I think black is getting the curse of bochy. He leaves his pitchers in too long, calls up the wrong guy and fails to play small ball when it is necesarry. Not to mention he always looks like he has been asleep like Bochy. Other than that I think he makes some pretty ballsy moves sometimes and i think it is definately good that he gives players a chance to improve. I’m not sure if it is inexperience or just plain stupidity that makes him do stupid things. I think sometimes he makes his decisions based too much on a players stats against a pitcher or a pitchers stats and doesn’t factor in how the player is playing now. I think he has energy but he doesn’t let it go enough to make me respect him.

Hairston can hit for power, but I don’t think he can hit. And is much better for bench and platooning. Bard should have been playing because he is starting to hit again. When someone is slumping and they start hitting you don’t sit them down. you don’t. You play them so they can turn their slump around. And even when Bard hasn’t got a hit in the past few games, he has been hitting the ball hard and well so it doesn’t make sense to sit him down when he can potentionally turn his hitting around. Again he went with mostly rightys because of the stat, and I can’t think of another manager that does this differently. And Adrian and Giles are in the lineup because of Adrian’s power and Giles ability to get on base. Their defense is solid too so you really can’t leave them out of the lineup.
Tony Clark will start hitting i don’t doubt that… but who knows if it will be for the Padres or if their patience will run thin for him too. But he is very good at adjusting himself even if it takes time.

I don’t always agree with his lineup but I think he does the best with what he has. Khalil seems to produce the best in the 5 and 7 spot. And when Adrian was third and Kevin 4th it is because Adrian was performing better in the 3rd spot while Kevin was consistent in both, it made pleanty sense to me at the time. But Kevin does great in number 3,4 and 5 so I don’t see a problem moving him around but he definately needs to be more consistent with these things.

I’d like to see Black getting some strategy going and batting the pitcher 8th, it be an interesting change. I don’t think the front office will count him out especially since a lot of the problems happening can be attributed to other variables… such as jim edmonds, pitching struggles, hitting struggles and every other excuse in the book… after all Bochy had some serious issues and look how long they kept him. I say stick with him at least for a third year to see what he is really made of.

Hairston career vs. Lilly yesterday was 2 for 4 with a HR, so he’s got validation there.
As far as Thatcher goes, when Black goes to look at what tools he has to use, selects one, and it continually breaks on him, I can only fault the people providing him with that tool. Clearly he demonstrated that that tool was broken, and it was replaced. No manager is going to go, “Yo this guy sucks, please get him out of here.” Unless you’re Lou Piniella, who also happens to be a tool.
Josh Bard, a starting catcher, sat two games in a row. He might even sit today again. Day after night? It could happen.
Bud Black has no bearing on Tony Clark’s XBH’s.

I hated losing Bochy. I hate new managers. I don’t want one.

I wanna see Buddy doing some flying high-fives into the dugout after getting tossed for something.

pretty universally been terrible this year. He’s letting pitchers get shelled for too long and he’s completely destroyed any confidence Thatcher might have had. Black consistently set up him for failure.

As for the Sunday line ups. It’s fucking MLB. It’s not Little League. Your bench guys don’t have to find at-bats this often. Especially not when we’ve started playing better.

I was at the first three cubs games—this past monday, tuesday, wednesday.

On monday he left wolf in way too long, when he could have taken him out and at least tried to keep the game competitive. Then, when he was ready to take wolf out - one batter too late - only Henn was warming up in the pen.

Later that game when we were down by 9 runs, he comes out to argue a close play at first base…. why? what’s the point? I don’t know, unless he was trying to entertain the fans, since pretty much everyone was laughing at him…