Dave Clark's Managing Is Indistinguishable From Cecil Cooper; That's BAD

That picture, in case you are curious, is a pic of Pedro Feliz hitting a hanging slider out of a ballpark and being the cause of the Astros demise tonight. Berkman hit a solo homer as a righty (3rd one this month) and Kaz hit a 2 run bomb, but Feliz was Da BOMB. Period.

Well, tonight's game showed why I wrote "Coop" in last night's entry when I should have written "Clark." Second verse, same as the first.

He pulls Bourn because we're facing a lefty - nevermind that Bourn hits leftys VERY well and puts Jason Michaels in center - might as well put Clank in center. He won't let Chris Johnson, Maysonet or Manzella start, but hey, a pinch hitter? Yeah, let's goooooooooo.

Then, in the SECOND inning, he has men on first and second, NO out, and he has Kepp at bat. Keppinger is hitting .330/.379/.468/.847 and he has him freaking sac bunt??? ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? So that Jason Freaking Michaels, hitting .260/..315/.440/.745 can hit??? Sure his lifetime OPS vs leftys is .799, but Kepp's is .899!!!

Too stupid. Just absolutely TOO stupid. So you give up an out, depend on a guy who is doing crappy, then have him followed by a guy who is hitting a buck something then the AA pitcher, who doesn't hit at all. SO absolutely FREAKING stupid I couldn't believe it. Coop all over again. Naturally, neither runs scores, and yes, that was partly due to the HP ump's complete inability to call a strike a strike or a ball a ball (and there were multiple errors for both sides, to be honest.)

And I haven't gotten near mentioning his forgetting the double switch when Fulchino had to relieve the injured Paronto, who was pitching well, for once. And if he didn't forget, then he is doing the Coop thing of having as many pitchers as possible pitch in a single game, unless the starter goes 7 innings and he can just plug in Hawkins and Valverde.

BAH

Three strikes and Clark is O U T.

And of course, Michaels costs Lopez his first run by not getting anywheres near a ball hit to center which Bourn would have been all OVAH, allowing the first run to score.

And actually, Lopez wasn't near as bad as I thought he'd be.

He got through the first 2 innings on 22 pitches, then gave up a run by walking the #8 guy, who was sac-bunted to second, then having Michaels not get near a fly ball to center. The 4th was one of those unfortunate things - gave up one of those squiggly IF hits to 3rd when Ryan Howard hit a ball with a check swing, and of course a shift is on, then a single up the middle that took one of those funny bounces on the IF, then a walk. No outs, bases loaded and he hangs a slider (when he should have thrown another sinker) and when any pitcher, not just Lidge hangs a slider, the hitter will go all Pujols on its ass.

Contrary to modern legend.

So Astros are down 5-1 and there's the ballgame.

Lopez gets the next 2 outs, then gives up a single to Rollins, and then with all those leftys coming up, Clark pulls him and sends up Wesley Wright, who gets Victorino.

Wesley did fine with Utley and Howard and "walked" Ibanez and I have that in quotes because Ball 2 and 4 were right in the middle of the freaking strike zone (remember what I said about the ump) and then Werth hit a good pitch, a low outside FB over the fence.

The Astros left men on base all night. In the second - well, that was Clark's eff-up. There were 2 on for the pitcher in the 4th (but Michaels and struck out and Kepp grounded out without advancing the leadoff hitter.) 2 were left in the 5th when Pence flied out (almost made it out) and Keppinger struck out.

And Carlos and Pence BOTH struck out in the 9th with the tying runs on base - and Carlos swung at a pitch at his neck, too.

sigh

The good news is, by the way, that again, the hitters didn't swing at a lot of crap out of the strike zone and gift the pitcher with a lot of 8 pitch innings. Bad news is that because of that one hanging slider, it didn't matter...

Tomorrow, it's Pedro vs Brian Moehler

Wonder who's gonna win THAT one...