King Kaufman's Sports Daily
Playoffs: Did Piniella scuttle Game 1 for the Cubs? Beckett goes fast as Red Sox win. TBS goes slow as innings start. Rockies keep on rolling.
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Oct. 4, 2007 | An entire day, three whole playoff games, and not a single umpiring controversy? It's like a whole new era here.
The umps left people arguing over two calls in Monday's wild-card play-in game, including the one that decided the outcome, but they kept their 18 noses clean Monday as the Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Chicago Cubs 3-1 and the Colorado Rockies beat the Philadelphia Phillies 4-2 in the National League and the Boston Red Sox shut out the Los Angeles Angels 4-0 in the American League.
The two N.L. series resume Thursday, the Red Sox and Angels get a much-needed day off and the Cleveland Indians host the New York Yankees in Game 1 of the other A.L. series.
The talker Wednesday was a manager's decision. Lou Piniella of the Cubs yanked starting pitcher Carlos Zambrano after six innings and only 85 pitches with the score tied 1-1. Reliever Carlos Marmol came in and surrendered a home run to the first batter he saw, Mark Reynolds, and eventually gave up another run on a walk, a double and a sacrifice fly.
The Diamondbacks, behind starter Brandon Webb, had a 3-1 lead. Webb and relievers Brandon Lyon and Jose Valverde made it stand up.
The radio chatter Thursday will be about how Piniella should have stuck with Zambrano, his ace, who appeared to be going strong.
Piniella explained afterward that he plans to bring Zambrano back to start Game 4 Sunday on three days' rest, so he wanted to limit his workload Wednesday so he'd be fresh. Piniella got six solid innings out of Zambrano, then turned the game over to Marmol, who has been just about unhittable all year.
There's a line of baseball thinking that says that in the playoffs you play to win today's game and you worry about tomorrow when it comes.
It's a compelling argument. A bird in the hand, essentially. Zambrano had it going on Wednesday. Piniella knew that. He didn't know that shutting his ace down at 85 pitches rather than 105 would ensure that Zambrano pitched well Sunday, and he didn't know that Marmol would pitch well. He was just betting that way.
Get the win that's available to you now. That's the argument that will carry the day because we now know the result, which was that Marmol gave up the runs that won the game for the Diamondbacks.
Next page: Piniella's argument: "I trust my bullpen." Plus: Notes on all three games and TBS's first full day
