In Praise of Willie?

sporting goods

I've spent much of my time on this blog bashing Willie Randolph for not knowing how/when to double-switch among other things. But last night Willie did something good (sort of). In the top of the ninth, with a 1 run lead and three lefties in a row coming up, Willie forgoed his closer and brought in the lefty specialist. Amazing, right? Managers never break the convention of the closer, right?

With the Mets holding a 2-1 lead, Randolph felt it was wrong to bring in Looper to start the ninth, even though such practice has become something of an ironclad rule in baseball over the last 20 years - or since Tony LaRussa and Dennis Eckersley turned the role of closer into a one-inning job.

With three lefthanded hitters due up for the Reds, Randolph thought it was best to go with the lefthander, Koo. It was a risk at least partly because Koo is still largely unproven as a late-inning commodity against major-league hitters.

Does anybody else see my complaint? Koo stinks. On top of that he threw on Sunday for an inning, and Monday for an inning. What happened? Koo got the lead-off guy, gave up a single to Griffey, and then walked Adam Dunn. Excellent. Enter Looper, who now throws 95-97 again, game over. I like that Willie is non-conventional and willing to take heat from the dreaded NY media but please, if we need a lefty specialist, FREE ROYCE RING.

Oh, and credit where credit is due. Willie is sticking with Kaz Matsui despite the NY media and fans trying to make him the second coming of Juan Samuel. Kaz isn't as bad as he's been, but he certainly isn't what the Mets thought they were getting. That seemed to happen a lot in the last few years. I'm looking at you Roberto Alomar, Mo Vaughn, Victor Zambrano, Tom Glavine, etc. Hopefully that new scouting staff pays off.