BOSTON -- It isn't often a manager gets a do-over in a game.
But the second-chance opportunity presented itself to manager Grady Little in the Boston Red Sox' game in Philadelphia on June 21.
In the eighth inning, with Boston ahead, 2-1, Little watched as Mike Timlin served up a two-out, game-tying solo homer to Jim Thome. It was the 350th homer of Thome's career, and Little had seen his share of them as bench coach of the Indians when they both were with Cleveland a few years earlier.
If there was one player in the Phillies' lineup Little didn't want beating the Sox, it was Thome.
In the 12th inning, Thome came up again. Again the Red Sox had a one-run lead, this time at 3-2. Again there were two outs and no one on. And this time, waiting on deck was Marlon Byrd, with exactly one homer on his big-league resume.
What to do? Issue an intentional walk this time so the dangerous Thome couldn't hurt the Sox?
Jason Shiell was pitching. Little instructed interim pitching coach Dave Wallace to tell the rookie right-hander not to give Thome anything
good. Shiell got ahead in the count at 0 and 2. The count ran full. And Thome blasted Shiell's 3-and-2 pitch for a tying homer in a game the Red Sox wound up losing in excruciating fashion, 6-5, when the Phillies pushed across three runs in the bottom of the 13th.
The game was a second-guesser's delight -- especially the Shiell-Thome confrontation. Why not just walk Thome intentionally, even if it didn't mean putting the tying run on? Why not have Shiell face Byrd, a far better matchup than the rookie trying not to throw anything too good to the veteran Thome?
Little admitted that decision haunted him a bit that night, especially given the results. This time, he acknowledged he even second-guessed himself a little.
"The only time you can avoid being second-guessed is to win every game," sighed Little the next day. "And no one's going to do that."
Very often, a game comes down to late-inning strategy. Specifically, how a manager runs his pitching staff is a major factor in the perception of how well he is doing his job.
Little's stock sank drastically in the public sector because of a pitching change he didn't make 11 days ago in Yankee Stadium.
Yesterday, while Red Sox officials insisted over and over and over again that their decision was not based on Little's now infamous decision to stick with a tiring Pedro Martinez in what became a stunning Game 7 loss to the New York Yankees in the American League Championship Series, they elected not to pick up the manager's option for 2004.
Little did not win every game, but he boasted an impressive won-lost record when he was shown the door. He led Boston to 93 wins in 2002, his first year as a big-league manager. And the Sox won 95 this season, with Little guiding them to a wild-card spot in the playoffs and to within five outs of the franchise's first World Series berth since 1986.
Obviously, he made many decisions that panned out very well.
But by leaving Martinez on the mound to get at least two more of those precious outs, Little was second-guessed nationally and even more rabidly in Boston, though again yesterday the Sox insisted the fans' anger at Little did not influence their decision to seek a new manager for 2004 and beyond.
"We made a rational evaluation of all the circumstances," said general manager Theo Epstein. "We did not depend on any one decision in any one postseason game. We looked at the body of work over two seasons, making our decision after careful contemplation of the big picture."
And what they saw were some positives and negatives.
On the plus side, Little provided a calming influence in the clubhouse after the brief but tumultuous Joe Kerirgan era, with the pitching-coach-turned-manager canned almost as soon as the new ownership group took over in the middle of spring training in 2002.
"He was the right person at the time," said CEO Larry Lucchino yesterday. "There was a roiling clubhouse with a history of turmoil. We needed a steadying force on the Boston scene."
So Little's personality was a positive. And it was without a doubt part of the reason the 2003 Red Sox showed so much pluck in rebounding from tough losses during the regular season, and then overcoming Oakland to win the A.L. Division Series.
But all along the way there were many moves made by Little that were of the head-scratching variety. Putting aside for a moment the fact that the Sox this year never had a settled bullpen until the postseason, Little's handling of the pitching staff led to most of those moments.
One thing Little did often was stick with his starters longer than other managers. Former manager Jimy Williams was accused of having a quick hook, but his theory was to get the pitchers out one batter early as opposed to one batter too late. Little showed more faith in his starters, letting them work out of jams.
No one benefitted from that policy more than John Burkett. The veteran right-hander was tagged for doubles by the first four Chicago batters on June 17, but Little stuck with him. Burkett set down the next 18.
Little's faith, though, was not rewarded in Game 4 of the ALDS. Burkett, getting hit hard, somehow managed to hold Oakland to one run after five innings and 97 pitches, a relatively heavy workload for him. The Sox, facing elimination, were up, 2-1. But Little inexplicably let him go out for the sixth, and Oakland scored three quick runs before Little took him out in a game Boston eventually won.
Often, Little was slow in having relievers get up in the bullpen, generally waiting a batter too long before being able to get a favorable matchup.
On the offensive side of things, Little made good use of pinch runner Damian Jackson, and, while successful at times in starting runners on 3-and-2 counts, he also was burned by the move -- three times in as many games in the ALCS.
The word is that maybe Little relied too much on his gut instincts and what he saw unfolding on the field and not enough on the statistical data, another "tool" left at his disposal by Red Sox officials.
But then again, the numbers showed Trot Nixon to be a weak hitter against left-handed pitching, so Little platooned the right fielder at times. And, recognizing Todd Walker's defensive deficiencies, he replaced him in the late innings with Jackson, a better defensive player who was skittish down the stretch. That was managing by the book, no different than in his 16 years of managing in the minors.
Every manager gets second-guessed. It goes with the territory. Other managers may look better from afar because you don't see each one of the thousands of decisions a manager has to make over the course of a season. But rest assured, if you spent a week with any manager, there would be some head-scratching.
In the Sox' view, Little's strategic decisions during a game weren't made by using all of the tools at his beck and call.
So yesterday the organization praised Little for his work but headed in a different direction for the 44th manager in the franchise's history.
