One of the key differences (beyond the rules of the game) between the 4 major professional American sports is the role of the managers. In football a team wins or loses largely based on the cleverness of the coach. Basketball and hockey teams use styles and plans that the coach comes up with, even if the action itself is largely tactical.
Baseball calls the position a manager, not a coach, and is also the only sport where the manager wears a completely unnecessary uniform. The term manager is probably more accurate, since most of what the manager does is done off-field, keeping two dozen or more alpha jocks in line every day for 6 months. During the actual game, the manager rarely moves, typically waddling out of the dugout only a few times per game. Sometimes a bad call is made and a show must be put on, but the decisions largely make themselves, and the limited number of options often makes them rather easy.
I devote a blog post (the first of several, most likely) to poking a stick at the 30 guys that often make more than a million dollars a year because one of my pet peeves came to light in tonight’s exciting one-game-playoff between the Padres and Rockies.
Why do managers never pull pitchers in the middle of a count?
It was obvious to anyone watching the game that Jorge Julio had nothing. He walked Giles, throwing pitches anywhere but over the plate. His first pitch to Hairston was just as bad, and I said to my roommate, “they need to get this guy out of there”. The cameras showed the manager pacing, not looking happy. The poor pitcher had no control at all, the manager is sitting on a 40 man roster, and this is the most important game of the year. Julio has pitched well this season, but when every pitch counts this much, you have to mitigate the risk. Needless to say, the next pitch left the park.
I have never seen a pitcher pulled in the middle of facing a batter. It’s apparently one of the unwritten rules that makes no sense like not switching sides when you bat (or pitch). There are probably hitters out there who would do well to switch sides when they get ahead or behind in the count, but they don’t do it. Short of an injury or ejection, a manager would sooner watch his team lose while he’s posed on the top step of the dugout than just run out and tell a guy he’s done and he’s not going to get a chance to throw two more balls or lob the meatball the batter is obviously sitting on.