Once again Trammell overmanages a game and the Tigers come up short. This one doesn’t all fall on Trammell. The Tigers didn’t give up the lead on the Mauer home run, the game was tied at the time. Also, the Tiger hitters did a poor job of converting scoring chanes into runs. Four different times in the first 5 innings the Tigers had a runner on second with less than two outs, and they only managed two runs. However, their hitting was good enough, combined with Nate Robertson’s excellent outing to keep the Tigers in the game.

The Tigers record in one run games this year is 2-8. Typically, because one run games are pretty evenly played games, one would expect that a team’s record in those games would be near .500 (or 5-5 in the Tigers case). Sometimes these things can be attributed to luck. Sometimes it can be attributed to a lack of clutch hitting (which isn’t the case with the Tigers). And sometimes it can be attributed to a bad bullpen (which has been inconsistent). However, the Tigers have found themselves on the short end of close games way too often this year. In games decided by two runs or less, the Tigers are 8-16. To me that says the manager isn’t helping his team win.

Lynn Henning has an excellent article in today’s paper about Tram’s struggles with in-game decision making. He chronicles some of the stranger decision making that Trammell has done over the last couple weeks.

What’s so frustrating as a fan, is that Trammell is inconsistent in his decisions, and that they just don’t jive with reality. First on the list is when he plays Greg Norton over anybody because “he gives us the best chance to win.” Yesterday, sticking with Yan was a case of going with the hot hand. Trammell said that he, “has been doing a very good job for us.” And yes, Yan has had some great outings. However he’d allowed runs in 3 of his last 5 apperances. Also, with all the lefty righty switching in the 8th inning in an effort to play the percentages, one would think Tram would look at the percentages he was trying to improve. But if that were the case, Yan would have come into face the lefty Koskie instead of the righty Hunter because Yan’s OPS against left handers is .730 (and Colyer’s is .791) and against right handers it is .962.

Now second guessing is easy to do after a loss, but I think everyone was second guessing as the game went on. Listening to it on the radio, Jim Price was even questioning the decision making-especially with nobody warming up after Yan. I questioned burning through 3 pitchers in one inning of a tied game because what happens if it goes to extra innings?

As I’ve said before, I think Trammell does some things very well as a manger. I think he’s a good teacher, and does a good job in the clubhouse. I have a lot of confidence in him managing a team. I just don’t feel the same way when it comes to managing a game.