over his last seven games, Mota has a 10.28 earned run average, allowing 10 hits, two walks and eight runs in 7 1/3 innings. He also has been getting tagged by left-handed hitters (.366 average), yet Yost let him face Todd Helton, who crushed an RBI double off the center-field wall. (That's not very good)

The reliever Yost removed from the game in favor of Mota, Carlos Villanueva, is holding left-handed hitters to a .216 batting average this season. (Solid. But I could find a stat showing T-blow is great in some small meaningless stat to prove my point)

"I think (Mota's splits) are the product of a couple of bad games, more than anything else," Yost said. "It's not a trend, I would say. (OK. I guess that could happen. 7 games is sort of a large sample size, but I'm listening.)

"He had one bad outing, to be honest with you, here lately. I don't think his trend line is going down because he had a bad outing (Friday)." (OK. Well, I know that my memory isn't the greatest, but I swear I remember him blowing a game or two fairly recently.)

Actually, Mota has had more than one bad outing. He blew a save opportunity against Los Angeles on May 14 by allowing three runs in the ninth inning. And he lost a game May 25 in Washington in the ninth when he allowed a walk, single and wild pitch that sent home the winning run. (ZING! I don' think Hardicourt is getting invited to the team orgy tonight. And that is alot more than one bad outing Yost, you dick).

Of the game in Washington, Yost said, "That wasn't a bad outing. He came in after going two innings the day before and had a very clean first inning, then walked a guy on a 3-2 pitch, gave up a base hit, which made it first and third, and then wild-pitched him home.

"That's not a bad outing. He lost. It would be nice if we could get our facts straight.

"I've got no problem with what happened (Friday) night. Mota didn't walk the ballpark. And we didn't throw the ball around. He got beat. It happens."" (Walk. Hit. Wild-pitch. Game Over. That is a fucking bad outing. And then he has to try to intimidate Hardicourt with the "It would be nice if we could get our facts straight." Yeah Neddy. Maybe you should get your fucking facts straight asshole. It's like he is watching or managing a completely different sport than the one that has been played for over 100 years, and he has his own definitions of what is a "bad outing". So, So, frustrating. Isn't this just like GW declaring victory in Iraq 5 years ago, and then saying he would do everything the same way if he could do it over?)

First of all, I need to give Hardicourt some credit. He wrote the article exactly like I would. He is clearly not defending Yost's Yostiness.

Secondly, Yost is still an idiot and an asshole.

Why Yost Brings This Upon Himself

I often wonder whether I and 97% of all Brewer fans are too critical of Neddy Yost. Managers typically take way too much blame for their team losing, and very little credit when they win (unless you are Joe Torre). But time after time, he makes things worse for himself by not having a filter between his brain and his mouth. Now, he is not a Ozzie Guillen type, who also doesn't have a filter, but every other word out of his mouth starts with an F and ends in U-C-K. No, Yost is a George W. Bush type, who is by all accounts a dipshit, who doesn't think before he talks, and then gets all upset and snippy when you question his decision making.

Last night for instance, his move to remove Villanueva after a scorching 10 pitch 7th for Mota was questionable. BUT, none of us REALLY know what is going on behind the scenes, so even though the move obviously didn't work out, he could have said something after the game to make the move make sense. He could have said, Carlos was tired (which would have been a lie because he was rested), could have said he like Mota matching up against these particular hitters, or he could have admitted he fucked up and in the heat of the moment Mike Maddux told him to make the change. Instead, as he usually does, he unleashes some non-sensical, bullshit, beauty like this:

"Mota's been our eighth-inning pitcher the majority of the year," said
Yost. "We went to our eighth-inning pitcher."

Had the Brewers gotten Kendall home, Yost said he would have stuck with
Villanueva another inning. Why?
"It's not a save situation," Yost
explained.

Really Ned? Really? It's not a fucking save situation? Well Neddy, except in very unique circumstances (and last night certainly wasn't one of them), the fucking 8TH INNING IS NEVER A SAVE SITUATION!!!! What the fuck are you talking about? I'm not totally ripping his move, I wouldn't have done it. I would have left Villa in, and had Mota warm just in case, but I can't question the move itself. Not every move works, bullpens will blow games. But when a move goes wrong, you piss everyone off by acting like a pompous dick when you are asked a simple question about it. And then you wonder why everyone wants your ass fired.

He also said later: "We didn't give anything away tonight." Another quote that has no adequate reaction. You just gave up a three run lead in the last two innings, when your ace pitched well, against a team that has one of the worst records in baseball, when you had a chance to get a road win that have been few and far between all year, and when it was all caused by a questionable decision by you, and you didn't give anything away. I guess he blacked out in the 8th too.

I just want a manager that is going to shut the fuck up, admit his mistakes, not
make childish quotes to the media, not play favorites (Weeks) and not make a
stupid decision every three games.

Gagne, the bullpen and Prince Fielder

I was going to write this as a comment to Juice's blog, but it started to get too long so I said screw it, new post! I hope last night will shut some people the fuck up for a while. Everyone that was screaming for Gagne's head because other people in our bullpen were so much better. Pro tip: They're not. Out of all the guys in our bullpen, no one has any extensive closing experience at all. I will make an exception for Torres here because he probably had a closer role for about a year total, but then I'm going to take that exception back right away because at the beginning of the season he very clearly stated he doesn't want to close. He's not comfortable in that position and feels he'd do much better as a set up guy. Enter Mota, some 34 year old career set up guy. Juice claims he didn't seem mentally tough out there last night. Really? Because with all the closing experience he should be able to tap into that mental toughness whenever he wants.

Mota's not a closer, Torres doesn't want to close, Shouse is a lefty specialist, Stetter is mostly a left specialist(I saw his "mental toughness" in the 9th a few days ago, not impressed), McClung is still on the team? This all leaves us with one POSSIBLE, POTENTIALLY viable pitcher to close other than Gagne. Mr 87 MPH fastball that seems fast because of a funky delivery motion David Riske. Who got hurt last night anyways so toss his name out the window if you were even considering it for a second. We have Gagne, if this season is going to work out, it's going to be with him as the closer, no one else in the bullpen, RIGHT NOW, is going to be any good at closing, unless Turnbow gets struck by lightning down in Nashville, goes brain dead, gets called up and then can still face a batter and throw pitches.

I don't believe Ned is going right back to the committee bullpen though, I think he was just doing something about what I was complaining about yesterday, giving Gagne a rest after he pitched 3 innings in 2 days. Better to give someone else the ball than chance a reliever after consecutive nights and multiple innings pitched. This post was more about bitching at fans that think the committee is better than Gagne, than bitching about the bullpen decisions from last night specifically.

Also, let's continue my Prince Fielder hate indefinitely, you can say what you will about Mota, but a 3 run game in the 9th is a much different situation to work with than a 1 run game and that fat fucker booted another ball today. He's fucking up routine grounders, that is unacceptable for a first baseman, especially one that's supposed to be such a superstar that deserves over 10 million a year. Well if you're getting the money because of your hitting alone Prince, you better start earning it, because right now he looks like an overweight version of Bill Hall, who's got an inflated OBP because of what he "might" do.

I also just read that Braun is about to sign a monster 7 year contract today. I think that pretty much just punched Fielder's ticket out of town. Hopefully he doesn't shit the bed on his way out and we only get 30 cents on this dollar.