The Massive Blunder

This is being written under the assumption that the double steal in the 7th inning was called for from the bench. That assumption could be wrong – if so, just replace “Eric Wedge” with whoever decided to try this. Tonight, Eric Wedge made one of the worst tactical decisions I’ve seen from a manager in a long, long time. Down by two runs in the 7th inning, the Mariners had managed to get the tying runs on base, and Justin Smoak had worked a 3-0 count from George Sherrill. This was an amazingly great situation for the M’s. Sherrill is a left-handed specialist who is mediocre against right-handers, and he was now pitching in the best possible hitter’s count to a right-handed batter who could sit on a fastball and try to launch it over the fence for the lead. Instead of getting to see what the team’s clean-up hitter could do in the best possible hitting situation you could imagine, the M’s attempted a double steal. Smoak took a call...