Baseball Post: Sympathy for Jeremy Guthrie

This is bit of a deviation from my normal blogging, but after yesterday's O's-Bosox game I cannot hold my comments.

Sam Perlozzo needs a solid kick in the head, preferrably from Jeremy Guthrie, who threw an inspired game against Boston yesterday, holding the master sluggers to only 3 hits and no runs up to 1/3 of the way through the bottom of the 9th. It was amazing to watch this young kid plow through Red Sox hitters, aided by some good defense behind him.

Sitting in my Grandmother's kitchen in Arbutus, I watched Guthrie proceed to get a easy pop fly putout to the infield for the second out. Not really. Hernandez dropped the easy fly ball. Upsetting, but nothing to worry about with a 5 run lead and Guthrie on the mound. He had had several double play putouts that afternoon, and I hoped we would see something similar happen this time.

Then, Perlozzo comes to mound. Guthrie drops the ball into Perlozzo's hand.

WHAT? Excuse me, WTF?

Bad choice, but I can't fault Sam for wanting to go to his skilled closer, Chris Ray. But wait, its not Ray coming on, its Danys Baez, THE SET UP MAN? Why not at least put your BEST OUT for this extremely important game? Who knows.

Short story, Baez, and later Ray, blow the game rather quickly. Guthrie dashed to the lockroom, most likely to avoid beating Perlozzo's ass or spitting in his face or any number of appropriate actions after coming so close to pitching a career game against the best hitting team in the AL and his team's main rival, only to have it ripped from him for no sane reason. My heart is with you Jeremy. Perlozzo lost it for you.