I've got to say I haven't been impressed with Gibbons as a coach, mainly with the handling of pitchers (pulling them too early) and how he handled some of the player conflicts last year. But today has got to be the worst coaching performance to date. He knew going in Zambrano was only going to pitch probably max 4 innings (55 - 65 pitches), so he knew going in he'd need some long relief. Now I agree with him pulling Towers after he allowed 4 runs in the fifth. What I don't get is why he wouldn't let Downs go more than 1 1/3 innings. Downs has been effective pitching up to 3 innings. Instead he goes to Janssen, which normally wouldn't be too bad except they're in a tie ball game and there's a good chance the game could go to extra innings. So he uses up another guy that can eat up up to 3 innings, but only lets him pitch 1 2/3. Now all they have left for the ninth inning on is 2 guys who pitched the night before and Marcum who is giving up runs. Tomorrow they have McGowan pitching and you figure they might need to use some relievers that game.
Anyways, besides that he decides in the bottom of the 11th to do the exaggerated shift on Hafner with a person on first and no one out. So you pretty much give the guy a free base when they need baserunners. What does Hafner do he just sticks out the bat and lets the velocity of the pitch do the rest. Ball goes down the left field line where no one is positioned and the guy scores from first.
Kind of frustrating for the fans of this team when the manager makes such poor decisions a few years into the job.
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