Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site water.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!watnot!water!abgamble@water.UUCP (Bruce Gamble) From: abgamble@water.UUCP (Bruce Gamble) Newsgroups: net.sport.baseball Subject: Re: Bitter end for the Blue Jays Message-ID: <923@water.UUCP> Date: Fri, 18-Oct-85 14:59:44 EDT Article-I.D.: water.923 Posted: Fri Oct 18 14:59:44 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 19-Oct-85 06:24:27 EDT References: <16895@watmath.UUCP> Sender: abgamble@water.UUCP Distribution: net Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario Lines: 70 > Well, I was in the park last night for the pennant deciding game. > What a sad sight. The whole town is shocked to think that a club ahead > 3-1 could not finish it off at home. Indeed, if it had been a 5 game > series as before, it would have been Toronto in the World Series. > > But the real conclusion I can come to is that experience did out in the > end. The Jays, only founded in 1977, still have a bit of work to do before > they can win a world series. When the heat was on, the Jays cooled off. > It could be seen even during the season, when the Jays still had to > wait until the second last game to clinch the pennant due to their > worst play of the whole season. Once they championship started, they > showed their power as a superior team (they finished almost 10 games up > on Kansas City) by taking a 3-1 lead. But when it came down to it, KC > showed their experience and took that pennant. I think the Jay's inexperience showed most of all in the young sluggers. Bell, Barfield, Moseby and Upshaw were all trying to win the series with one blow instead of just making contact. The result was a lot of pop-flys and weak grounders. This was especially true of Bell who hit ~.300 for the series but could be counted on to pop-up if there were runners in scoring position. > > Congratulations to KC on the pennant. > > Congratulations to Bobby Cox for managing a fledgeling team to one game > from the pennant in just 3 years. > > Brickbat to Cox for not pulling Steib out in the 6th after he loaded > the bases, allowing KC to get a 3 RBI triple and the game winning run. This wasn't the first time this year that Cox stayed with Stieb too long. I only saw about 30-40 Jays games this year but three times I saw them lose games for this very reason. Stieb starts to struggle. Cox refuses to pull him. Stieb blows a lead. The Jays lose. This isn't to say that the Jays would have won *all* those games, but I think that Cox is partly to blame for Stieb's poor W-L record. Also, a bigger brickbat to Cox for the way he handled Bill Caudill this year. April was a mediocre month for Caudill, not great but certainly nothing to get concerned about. But Cox suddenly decided that Jim Acker was his ace in the bullpen and stopped using Caudill in important situations. Caudill started trying to overthrow his fastball, and things started getting worse until he lost confidence in himself by mid-season. He got it together though, and started pitching better in the second half, but Cox *still* refused to use him. This culminated in the LCS, where I don't think Caudill pitched at all. *In spite* of all this, Caudill still managed to put reasonably good numbers on the board for the season. Imagine what he could have done. I have other gripes against Cox, but I think I've rambled enough for now. > > Brickbats to the umpires, who were chosen on rotation rather than merit. > ... Even last night they called > a ball fair that had bounced outside the line before first base. Every fan > and the TV cameras as well as the batter (who didn't bother running) saw > the ball. That ball was fair. The replays showed it quite clearly. The firstbase ump was the only person in the park who got the call right. There were a lot of bad calls in the series, but this wasn't one of them. > -- > Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software, Waterloo, Ont. (519) 884-7473 -- Bruce Gamble - abgamble@water.UUCP