Of Pitch Counts and Mulligans--Peter

Well, this game came down to two things--1.) the damn idea of pitch counts; and 2.) a Mulligan, which for those of you who are golf challenged, is a second chance to hit the ball, the first not counting.

Taking things in sort of reverse order, here we had Beckett rolling along through eight innings, only one mistake from a shutout, that being the Pride of Haverhill's Carlos Pena's solo shot that tied the game at one, and as we enter the 9th, what do we do? Do we let him have the chance to win his own game? Do we let him keep pitching because he's doing damn well? NO--we look to the pitch count and take him out, replacing him with a so-far decent rook with no pennant race experience to pitch in a park where until the prior day we'd not even won a single game all season. I hate to be a pessimist, but at that point the likely results were obvious. After a few batters, they were no longer likely. The sacks were jammed and we had the All-Star catcher, Navarro stepping in. Here comes the pitch--THERE goes the ballgame!

The other item, the Mulligan, was the event that allowed the Pride of Haverhill to get an extra swing, which he quickly deposited in the cheaps to tie the score, as already noted above.

The good: the Twinkies, the Jays and Mr. Hankie's Yankees all lost, so we retained our advantages in all cases with one less game to go.

Here's hoping Wake will look like the Wake of last start, not the one before.