Can it get any worse?

[Forever Spinning Vinyl]

(05-26-2022, 02:18 PM)plantmanky Wrote: So you cant name a replacement for Bell?  I get it, because a good replacement wants no part of managing the Red's at this point.  

Watching the Pirates game at the Dodgers tonight, I've noticed that Derek Shelton calls a game similar to a manager I've already mentioned but will never come to Cincinnati and that's Mike Scioscia. I've noticed it during the series with the Reds that he seems to have more of a gut feeling to his managing style. Sometimes, not making a move is a move all in itself. A catcher was hitting .093 on a 0-19 streak, 0 for 3 on the night and he had the game tying hit with one out in the 9th. The first substitution of the game was a pinch runner for him and he scored the game winner on a close play at the plate. I'm of the belief that Bell would have pinch hit for the guy to put in a hitter with a better average, because that's what the numbers say.

He brought in his closer in the 8th and he gave up two runs and a 4-3 lead, but Shelton stayed with him through the 9th where he finished the game with a career high 50 pitches. The whole time I was saying "Yep! Stay with him! Stay with him!", which is what I did for years watching Scioscia when you could see when a pitcher was still mentally fine on the mound even though he was in trouble. Bell has zero feel for this.

When the camera shows him in the dugout, a lot of the times he's discussing things with his coaches. I see this with Bell, too, but never as much as with Shelton. Most of Bell's dugout shots seem to show him looking down at folded sheets of paper in his hand that he just pulled from his back pocket. Two past Reds managers that had that style of manager/coach involvement as Shelton are Davey Johnson and Jack McKeon. As a player, I liked chatty coaches in the dugout . . . my team mates and I learned a lot about baseball overhearing those conversations. The Reds seem like a dumb baseball team.

I also like how it appears that the Pirates try to hit ground balls to right field when there is a runner on 2nd with one out or less. I haven't seen that on a regular basis in Cincinnati since maybe Larkin and as a baseball fan, that makes me sad. I do like from what little I've seen from Freddy Benavides when Bell is ejected or suspended. He doesn't seem to make a move for the sake of making a move and as a result, lets the starters stay in the game.