RMJ 81 May 6

TUESDAY, MAY 6 ● Houston, vs Philadelphia

Golf is great … if you don’t care about your score. This outing was a humbling experience for Bill, The Perfessor, and me. Cubby shot a respectable 81. We couldn’t blame the weather; it was near-perfect. We couldn’t blame the course; it was in great shape, especially the greens. Our host, Charley Epps, bought us lunch afterward.

I mentioned that if our baseball game went anything like our golf game, we had better send Cubby to the Dome and the rest of us should just go home and lie down.

           

We didn’t exactly lie down, but Curt Schilling put us down. He was dominating, throwing a 95 MPH fastball on the corners throughout the game. The Phillies got five runs off Ramón Garcia in the first three innings and beat us 5-1.

The upside was that José Lima, Russ Springer, and John Hudek held them scoreless the rest of the way. And we got Ricky Gutierrez back.

I had my talk with Pat before the game, and it went well. He admitted that he has been playing a little tight. More importantly, he bought into my plan to mix-and-match infielders on the left side until we see how Ricky is doing.

“Until the big guys start hitting, I’m going to have to look for favorable matchups at short,” I said. “You’ll get enough playing time to keep working on your stroke, but it won’t be a regular situation, at least for the next few weeks.”

 

Later, I called all of the left-side infielders in for a meeting. I told them that we obviously had a crowd on the left side, and that nobody would get to play as much as they would like.

I said that Sean Berry would play most of the time because of his bat, and that Tim Bogar would come in for late-inning defense. I mentioned that Billy Spiers would probably play some at both positions — especially now, because he has a hot bat. I told Pat and Ricky that they would both get starts.

“This is kind of like spring training during the regular season,” I said. “I just don’t know how else to do it but to mix-and-match until we can evaluate our best combination, and go with it. I don’t know how long this will take.”

Cubby was in the meeting, because he is the infield coach. I told the guys to get with him if they needed more ground balls.

“I know a lot of guys come out for extra hitting,” I said. “Some of you guys might need extra fielding work. Don’t be afraid to ask for it. Are there any questions?”

“Well, it’s not really a question, so much as a comment,” Billy Spiers said. “Most of the time we can get all the ground balls we need during batting practice. But sometimes when Cubby is throwing BP, we only have two fungo hitters. Seems like we could use three, if it’s possible.”

This was a great comment. I would have never noticed. Cubby nodded assent, and I told the guys we would find a way to have three fungo hitters at all times.

          

Just before I took the lineup card out to home plate, I reached down to make sure my fly was up.

It’s a nervous habit, and I’m sure a lot of guys have it — especially when they appear before a crowd. Well, when I got to home plate, I asked umpire Ed Rapuano if he checked his fly before coming out on the field. He laughed and said that he checked it every game.

“It’s funny,” he said. “I know it’s up, but I always check it anyway.”

Maybe we should have yelled at Schilling that his fly was down. Maybe it would have unnerved him, and we would have gone on to win the game. Maybe Pat would have hit a home run off him.

Maybe not.