This Week in Fredi Gonzalez Think

Sep 9, 2015; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Atlanta Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez (33) in a game against the Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park. The Braves won 8-1. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports

Base running blunders

Last night the Braves got off to a good start with Williams Perez pitching a scoreless first. In the bottom half Nick Markakis singled and with two out Garcia doubled off the wall to score Markakis but was caught enjoying the moment off second and tagged out.

Attempting to avoid the tag Garcia made a lunging stride back to second and afterwards doubled over in apparent pain.  The game was held up a bit while the replay guru’s in New York decided Garcia was out. When that was finalized Garcia took his glove and headed to left field.

As he was taking his warm up tosses in the outfield Michael Bourn came out to replace him. Garcia left perplexed while fans and broadcaster wondered whether he was injured. Later we found out he was pulled because of the mental lapse at second.

Ask about the incident after the game Gonzalez told O’Brien (paraphrasing here) that he wouldn’t stand for mental mistakes like that.

"“We’re 150 games below .500 and there are some times where you can live with physical mistakes and you can live with some mental mistakes,” Gonzalez said, “but sometimes there’s mistakes that, we don’t want to play those games here at the big-league level. The young man will learn from that. He’ll be back in there whenever he gets back in there."

"“It just didn’t sit well with me, and I don’t think it sits well with our fans, especially with the season that’s going on right now.”"

Okay I can understand that – most of it anyway – if that had been his position all season long or even for the rest of the game. . . but it hasn’t been and wasn’t.

In the third inning Christian Bethancourt double to start the inning. With Williams Perez batting Bethancourt wandered too far off second and was picked off – thrown out at third attempting to steal when he couldn’t get back to second.

That mental lapse was arguably more egregious than Garcia’s because Betti was leading off and inning but he remained in the game. Maybe he was allowed to remain because he was the catcher. Maybe it was because A.J. Pierzynski showed signs of a gimpy back the night before and he didn’t want to insert Ryan Lavarnway; we don’t know because I presume no one asked. If however I were Adonis Garcia I’d be a little confused.