Gotta get this stuff off my chest (I wrote it right after Feliz tied the game off Joba) -
[Rant on]
What the hell was Joba thinking?! He was ahead of Feliz 1-2, then bounced consecutive sliders. He should've gone to a fastball on 2-2, but since he didn't, everyone in the ballpark knew a fastball was coming on 3-2. That would've been the time to risk another slider. Maybe if the fastball had been right on the black it wouldn't have been so bad, but it was up and over the middle of the plate. Feliz knocked it over the left-field wall to tie the game in the eighth. I also gotta put some blame on Jorge's shoulders for calling that poor sequence...
On the subject of Jorge, I know he went 1-3 with three (big) RBI and a walk, but his mental facilities have begun to fail him. Exhibit A: Utley's homerun - Sabathia (and Posada) knew Utley was seeing CC's fastball well (his two HRs in Game 1 were on FBs, as was his double in Game 4), so they instead used a steady diet of breaking balls. Sure, that's nice for a while, but you can't throw sliders exclusively. In Utley's seventh inning AB, they threw five sliders: no fastballs, no changeups, only sliders, and Utley sat on the fifth one and drilled it into the stands. Now I know the pitcher is ultimately responsible for the actual pitch, but sometimes he just wants the catcher do the thinking so he can get into a rhythm of getting the ball and throwing the ball without 'over-analyzing'.
Exhibit B: he allowed Ryan 'I have 10 steals in my career' Howard to steal a base. And then, a couple batters later, dropped a throw to potentially nail Howard at the plate. As I've been telling my father-in-law, we need to keep the DH spot open because Jorge's still signed for two more years. His catching duties will recede as times goes by - by 2011 he may even be the BUC.
Exhibit C: on top of all that, he ran his team out of the ninth inning by jogging into second-base? I don't get it. The Phillies had zero chance of getting A-Rod at home, so why end the inning so meekly?
[Rant off]
Let's win it tonight!