Jeff Brantley tries to divert your attention from the real issue

Jeff Brantley blames tonight's loss for Cleveland on--get this--"that's what you get when you bring your closer in in a non-save situation. Couldn't you wait an inning?" (his exact words). He punches his hands toward the camera for emphasis. He's posing as an expert on a baseball show, & tells you the team lost because they brought in Wickman in a non-save situation. This is another example of the twists & depths ESPN & many others take to narrow or obfuscate your view of what a good late inning relief pitcher is supposed to do. This intent runs very deep, as I've outlined. A couple of years ago after they'd given Gagne enough cookies for his award, they started asking him to come in either with men on base or more than 1 inning, & he started screwing up. So Brantley comes on, gesturing madly, saying, "they're not using Gagne correctly, if they'd just use him for the 9th inning, he wouldn't have these problems." Hand to God. Tim Kurkjian quietly says, "Well, Mariano Rivera's been doing that for quite some time, going more than 1 inning." Brantley's answer.."Oh." ESPN IS EITHER IN ON THE FIX OR COULDN'T GIVE A DAMN. EITHER WAY, WHY AM I THE ONLY ONE TALKING ABOUT THIS? Predictably, Kurkjian did not cast his vote for Mariano Rivera for AL Cy Young last year, so don't think his accurate assessment of Rivera translated to an accurate vote for Cy Young.

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