Willie Time™

Burgos-gate was revisited during yesterday's game. All the people that defended Willie for leaving in Burgos to face Ryan Howard had the rugged pulled out from under their argument. After facing three batters and getting through them rather easily, he yanked Burgos to have a lefty face the 'dangerous' Kelly Johnson after Shawn Green completely and utterly butchered what should have been a catch. To recap, Randolph let Ambiorix pitch to Ryan Howard in a crucial situation after throwing a lot of pitches and coming off a tough battle with Chase Utley but would not let him face a guy with a girls name after handily making it through three batters.

The thing that gets to me is the lack of consistency in regards to his moves. It is completely indefensible and extremely confusing why he handled each situation drastically different and made the opposite call of what he should have in each case. If he wanted the lefty vs. the lefty match up, why not use your guy who is more proficient at getting lefties out? Really, I like Schoeneweis, but bringing him into the game at that point in time was curious to say the least. All the people that defended Willie when he left in Burgos to face Howard to see what type of chops he had were clearly proven wrong when he yanked Burgos with a three run lead for a lefty match up. He goes against the book and with book in similar situations and I'm pretty sick of him using his gut. Maybe he should try some cognitive reasoning.

You could also say he wanted to to bring in the lefty so he had the favorable match up against Johnson and to also keep Chipper on the right side of the plate, but Jones bats well from both sides of the plates and really isn't susceptible to much. It also should be noted that Burgos is a fastball/splitter pitcher which makes him essentially equally effective against batters from both sides of the plate and he actually has been more effective against lefites his season than Schoeneweis. This loss rest squarely on Willie's inability to effectively navigate though situations that require some advanced managing. When this team is in cruise control, Willie looks great. When it comes time to make some in game strategical moves, he falls very short.

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Oliver was stellar on Saturday and Willie was confounding as usual.

"Just because he's a little erratic at times," Randolph said, trying to defend Perez's ups and downs, "that doesn't mean he's not consistent."

Wait...what? Isn't erratic the definition of inconsistent?

Joe Smith was stellar as well on Saturday showing us what he is made out of with a huge strikeout against Andruw Jones with the bases loaded. I attended the game with a baseball novice and when Smith came in, I told her this will show us how big his balls are. She responded by yelling a "show us your balls" chant at Smith. As if that wasn't amusing enough, I was replicating the situation on Sunday for my friend and my seats are in the Loge in the first row where all the foot traffic is. As I was yelling it, a two foot tall child was walking by when I screamed it in his face and he had a bewildered look on his face that certainly had the appearance of some mental scarring happening. I'll never forgot that look as it is now etched in my brain.

You have to give this guy some credit for trying.

Jason Vargas got a bit touched up in his outing on Sunday as Milledge stole his fifth base and raised his average to .342 while Gomez stole his ninth base.

Mike Carp is a stud and went 3 for 5 with two runs scored, two doubles, and his second homer of the year in Binghamton's loss to Trenton.

Francisco Pena continues to hold his own in Low-A.

It's going to be in the high 80's today in the city!!!!