Florida Marlins manager Jack McKeon walked briskly toward the mound in the eighth inning Tuesday night and pointed decisively toward the bullpen. Left-hander Randy Choate was having control problems and McKeon had seen enough.
The only unusual part of the move: It came in the middle of an at-bat, with a 2-1 count against switch-hitting Alberto Callaspo of the Los Angeles Angels.
No, McKeon wasn't showing his age ? 80 years ? at least not in a negative way. He was just trying to keep the Fish on their toes ? or fins, as it were. Sometimes a manager has to put down his foot ? and his cigar ? and take action.
Marlins analyst Tom Hutton put it succinctly on the TV broadcast:
"You don't see many pitchers lifted with a 2-1 count, but that's Jack."
And, as Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald noted, the Choate move worked out. Reliever Burke Badenhop allowed a single to Callaspo, but he retired the next three batters and the Marlins ended the inning with a three-run lead.
Choate said it was the first time that has happened to him in his big-league career but said it didn't bother him in the least.
"Obviously, it worked out," Choate said.
Catcher John Buck said of McKeon's strategy: "That's what we needed ? go against the grain a little bit."
Florida went on to win 5-2, snapping its 11-game losing streak to at least temporarily break the fog of a miserable June that led to the resignation of manager Edwin Rodriguez and the uncommon rebirth of McKeon's managerial career.
The Choate move has been one of several amusing ways, just in the past two days since he got the job, that McKeon has reintroduced himself to the world as a manager.
Jack's been real gung-ho since taking over, as the pumping animation above created at the indispensable Mocksession shows. His first move was to bench star player Hanley Ramirez for loafing and being tardy to the party on Monday.
The next game, HanRam was back in the lineup ? but hitting cleanup for the first time. And he got two hits. Go figure.
Then there's McKeon's notorious cigar habit, which apparently stunned coach Joe Espada in photographs taken by the Palm Beach Post during a rain delay Monday night:
Hey, this is a no-smoking dugout! Or, it was.
Jack showed his ... maturity ... in another way during a conversation with Logan Morrison that the outfielder shared on Twitter:
McKeon asked me what I had going on tonite. Told him I was going home 2 play w/ Twitter. He replied "oh, what kind of dog is it?"
ROFLCOPTER. Even if @LomoMarlins comes back and says he was joking, I don't care. It just adds to the smoky, adorable legend of Jack McKeon.
It's been an incomparable two days.
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