Why Bobby Cox can’t (and won’t) start Conrad in Game 4
Managerial mercy required. (AJC photo by Curtis Compton)
Well, I’ve slept on it (though not well), and I’ve decided: Bobby Cox cannot start Brooks Conrad in Game 4 of the NLDS tonight. This has nothing to do with baseball strategy. It has everything to do with human kindness.
Brooks Conrad is a journeyman whose journey has led him into the wilderness, and he can see no way home. It’s incumbent on someone (meaning Cox) to come rescue him. It isn’t that Conrad has developed Steve Sax/Chuck Knoblauch Disease, where he can’t throw straight. Poor Brooks is so confused he can’t even think straight.
We saw it last night even at those times he wasn’t making an error. He looked to second base before throwing — accurately — to first base, and in the game’s strangest moment he called off Derrek Lee to run over and catch a pop that should have been the first baseman’s all along. It isn’t that Conrad isn’t trying. On the contrary, he’s trying so hard he can barely remember where to stand.
Credit Conrad for facing reporters after the worst postseason game any Brave has ever had. (Let’s recall that Lonnie Smith ducked out after stopping at second base in the Metrodome in 1991.) But now it’s up to Cox. He has to do the right thing: He has to bench Brooks.
If that means playing Troy Glaus at third base and letting San Francisco bunt three times an inning, so be it. (The Giants are starting Madison Bumgarner, who’s a lefthander, so having Glaus at third — as opposed to Eric Hinske — makes a bit of tactical sense.) Omar Infante can move back to second, and Conrad can go back to being a pinch-hitter.
The important thing is to get Conrad in the dugout. He’s doing no one any good at second base, himself least of all. (His evocative postgame words: “I wish I could dig a hole and sleep in it.”) And there’s no percentage in inflicting further indignity on the tough little guy whose big hits helped get the Braves beyond Game No. 162.
He’s doing his best, but at the moment his best isn’t very good. I’m not certain what Bobby Cox will decide, but if I’m anything of a Bobby reader after 25 years of study, I’d say he’d made up his mind last night. This would not be a punitive benching, a Charlie-Finley-trying-to-deactivate-Mike-Andrews-in-the-World-Series thing. This would be an act of mercy.
Update: The Braves have announced their lineup for tonight’s game. Glaus is starting at third base. Conrad isn’t starting.
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800 comments Add your comment
thickfreakness
October 11th, 2010
11:45 am
Anyone, Anyone
When Prado went down, why was Glaus not given at least 1 maybe 2 starts at 3rd during the reg season to see what would happen? I would’ve like to have seen a Lee, McCann, Glaus middle of the order at least once as we stumbled to game 162.
chillahill43
October 11th, 2010
11:46 am
sorry tim at spring training in Florida, when I was there for 6 games- their were tons of people saying they would be contending. So the glass is half full… whatever. Once youve given the guy a taste of the good stuff, its hard to say well have some of this crap now… Thats what they have done to us they have shown they belong, then come Put up time they do this crap… BOOOOOO BOOOO BOOO If they do good I cheer If they dont do good I boo, Its the only way the know my satisfaction and my displeasure… I cant walk on the field and shake their hands pat em on the back or tell them they stink. So i do what I can- I Smile when they are good and cry when the suck.. Ive cried in october – Know what I mean?
Keith
October 11th, 2010
11:46 am
Re: Skip
Bradley actually did call out Bobby for this game, even though most Braves fans realize that most of this game’s fault was on Conrad. It was horrid.
Brooks Conrad
October 11th, 2010
11:46 am
I blew it
PMC
October 11th, 2010
11:46 am
Maybe Mark Lemke can start tonight?
Alan
October 11th, 2010
11:47 am
It’s a blessing we lost the game last night. This only makes for a better story when we take it tonight and then go to SF and beat up on lincecum. What’s more? Is that Brooks conrad will have a deciding hit in one of these games (coming off the bench, of course). Let’s go Bravos.
mountain_jim
October 11th, 2010
11:49 am
Another vote for Cox screwed up taking out Kimbrell, and whoever decided to throw something other than his fastball prior to the single (McCann?) screwed up big-time as well. Throw another high fastball for a strike at 1-2 and the game would have been over. Hitter could not catch up to it, we did him a favor, stupidly in my view. Their was a lot of stupid in that 9th inning, but Cox taking out Kimbrell and not putting in Diori add on to the bad pitch selection at 1-2.
Losing Wagner killed the series – I see no chance for Braves to recover at this point.
Go Falcons!
Sonny
October 11th, 2010
11:49 am
3 errors and a pop-up on a bunt attempt. If conrad was never born, we win…it’s that simple.
Also, Bobby being Bobby…the guys takes out the pitcher with the best stuff after Brian got cute with the pitch selection to Sanchez. Think FASTBALL Brian!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Skip
October 11th, 2010
11:49 am
Hey David,
So if the hot girl who is way out of your league agrees to go to the prom with you and then goes home with the football stud after you drive her there you would “cut her some slack”?
SadDawg
October 11th, 2010
11:50 am
Any chance Bobby would go ahead and start that cruise today?
Coach13
October 11th, 2010
11:51 am
Let’s not forget that Heyward’s TERRIBLE route to that ball in right sure didn’t help things, or his allowance of a ball to drop 3 ft. in front of him, or his bad throw up the line.
3 things as a baseball player you should be able to do:
Throw strikes
Put the ball in play
Make the routine plays
If you can only do 1 of these things you won’t win any games, 2 out of 3 and you won’t win many games, 3 out of 3 and you put yourself in a position to win every game.
More blame goes to Cox for continuing to put him back out there. I don’t care if you send Diory up there without a bat and concede the out. He’s better defensively and right now I’ll take that!!!
Sonny
October 11th, 2010
11:51 am
Anyone else think that getting rid of Kelly Johnson is coming back to haunt us in a BIG WAY!
Coach13
October 11th, 2010
11:52 am
Skip- HUH???
Sonny
October 11th, 2010
11:52 am
…and Soriano too!
SadDawg
October 11th, 2010
11:52 am
Sonny, if “Conrad was never born,” we miss the playoffs by about 4 games. Dufus.
David
October 11th, 2010
11:52 am
@keith morbid and tasteless? i’m in the medical field, and i know first hand that even when you do your job perfectly, family has no mercy. conrad bobbling every ball that comes his way is failing at his job. end of story. anyone else who failed that miserably over and over in his or her job would have been fired outright.
for the record, i was against starting conrad from the beginning. i’d rather have glaus out there in the field than conrad any day.
thickfreakness
October 11th, 2010
11:52 am
Sonny-
No
Sonny
October 11th, 2010
11:53 am
Posey good. Heyward not.
John
October 11th, 2010
11:53 am
There’s an old saying about managers – heck, bosses in general – you’re the boss, you make the decisions; but don’t put me in a position to fail. You’re supposed to know my strengths and my weaknesses and deploy my efforts accordingly. Challenge me when appropriate, but don’t over-extend me and sit on your hands while the predictable carnage ensues.
That really is an old saying – no crap. I saw it on the wall of a Men’s Room – the Quick Trip on 316. I guess the author had a lot of time to compose his thoughts.
Conrad’s meltdown last night was painful to watch. But at what point does a manager manage? When a game fighter has been rendered defenseless, a good manager throws in the towel.
Was Bobby committing all those errors afield? No. But, were Conrad’s errors an aberration – the whim of the baseball gods Bobby so often musters as justification for his chronic managerial shortcomings? No again. Quite predicable, they were.
Brooks, God Bless him, can’t field worth bat turds. He’s game, but he’s defenseless.
Yet another Braves meltdown. Lotsa blame to go around.
There’s another old saying – Today’s another day.
Saw that on the same wall at the same Quick Trip. Right under “For a good time, call Brandi- 555-1212″.
kappellmeister
October 11th, 2010
11:53 am
And in spite of it all, chances are if the Bravos hadn’t gotten hit with yet another injury – to Billy Wagner – they STILL would have won last night!
SadDawg
October 11th, 2010
11:53 am
……and Kelly Johnson dropped his share of grounders and let’s see …… a third-out, pop-up behind 1st base that lost a game to the Phillies.
You have a short memory.
brave bill
October 11th, 2010
11:54 am
bobby cox is the best regular season manager in braves history!! playoffs? he made some of the worse moves ever made by a manager. example this series: game one,intentional walking a slumping batter, the pitching changes last night. 1 title in 15 trys. thanks for the memories bobby, lets start over next season.
BRAVES29
October 11th, 2010
11:55 am
What do Michael Jackson and Brooks have in common? THey both wear a glove on their hand for no apparent reason…….
Geno
October 11th, 2010
11:56 am
Exactly @ Hunter the Umpire – Play Hinske in right and sit Heyward. Rookie slump for post-season experience. Hinske and Glaus should have 4 at bats a piece tonight.
Abner Doubleplay
October 11th, 2010
11:56 am
Sonny, Agreed the bunt was probably the biggest “error” of all, but this team has been held together with duct tape since August, and you can’t predict errors. There are only 25 players on the roster and if Hinske could play 2B or Glaus could give you 7 or 8 innings at 3B, then you question having Conrad in the line-up; but with Prado out, Hinske and Glaus are the PH’s, and until the top of the 9th, it would appear Cox was making all the right moves. Forget Conrad’s error. How’d 2 runners get on base in the 9th, with the Braves protecting a 1 run lead? And Skip, if you think “hot girls” are out of your league, you don’t ask them to the prom.
apex
October 11th, 2010
11:57 am
conrad is a decent player and has definitely made his contributions with this braves team. everyone player has a signifcant role on a team, some larger than others. conrad in my opinion is a late inning pinch hitter with an abundance of power. with the pieces that bobby has available his best option is glaus at 3rd and infante at 2nd for soooooo many reasons. everyone started riding glaus pretty hard when his numbers took a huge dive and became very unproductive. but remember this, he is a proven winner and has power which the braves are in DYING NEED of. dont forget this guy played through knee inflamation and probably fatigue. its been a few years since he last played a full season needed the rest(which bobby cox does not do unless your name is chipper jones). look at the numbers, in a142 games mccann had 77 RBI’s and in 128 games glaus had 71 AND we hardly saw him down the stretch. he’s well rested now and should be in the line up. with the options that bobby has he is the only one could have pulled off that double play on friday night. this is sadly a situation where bobby’s loayalty and stubborness is going to keep him from advancing. the braves in my opinion have the most heart and courage out of all the teams in the playoffs. and it would be sad to not see this team play in the world series. PLAYS GLAUS………PERIOD!!
Ace
October 11th, 2010
11:57 am
He blew/lost the game for the Braves last night, of course Cox will play him.
Merrill Guice
October 11th, 2010
11:57 am
Look, we tossed a guy with limited MLB experience out into the deep end in the post season. Its amazing that he has held on this long. Fact is, we’re out of infielders. We broke them all.
John
October 11th, 2010
11:58 am
Unemployment is at an all time high yet Brooks Conrad has a job???
EagleNationRising
October 11th, 2010
11:58 am
@ Sonny: What is haunting us is a 30 year old rookie that shows us regularly why he never made it to the Show in the first place. Martin Prado is so much better than Kelly Johnson, it is hard to articulate. Take a look at Johnson’s salary. I am not big on paying that kind of money to a bench player.
The truth is people around the Braves organization know that Conrad can not play. He has hit a MLB record tying number of game-winning grand slams on a team with limited bats. Therefore, he has a roster spot.
He is unable to field any ball that he has to charge. He is unable to throw to his left if he has to charge a ball right. He has single handedly cost our Braves more games than practically any one player that I can remember. This has nothing to do with Kelly Johnson, who would have been Martin Prado’s waterboy all season. This has something to do with our franchise placing so many marbles into the bag called Brooks Conrad. The guy is terrible and he is going to cost us a shot at the World Series!
Skeezix
October 11th, 2010
11:58 am
I cringe every time I think of BC’s nightmare. I still can’t believe it happened. My senior year in HS I let a hard hit liner to left field get behind me and a run scored on my error. I should have at least knocked it down, but didn’t play it right. I felt like crawling in a hole somewhere. I can’t even imagine what BC must have felt like making 3 errors in the bigs, in the playoffs, on TV, with Turner field stuffed full of fans.
John
October 11th, 2010
11:58 am
And even worse I paid $80 towards his salary last night!
JeanE
October 11th, 2010
11:59 am
Why do bad things happen to such good people?? I love Brooksie and he’s done so much for the team this season. But I said it even during the game yesterday: take him out. I didn’t want to humiliate Brooksie but it was apparent he’d lost it. I remember another of my favorite Braves, Mark DeRosa making 3 errors in one game at 3rd base but it wasn’t a playoff game. Time for Diory Hernandez to play 2nd or like you said, it it really is a lefty tonight (I find it so hard to believe Bochy isn’t trotting out the Freak to mow us down tonight) then indeed, start Troy at 3rd. In this game, you can always sub for Troy if needed. I guess we know now how the Giants felt after we stole one from them late Friday/Sat. It’s gut-wrenching. If not for 3 errors and a popped up bunt, we probably would’ve won. Go Braves.
EagleNationRising
October 11th, 2010
11:59 am
Amen John! I am attempting to determine what video Conrad shot…what did he see to weasel a roster spot on the historic Atlanta Braves baseball team. Clearly, this guy does not have the fielding talent to play in the minor leagues. He is a joke that keeps getting worse by the moment.
John
October 11th, 2010
12:00 pm
And worse yet is the fact that contributed $80 towards that salary!
Geno
October 11th, 2010
12:00 pm
Put in Glen Hubbard
JeanE
October 11th, 2010
12:02 pm
How come my comments never post on this blog?
NickGranite
October 11th, 2010
12:03 pm
Cox should bench him as a baseball decision. From a personal standpoint, life and baseball is about redemption. Who knows what comes next for a 30 year old career minor leaguer if this season ends with a horrendous post-season. I would want to start in an attempt at redemption. What does he have to lose? As it stands right now, he could end his career in an ignomious playoff that will live on in brave infamy. A 3 run homer tonight in the right spot and everything changes.
tim
October 11th, 2010
12:04 pm
To chillahill43 @ 11:46am
I have been a Braves fan since I moved here as a 10 year old in 1974. Believe me, I have seen far worse baseball then what I am seeing right now. Remember ostrich races just to get fans to come to the park? Or Ted Turner putting their nicknames on their backs instead of their names. I remember the Braves signing Andy Messersmith from the Dodgers for a million bucks, and his name on his back was ‘Super’, and his number was 17. That was back in the day when WTCG was called ‘Super 17′. But I digress……
I don’t recall ‘tons’ of people picking the Braves to be where they are today back in March. I seem to remember one of the analysts on MLB Network saying the Braves would contend for the wild card, but most were thinking middle of the pack behind the Phillies and the Marlins or Mets.
All I am saying is that this season has been a whole lot of fun, kind of like 1991 all over again, and if it weren’t for a few injuries, I think this team could have won the East. I said back in June that this team is still young, and that their best years are a year or 2 away. Once Heyward, Freeman, Medlin, Hanson, Dunn, etc. get a few years of experience under their belt, that is going to be a fun team to watch.
Conrad is the Man!!!!
October 11th, 2010
12:05 pm
I say start him!!!! We would not be here without him. He is the type of man who wants to make things right and I believe he is fully capable of doing so. I predict Conrad will have a huge game tonight. How about benching Heyward tonight and starting Hinske??????
John
October 11th, 2010
12:05 pm
Is there any way to determine the Braves record during games Bobby Cox was thrown out of? Is it me or do we seem to do better with him sitting in the clubhouse unable to change pitchers after every 3 pitches? People say it works out good for the Braves because he boosts morale by defending bad calls against his players but after last night and Game 2 im starting to think the true benefit of him getting tossed is the fact that he cant overmanage the bullpen.
JeanE
October 11th, 2010
12:05 pm
Let’s try again: I adore Brooksie but he should’ve been pulled before the last error. We can’t worry about humiliating a player, however well liked, in such a crucial game. Diory should’ve been inserted for D. It’s obvious Brooks is lost in his own head and tonight, should be back to a stick off the bench if needed. Since a left is on the mound (I’m shocked Bochy isn’t trotting the Freak out there again to mow through our lineup), Troy can play 3rd. Expect the bunts to be coming and adjust accordingly. Without those 3 errors and his popped up bunt, we win. Also, I agree, we would you pull Kimbrel to put in Dunn whose stuff isn’t even as good? I’d had stuck Moylan in instead if you were gonna pull Kimbrel out. Gut-wrenching loss. Gotta regroup. Go Braves.
Ted
October 11th, 2010
12:06 pm
Bobby has to bench him. He’ll be scared to death every time a ball is hit to him. He’ll be praying that nobody hits a ball to him. He’ll be so mentally focused on fear that he won’t be able to properly react to anything in the field. This will affect his hitting as well. Your suggestion for Glaus at third is the right one.
msuman
October 11th, 2010
12:06 pm
Absolutely right. what is going on with Jay hay kid?? He is like 0-12 or some rediculas stats for this NLDS. If he does not start hitting, we will loose tonights game and be done with. Take my word for it!!
BrooksandDONE
October 11th, 2010
12:07 pm
I thought Diory Hernandez was part of tha team…. Has he been traded??
HolyMoly
October 11th, 2010
12:07 pm
While it is true that Conrad messed up big time, it is Cox that I am really mad at – his bonehead decisions cost us the game. Kimbrell was dealing in the 9th, had struck out Huff in the previous game, and still he pulls him for Dunn, who had been hit by Huff before. I have no doubt that Kimbrell would have gotten the last out without giving up two runs. In addition, Cox should have kept Conrad as a pinch hitter after the first two error prone games.
Scott B from Montgomery
October 11th, 2010
12:07 pm
I really feel bad for Brooks. I hope he will find redemption in a dramatic pinch-hit situation. I know Bobby stands behind his players and he will give him a chance to contribute. I agree that he does need to sit this game out, though. His error in the 9th was almost Buckner-esque. At least it didn’t happen in what could have been the decisive series clincher, though.
Keep your chin up Brooks!
DOCTOBER
October 11th, 2010
12:07 pm
Doctober…typical phillies fan. You haven’t won the world series yet my friend….and as for the chop..its fun and a lot better then what philly fans do…like vomit on people and throw batteries
Come on…..people have a right to be upset.
Katherine…here’s a news flash…the Phillies WILL win the WS…the tomahawk chop is ridiculous…it’s alot better than what Phillies fans do?? You mean better than coming out and supporting the best team in baseball?? I’m glad you have fun by disrespecting American Indians…you are right about one thing, Braves fans do have a right to be upset…your team stinks!!!
BrooksandDONE
October 11th, 2010
12:08 pm
Dont tell Brooksy that the game time changed and we will be fine…
Skeezix
October 11th, 2010
12:08 pm
We are all upset about last night, but remember that Bobby is playing with his hands tied behind his back. No Chipper, no Prado, no Wagner, Glaus has bad legs, etc. I do wish he had let Kimbrel, even though he was a little off last night, continue pitching as he is heads and above our best closer now–much more of a strikeout pitcher than Dunn. For the fans and BC’s sanity, no way he should start BC tonight.