Seems Jason Schmidt was perfectly willing to pitch today, said he left it up to the coaches. Alou claimed Schmidt wasn't ready.

 

Problem is, Alou rarely speaks to his players. Schmidt couldn't even recall the last time the two of them actually spoke.

 

The pitching coach said he didn't want to chance it though, & apparently Schmidt is going to need some surgery done in the offseason already.

 

Giants fans certainly could second-guess the decision though.

 

Rumor has it that Santiago was a little upset he & Cruz were benched for this game, & there was talk that there had been a lack of player-coach communication all season.

 

Lol, amazing how problems suddenly surface when you lose. Didn't hear any of this when they were winning 100 games this year...

 

Also that decision to go with so many pitchers (& thus fewer bench players) might have come back to hurt Alou when there was no one left to pinch-run for Snow in the 9th inning.

alot of people i know ( Giants Fans ) are very upset with the management of game 4. The double switch emptied the bench of any possible pinch runner for Snow along with the Cruz/Benny situation added fuel to the fire of having Schmidt not pitch...

 

All Is Good In Marlins Land!

Well its too late for second guessing now, isn't it? I was so surprised to hear that Schmidt wasn't going to start game 4, but Jerome Williams. I knew that if we were going to win the series, it had to be Game 4.

 

 

And I was kinda surprised about Santiago not starting, but Cruz didn't surprise me at all after his little.....opps :shifty

 

 

But its too late for second guessing and the Giants can spend the rest of the offseason blaming themselves and wondering what the heck happend! :thumbup

Loria fired Alou for a reason. I think you all figured it out this series.

Think I should not post this... but if Cab's had gone 0-fer yesterday, aren't there some herein who would be blasting Jack? Just like the 2nd guessing Giants fans.

 

Teams get to the play-offs because of Mangers, too. Alou was stupid saying Schmidt took himself out. But, in fact, Schmidt was very ambiguous about whether he felt ready. I put the onus on the Giant's pitching coach. Apparently, Alou is not a communicator. That's why he has coaches.

Teams get to the play-offs because of Mangers, too.

Yeah they do, but then the managers get to the playoffs and start managing completely differently. I know the games are bigger and you're going to make more moves than you normally would, particularly with pitching, but it looked like Alou panicked and felt like he personally needed to do something every at bat. Kinda like a player trying to hit a 5-run home run every time up. We outplayed the Giants and McKeon outmanaged Alou.

Sitting Cruz made perfect sense.

 

 

Sitting Santiago....not so sure. Just last postseason he was able to catch every inning and did a pretty damn good job at it.

 

 

As far as this entire Schmidt situation, Rags is an excellent pitching coach, one of the best in the game. He was probably just as confused on the situation as everyone else. If its true that Alou is not a communicator, then that is a real problem. As manager you have to be able to at least have basic communication with your players at all times.