Why the Pirates won't finish .500 with Lloyd McClendon as manager

Short answer: See the last two days

Long answer: The Tuesday game is an easy one. With a runner on third and one out and Barry Bonds at the plate in the ninth inning of a one run game, do you pitch to him? No, you don't. That's how hot Derek Lee has been, Barry Bonds hot. Instead Lloyd hid behind the idea that his closer is "the best in the National League". Newsflash: just because he has the best numbers doesn't mean he has the best stuff. The fact is, Mesa had been struggling PRIOR (no pun intended) to Tuesdays game. He'd given up runs in several 2 run games and lost the game on Friday against the Brewers. His stuff had been slipping since the beginning of the month, his fastball had lost a couple mph. At my house we couldn't believe he was going to pitch to Lee. After the game was over, Lloyd claimed that he didn't listen to the conventional wisdom that holds that you never intentionally put the go ahead run on base. He decided to prove it yesterday, by intentionally putting Corey Patterson on base. Of course this again ignored the situation. Patterson is a .253 hitter. Mesa hadn't recorded an out yet (the only out to that point was Cota nailing Burnitz at second on a pitchout with Dusty Baker calling a steal in a Lloyd McClendon move, I mean they TRIED to give us the game and we wouldn't take it). The point is, Mesa should have been out of the game at that point. He blew the save on Tuesday, he lost a game on Friday, and he opened the 9th on Wednesday with two straight hits. The guy obviously didn't have it. He shouldn't have been in the game at all and the last thing he needed was an extra runner on base. So Mesa blows two saves thanks mostly to himself and his manager confusing Corey Patterson and Derek Lee on consecutive nights. So that brings us to the bottom of the 9th. Tike leads off with a double. Since he's fast, Lloyd correctly decides to bat Mackowiak for Cota instead of bunting Tike over. The curious part comes after Mackowiak draws a walk. He now decides to bunt them both over instead of bringing Bobby Hill up to hit for the pitcher and try to get a game tying single. Since Tike will score from second on just about any hit and you should be playing for the tie at home, it would make more sense (I would think) to give yourself three chances to score the runner from second than two to score him from third. Anyways, the decision to bunt was made. He sends Freddy Sanchez up to lay down the sac bunt, which is analagous to sending Mark Redman up to hit a pinch hit home run. Sanchez botches the bunt, and only because of an error did he not bunt into a double play. Now its Sanchez and Mackowiak on first and second, a serious downgrade over Redman and Mackowiak. Lawton walks, and Jack Wilson is sent up to the plate. It's obviously a situation to take until he gets a strike, Dempster is having trouble getting the ball over the plate, Jack (who's 3-for-3 to this point) is obviously (I'm assuming, it wasn't on TV) excited, he should take a pitch or two to calm his nerves and get ahead in the count. Lloyd then forgets the first rule of managing. Never, ever, ever, ever assume your players know what you're thinking (that assumes that Lloyd was thinking he should take until he got a strike). Jack, in his excitedness, swings at the first pitch and weakly grounds into a double play. Game over, Pirates lose. Do they lose because of Lloyd McClendon? Hard to say. Is their effort seriously crippled by him? I say yes. Don't get me wrong. Lloyd is a great guy. No one tries harder at their job than he does. He refuses to give up under any circumstances and he has more fire than 90% of the managers in the league. But there are some things that should be learned after 4 and a half years on the job, and if they haven't been learned by now, I seriously doubt they ever will be.