Red Sox win on SECOND grand slam - But WHY? Do-Something-Itis

Red Sox win on SECOND  grand slam - But WHY? Manager Do-Something-Itis

By now you know that the Boston Red Sox won the sixth game of the American League Championship Series against the Detroit Tigers and are going to the World Series.

They won with a second astonishing and absolutely exhilarating grand slam, this time by Shane Victorino. I love it. You know that.

But here's my question. WHY? What exactly do managers do, and why do they do it? Why, that is, do they sabotage their teams at crucial moments by sending in relievers when the starter is doing just fine?

Look, Scherzel, the Detroit pitcher with one brown and one blue eye, was KILLING us. Killing us. At Fenway. He started game 2 and game 6, and struck out 21 batters over less than 14 innings. He'd given up a grand total of one run over the two games. He was the single reason the Tigers were winning.

And in both games, he was pulled just in time to let the relievers blow it. Smyly, Veras and Albuquerque were victims of the comebacks in both games.  Benoit gave up the homer to Ortiz in game 2. But the strategy is to put in a reliever for each new batter, depending on whether the batter is left-handed or right-handed. WHAT? Scherzel was striking EVERYBODY out, lefties, righties and trannies. We couldn't touch him.

I just don't see the "common wisdom" of "playing the averages" as the way to go in a playoff game. Mid-season maybe. That's when the averages come into play. Playoffs? Every pitch counts. The whole game is different. Why would pitcher management be the same?

Perhaps the long-term stats show that a reliever facing a right-handed batter keeps batter's on-base average down to, say, .250 vs. .350 if the starter stays in. Fine, but Scherzel was working on an on-base average of something like .150. Instead, Scherzel even got the dubious honor of losing the 6th game when the runners he was responsible for putting on base scored on Victorino's awesome shot over the Green Monster.

I don't get it. Again, Scherzel is KILLING us.  He has given up exactly one run over 14 innings and a few scattered hits. Now he gets in a tiny jam, and they don't trust him to get the team out of it?

Or is it just a manager saying, "Uh-oh, it's time. This is when other managers pull the pitcher." I really don't know the detailed inside stats on this, and I know there are lots of people who do. But it can't be that wide a disparity between the number of times a reliever gets out of the jam and the number of times the guy who has been pitching nearly no-hit baseball is given the chance to keep doing what he's been doing so well. After all, all that's happened is that he's given up a double and his second baseman has made a rookie error.

I guess it cuts both ways that Scherzel had just gotten out of a bases-loaded jam in the previous inning. But he did. He did get out of it.

So, to me, based on the accumulation of admittedly anecdotal evidence over 40 years, you give the guy - who has kept you in the lead when your team hasn't scored more than one run in either game - a chance when he gives up a hit. For goodness sake, is it so unusual, such clear evidence of pitcher decay, to have runners on first and second? Have a little faith, and a sack.

I get it if the guy is flailing.  I get it if he's just hit the wall. Scherzel wasn't any of that. He was killing us. Did I say that before?

Yeah, the Red Sox won, and they should have, but Tigers' knee-jerk management lost.