I am not a person who blames a manager for the success of a team. The job of a manager isn't that hard and in the grand scheme of things he doesn't really have a huge effect on the team's results. It's not like people are sitting around saying "he batted Cameron fifth and Hart sixth, if he had just flip flopped them we wouldn't have lost 14-6 to the Nationals!" there is really only so much the guy can do. All he can really do is pencil people in and hope they do the job.

I don't blame Macha for this season. I blame injuries for this season. I can't think of one game that Macha has either won or lost. He is a basic, by the book manager and not all that different than Ned Yost. Before this week I really had no reason or desire to care if he was the team's manager or not. Now? Fire him.

Fire him, fire him, fire him, fire him.

You probably think I am being brash, but as far as I am concerned Macha committed sins this week that are simply unforgivable. Three of them to be exact.

3. He didn't get thrown out over Counsell's triple. In case you missed the game yesterday (which a lot of people did because it was stupidly not on TV. Seriously FSN what else do you have to show? Outdoors crap, racing and golf? OH WELL MY MISTAKE. I know you don't want to lose your huge weekday audience for outdoors crap.) Counsell hit a triple that he beat by about two feet, but was called out. Macha exited the dugout to argue and argued for about 3-5 minutes. He was mad, Counsell was mad, the fans were mad, the team was mad and the entire place was waiting for him to get thrown out. He look like he WANTED to get thrown out. Yet what happened? He shrugged his arms, said "well, alright then" and walked back to the dugout. talk about fail.

2. He fell for one of Tony LaRussa's stupid head games. Full disclosure: I hate Tony LaRussa. He is a classic over-manager. He thinks that he and he alone is responsible for the outcome of the game so he changes pitchers five times an inning, waits until the pinch hitter is announced to change pitchers (therefore delaying the game), bats position players ninth just to look smart and everything else. He is annoying (just ask these cops) and I don't like him.

What I like even less is for LaRussa to seemingly outsmart Macha. That is ridiculous. Here's the scene via our twitter:

How to suck at managing: pinch hit Gamel, have Larussa do a lame pitching change, take Matt out for Bourgeois despite his equal(ish) splits

It's hard to find his minor league splits online, but trust me when I say they are equal (or trust BCB). In his brief stint this season Gamel hit lefties BETTER.

I didn't need to look up minor league numbers to realize this was a horrible, horrible swap but I did anyways and in their minor league careers Gamel has been about 130 points of OPS better than Bourgeois. Outsmarted by a guy who is black out wasted at .093? FAIL. Over-managing when the team is down 5-0 with nobody on? FAIL.

1. Batted Corey Patterson lead off. Corey Patterson is not good. Corey Patterson should never bat leadoff. They even make t-shirts about it.

You know one of the things that old school people will say is "at the end of the season, players always hit what's on the back of their baseball card." I would consider Ken Macha to be an old school guy. Therefore, what does he see on the back of this baseball card that I don't? Because all I can see is mediocrity.

Now, it's not so much that he batted Corey Patterson leadoff that has me calling for his head. I mean on it's own that is pretty indefensible, but you could make a rather poor case for it without Hart, Cameron or Braun playing. What really pissed me off though was his use of him in the ninth inning of Monday's game. Namely, he let him bat when Ryan Braun was available.

In the eighth, Braun stepped into the on-deck circle to bat for the pitcher, but ended up not getting to bat. (You can't make the argument that he wasn't available because he was pretty clearly ready to bat in that inning.) Then in the ninth, that pinch hitting spot was taken by Craig Counsell who promptly drew a walk. Now with a runner on first with nobody out and down by only three, what would you do? Call on the best hitter not in the game, Ryan Braun, to pinch hit? The second best, Mike Cameron? The third best? Yovani? Well, if you are Ken Macha you let the absolute worst hitter on your team and quite possibly in all of baseball swing away and ground into a game defining, might as well be game ending double play.

And then after being completely hopeless in that leadoff spot, what does Macha do? BAT HIM LEAD OFF AGAIN THE NEXT DAY.

There is no forgiving rape and there is definitely not any forgiveness for child molesters, but batting Corey Patterson leadoff? ABSOLUTELY NO FORGIVENESS.

Fire this idiot.

Vince Morales

Vince Morales is the guy who runs this site. He likes the Milwaukee Brewers, pro wrestling and beer. If he offended you he is very, very sorry.