Oh, and “Zduriencik”, n’est-ce pas? Third from last sentence.

I just hope all of this isn’t beginners luck or Wak being the Tony LaRussa of this generation.

just the point the desire for a Betancourtmartial reached its apex

[...]

So as far as I’m concerned, the jury is still out on that point.

Nice juxtaposition with a portmanteau there — but don’t courts-martial have panels, and not juries?

Fixed now. Would you like yours fixed as well? From your next comment it appears you can spell perfectly well, so I presume that was just an ironic touch.

Later in one of the local game stories or blogs it came out that Gutierrez had an eye infection; hence the decision to have him sit that day.

This is the kind of information that we don’t get unless one of the beat writers asks the question and posts a reply. If the question isn’t asked, we tend to assume everyone is available and are left scratching our heads about the lineup logic.

Wak – “Hey, Junior. I was thinking about starting you in LF today. You up for it?”

Junior – “Hmmm . . . ”

Wak – “No rush. Just let me know before 5. Saaaay . . . check out these mini pizzas.”

Junior – (“Let’s see, what do I feel like doing today . . . I can be the old fat guy who covers 15% of the outfield – man, that’s so embarrassing – or I can be the old fat guy with unlimited access to the buffet table when the team is in the field. Those mini-pizzas sure look – oh wow is that Andouille sausage? And just look at those donuts!”)

“Hey Wak! I’ve made my decision!”

He’s been the smartest manager since Piniella when it comes to managing the pitching. Specifically, when starters go deep in the game, and have pitched well, he takes them out if the tying run gets on base (a well known edict in the clubhouse– “don’t let a guy who goes 8 innings and gives up 3 or less runs take a loss, if you can help it.” You can almost call that the Piniella rule– and pitchers LOVE it!)

As someone else mentioned, I wouldn’t mind seeing him be a little quicker to get someone going in the pen when a starter’s day is obviously headed south (ie- Jak’s and Washburn’s two last starts). Mainly because we have 12 pitchers, so it’s not like we don’t have the arms to come in early.

And honestly, as much as folks are worried about us sustaining our winning, I’m not really worried about the offense as much as the bullpen. For the most part, most of our bats are actually gonna correct to the norm in an upward direction at this point. We still have a lot of key guys batting well below their averages: Beltre, Junior, Guty, Lopez, Cedeno, and even Yuni currently. I can’t help but think Guty, Junior and Cedeno will pick it up the 2nd and 3rd times they see AL West starters and bullpens.

So yeah, all in all, I like Wak’s approach and the way he’s used his defense and offense. Although, the Griffey thing isn’t settled yet, we’re still very young in the season and he’s gonna want to see the field with a glove at some point. Period.

Best thing about his managing– he’s got us playing winning baseball, which is putting pressure on the front office to work towards finding a bullpen lefty, another left handed bench bat, and gonna force us to make some hard decisions about guys like Batista as some key injured pitchers start coming back over the next month.