Fire Gardy

Today Baseball Prospectus managed to get a good quote from Gardenhire regarding the playing time situation for our set of outfielders.

Gardenhire had been asked about the configuration throughout the winter and spring training, and it’s clearly begun wearing on him, as he cut off reporters on opening night after being asked just one question about the situation. “It’s going to be that [way] all year off and on,” Gardenhire said. “We could sit here and do this every game, because we’re going to mix them up. These guys are preparing themselves to play. The only people who are going to bring it up every day are [the media]. I don’t want to sit here and discuss all the reasons. Read the stats. Check them out. That probably will tell you a little more about who’s in, who’s out, and we’ll go from there. I’m going to play them all year long. I don’t have any other way I can do it. I have four outfielders and three places for them to play. Something’s got to give. There’s no easy solution here. You could sit and say I’m going to platoon here or there, that’s not right. That’s not the way I want to go about it. You know what? They are good players, and no matter who we put out there, we’re going to have an opportunity to win games. I need to mix and match the best I can, and keep them all busy and all playing, which is almost impossible to do.

My only question is … exactly what stats is Gardy looking at? Will he admit to saying that if you asked him about it?

Oh, and here’s an interesting tidbit from the same article:

When Cardinals left-hander Dennys Reyes pitched a perfect ninth inning to close out the Pirates on Thursday, he recorded his first save since September 27, 1999, when he was with the Reds and pitching against St. Louis. The gap of nine years and 192 days between saves was the longest since Curt Schilling went 13 years and 77 days before saving the Red Sox‘ win over the Devil Rays on July 19, 2005.

Good job, Reyes. (Though the failings of Motte probably have more to do with it.)

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