But Ted Williams refused to go the other way when they shifted him.
And it didn't change Big Papi's approach much either. An occasional bunt that we all enjoyed, that was about it. And it didn't seem to hurt his numbers continuing to smash the ball to right.
How often did you actually see the radical shifting though? I'm not talking about the existence of that strategy as an option, but the actual use of it. And now of course it's based on sophisticated analytics.
If we had blown that game, today we would have a real Fire Cora thread, possibly a Fire Dombrowski thread, and various other ugliness, perhaps a banning or two.
If we were playing Baltimore I'd be more inclined to agree with you.
Playing the MFY's with the way they've been swinging the bats and the porch out there...I support Cora 110%...nail the bastard down and get out of there.
Well, I totally disagree on this one.
It's not Cora's fault that the field conditions are s*****. And if Barnes is having trouble why wouldn't Brewer or Brasier or whoever have just as much trouble.
Cora was just trying to nail down a game we badly needed.
And maybe his thinking was influenced by the Cleveland game in the previous series where the pen gave up 7 runs in the last 2 innings...
My thoughts exactly. I thought it was a gimmick from the get-go.
There shouldn't be a big reward for winning a bad division. Last year Cleveland would have won the Central with a .500 record. There will always be cases like that with 3 divisions.