Grady Little botched up a game? NO WAY!

Let's play manager, shall we?

Your team, for the sake of argument let's call them the Los Angeles Dodgers, is playing a division rival, like say the San Diego Padres.

And let's also say the Padres are throwing the guy who will probably win the Cy Young Award while you are throwing a guy that the A's threw in the garbage bin.

And to spice it up a bit, let's pretend your team desperately needs this win! A win means you are only 2 back in the loss column of a playoff spot in mid September, but a loss drops you 4 games back with only 2 1/2 weeks to play.

So in our pretend game, the Padres bomb your reject pitcher for 4 runs in the first two innings... it's so bad you have a pitcher warming up in the 2nd.

So you get to the bottom of the second... the best pitcher in the National League staked to a 4 run lead... but you load the bases with 2 outs and have the washed up slapped around pitcher coming up.

What do you do?
Do you pinch hit for him?
Do you give your team a chance to score a run or two off the Cy Young favorite?

Before you make your decision, know that the front office have called up 11 extra players. You have 16 pitchers over all... 11 of them relievers you can use. And you have 10 pinch hitters on the bench.

What do you do?

If your answer was "Pinch hit for the pitcher"... then you are obviously right.
If your answer was "Let the pitcher I am going to take out anyway hit for himself" then you must look in the mirror and see Grady Little looking back at you.

Who else would manage an urgent situation with less urgency?
Season possibly on the line, an excess of bats on the bench and arms in the pen, and you sit back and do nothing at crunch time.

Well guess what happened? Loaiza, the pitcher, struck out and then let up back to back homers sinking the game and probably their season.

Dodgers fans... now you know how we Red Sox fans felt!
People who were in support of Grady after Theo fired him said "they fired him based on one bad move... leaving Pedro in game 7."

Well first of all, it was a pretty big situation... all it did was cost the Sox a trip to the World Series.

But it was more than that. He has managed like that all year. I had red marks on my forehead from all the times I slapped it during Grady's two years.

I'm not saying Terry Francona is John McGraw... but at least I know what he is doing! He's taking orders from Theo.

I was on Cold Pizza after Grady was let go and I said "He was born to be the manager of the Pawtucket Red Sox."

I stand by that.
Grady seems like a good guy and a good baseball guy.

If you want a good minor league manager, I'd hire him.
If you want someone to manage the Pirates, Reds or Marlins... you could do worse.
If you need a bench coach, I bet he'd do the job.

But if you have a high profile big market franchise that you are looking to take to the playoffs... trust me, this is not who you want.

For my dad and any other Giants fans who read this blog... you should light a candle at church that Little manages Los Angeles as long as Lasorda did.

You will never have to worry about a Dodger pennant!

This was my Dodger post