Well, Francona has officially lost every ounce of goodwill that he earned at the start of the 2006 season. "Francoma" is officially back and managing once again. It was painfully obvious that Tito was trying too hard to get Schilling the win last night. Schilling would have joined elite company if he managed to go 5-0 in April - see yesterday's post. Rather than try to win the game GL2:EB (Grady Little 2: Electric Boogaloo) decided history was more important. There's no questioning the fact that GL2:EB is a player's manager. He can't, and doesn't, make the difficult decisions.
What made Francona so great at the start of the season was the number of good decisions he made. He was making appropriate offensive and defensive substitutions and he made a difficult choice to use Jonathan Papelbon as the closer. Papelbon has been GL2:EB's saving grace this year.
Last night Schilling was off just a little and the powerful Indians lineup probably had a lot to do with it. Rather than turn the game over the bullpen after getting 6 mediocre innings and 110 pitches out of Schilling, Francona sent Curt out to start the 7th. Back-to-back hits then tied the game at 5. If GL2:EB cared about history and wanted to win the game, he could have let Schilling face a single batter and then removed him.
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