if you're going to hit montero for almora then i don't understand why you wouldn't PH ross for heyward. pretty poorly managed game in the late innings tonight.
he's lefthanded, doesn't hit lefthanded pitching very well, and was put in to face a tough lefthanded reliever. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SQA3d7NwSCE/Ur1rMrSiRpI/AAAAAAAAPh0/mnmxLbwtw54/s1600/what-i-expected.gif
hell, i would take a competent reliever. peralta is awful and has been bad for 2-3 years now. the only reason i can think of for signing him is that joe remembers when he used to be pretty good like 6 years ago.
i find it hard to even get mad. lackey gave up a lot of hard hit balls and should've allowed more than one run, and maddon completely screwed the pooch by using one of the worst pitchers in baseball in a high leverage situation.
if matz were staying in the game, i sure hope that maddon would point out to the umpire crew that the move he used to pick off szczur is a really obvious balk. his foot landed in line with home plate.
i remember looking up gary scott's minor league stats one time, and wondering why in the hell he got any hype at all. i guess the cubs' minor league system was so pathetic that he was the best they had to offer at the time.