Washington said before the series that with men on his pitchers would bunt. Period. He’s being conservative, with pitchers who don’t usually bat, don’t you know. Plus, he pointed out that he really doesn’t want his pitchers running the bases; he wants them pitching. (Too bad it hasn’t helped more.)
ETA and clearly every run does matter.
Somehow it escaped my notice that the pitcher was bunting. That makes sense.
And there’s a sac bunt for the first out in the 5th, opening first base for Hamilton.
If you’d like to comment about Andrus bunting in the top of the fifth, now’s your chance. 
Who pops up to . . . who? . . . Freese?
I see an MVP in Freese’s future if the Cards win.
Bwahahahaha!
You’re hilarious.
I just thought the comment was funny. I wasn’t trying to make any big, important point about Moneyball or sabermetrics. And i certainly wasn’t trying to get a rise out of anyone, especially you, given that you haven’t even bothered to enter this baseball thread over the past week, during some of the most exciting postseason baseball in history.
As for what La Russa think about the subject, i’m pretty indifferent, for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, i’m not really interested in anyone’s opinion of the movie, at least not as it pertains to the substantive issues surrounding how to manage a baseball team. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but i would be willing to bet that it does not deal with the issues in as substantive a manner as Lewis’ book, and that it tends to dumb down a lot of the important issues in order to make for a simpler, more entertaining product. Hollywood is like that, and i don’t believe that seeing the movie really qualifies a person to make a well-informed judgment about the issues presented in the book.
Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, La Russa is just another in a long line of baseball people who have slammed Moneyball while managing to completely miss the main arguments that it was making. Lewis actually dealt with those critics in the Afterword to the paperback edition, noting that a few of them (Joe Morgan and some baseball writers included) were so ignorant about the book that they actually thought it had been written by Billy Beane. Lewis was astounded at how much vitriol was coming from people who, in many cases, had clearly not even read the book, and who were getting incredibly heated while trying to rebut arguments that Lewis had never even made. I’ll just put you in that category, i think, and ignore your future atempts to bait me on the issue.
As i said, they’ve probably simplified the ideas quite a lot in the movie, though, so you should definitely check it out.
Anyway, i’m going back to talking about actual, exciting baseball games with people who are actually interested in doing that. I guess your interest in the actual game on the field expired as soon as the Red Sox completed their epic choke, given how much you’ve contributed to this post-season thread.
Have a nice winter. 
Perhaps maybe Scott Feldman shouldn’t be your pitcher with the season on the line.
Shouldn’t have put himself in that position but he was robbed of inning ending strike three.
Juuuuust a bit inside.
I don’t think i’ve ever seen a team so happy to have one of the batters hit by a pitch.
I really feel for Ron Washington. Whatever you think of him as a manager, i like his enthusiasm.
To be fair it wasn’t entirely Feldman’s fault he was put in that situation. This is why IBB are almost always a bad idea. The odds of Molina getting on base is significantly higher than the odds of Freese getting a hit.
FOX has this obsession with “camera shots of whatever our current hero is.” When the Yankees are in the playoffs it’s Derek Jeter; the camera constantly went to him even when he wasn’t involved in the play. When Aaron Boone hit the winning homer in the 2003 ALCS they showed as much footage of Derek Jeter being happy as they did of the guy who’d just hit the home run.
This year, apparently, it’s Nolan Ryan. I swear they go to Ryan twenty times a game, at least. I don’t want to see Nolan Ryan, and I don’t think anyone else does either. I have nothing against Nolan Ryan, Nolan Ryan was a great pitcher but he’s not playing or coaching or managing. He’s sitting there in an overcoat. He’s not even interesting as a crowd reaction shot; if you want to show me spectators show me some people who actually react. But in general I want to see the guys who are actually, you know, participating in the baseball game.
Wow. They just imploded in that inning. A walk and an HBP. You’d think they’d make the other team score on hits, but after these past few games, I’m not surpirsed.
Yep! But holy jeebus so many unearned bases in that inning… come on guys! Where’s all that awesome pitching I am not really seeing?
Last inning for Carpenter, I should think.
and i have time to edit: a good last inning.
Not a ball hit out of the infield in the inning.
Yeah. If only the Rangers would separate the roles of person in charge of running the team and person in charge of tactics, as Washington seems really good at the former and excruciatingly bad at the latter.
So far this may be one of the worst Game 7s in memory, due in some large part to a wobbly strike zone.
It’s been awhile since I’ve watched baseball, but why do the pitchers keep coming up to bat so many times? What happened to the DH? I used to watch baseball back when Jose Conseco was playing for the Rangers; I think I remember him as the DH then. Is there not a special spot for that now, or what?
Sloppy games so far. Why shouldn’t the umps join in.