| 28 September 2011
Matt Diaz. The same Matt Diaz who has a .222/.260/.282 line against righties this season.
I saw this, and thought one thing: does Fredi actually WANT to go to the playoffs? Does he WANT to win a championship? Apparently not.
When the team traded for Diaz a month ago, I was against the deal. Look at the comments on that post. "Diaz will just be a pinch hitter", "He started off slow, but has turned it on lately!" and so on and so forth. Here we are, game 162, season on the line....and Matt Diaz is in the starting lineup against a right-hander. Matt Diaz, with the career .688 OPS against righties. Matt Diaz, with OPSes against righties of .633 and .542 against righties over the last two seasons. Matt Diaz, who's "hot streak" before the trade has led to a .607 OPS in a month with the Braves, with one walk, and one extra base hit.
Matt Diaz, you are more qualified than Jason Heyward to start this critical game. Now get out there and put up your 0/4 so we can get Fredi out of town. You can point to the offense struggling as much as you want. The fact of the matter is that the exhausted bullpen hasn't helped matters, because of Fredi's insistence on overusing them earlier in the season in un-necessary spots. Jonny Venters: 5.56 September ERA. Craig Kimbrel: 4.22 September ERA. Thank you Fredi, for running the team's two best relievers into the ground so hard that they single handedly cost the team multiple games this month, when JUST ONE WIN would have changed everything.
Fredi, I'm done with you. At this point in time, I don't care if the Braves make the playoffs. In fact, I'd almost rather the team didn't....just so Frank Wren would feel obligated to make a change because of this epic collapse. I'm absolutely disgusted right now.
