What the heck happened there last night? That 7th inning was the absolute worst I've seen Buddy in his career thus far. Leaving Thatcher in would be understandable if he was getting hosed on calls, but it was plain as day that he couldn't locate his stuff. Coming in from the angle he was, it was ridiculous easy for batters to lay off the low stuff, and he wasn't fooling anybody with the stuff up as he missed consistently.
I've always thought that managers at the pro level have a minimal effect on what happens during the game as long as they stay out of the way. Pulling Thatcher out after walking two batters in a row should have been obvious. After the third batter in a row was walked, Buddy should have had the words BULLPEN printed on his eyeballs. It should have been automatic and Buddy froze. Absolutely terrible and he deserves to get called out on it, but I can't seem to find anything on MLB.com or SignOnSanDiego that really talks about how horrible it was. Luckily... North County Times comes through with some quotes:
"That was uncharacteristic of our staff, really," Padres manager Bud Black said. "It was uncharacteristic of what we've seen over the last few years.
No kidding? Uncharacteristic? The plane is crashing into the mountain and Buddy figures something "uncharacteristic" is happening. UGH. Thanks a lot, Nancy Drew, for that outstanding observation. Milk and cookies for everyone.