[sterlingice]

I'm kindof tired of the "it's the manager's fault for every loss" crap going on in KC right now. Everyone out of the pen failed last night, save for Louis Coleman (who only got 1 out but is a ROOGY, with pretty extreme RH/LH splits) and Greg Holland (there was no opportunity for him to pitch unless you say he should have been in the 7th or 8th but that would be baffling and make no sense unless you're just using 20/20 hindsight to hang Yost). Sometimes the blame is on the players for not performing. Smith, Herrera, Hochevar, and Davis all failed. He played the splits and lost- it happens. You could say Crow or Collins but Davis has actually been better than them out of the pen (first run given up this year). Bueno? Joseph? Hardly.

If you're blaming Ned for the loss last night, you're just looking to bury the guy rather than look at what happened. Did he bunt in the 2nd inning? Yes- that was stupidly Yostian but your run expectancy goes down 0.2 for the game (tho the odds are slightly better to get 1 run, but you take away the shot at a bigger inning). Great, so they lose 5 to 3.2 instead. The defense was uncharacteristically bad all night, punctuated by Gordon missing a completely playable ball to let in the go ahead run.

SI