re: Anyone else uneasy that romero isnt in the lineup

Look I like the kid and think we wouldn't be where we are without him. But people keep acting like he was benched for one bad game. I'm just saying that's not the case.

Yes I thought he would pinch hit in the 9th

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fact is, this team will not make a run without romero helping at the plate. He brings potential that pap doesnt have.

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A bold opinion is not a fact.

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I am attempting to have a nice conversation with you, but you make it difficult.

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Your smartass reaction tells me you can't handle facts. And I don't give a flying frick if you can't support your opinion and that makes it "difficult" for you. My opinion has nothing to do with what Mainieri thinks. Frankly, I don't know what he thinks of Romero now. I haven't talked to Mainieri in two months. My opinion is based solely on how Romero has played recently.

Romero's defense has been MIA for at least two weeks which included 3 games that he started. He looked lost in the Florida series. He's called a 'catcher' for a reason. He's supposed to catch the ball. He has not been able to do that consistently recently especially with runners on base. Even when the ball hits him squarely in the mitt, he's been dropping it.

I hate to agree with The Boat but he's right. Romero wandered out onto the infield grass twice in the Florida series when the ball was in play and when he should have been covering home plate for a throw home. One of those times he seemed to be really surprised there was a runner coming home. He was standing about a third of the way between the plate and the pitcher's mound and he just turned and watched the runner score.

And his bat has not carried him. In the last four regular season games he was 0 for 10 batting. And then he was 0 for 2 against Tennessee in the first tournament game before Pap replaced him. Thankfully he got that big hit and rbi in the first Florida tournament game. Maybe that will help jump start his batting confidence.

I really like him and I hope he gets past whatever is causing him to lose focus because we are going to need him in the post-season. But he's not anywhere near our best option at catcher now.

Easy now. He's telling you that the majority of the stollen bases in the last 4 games he started weren't on him. That's a fact.

I'm not going to defend Romero's play. How can you? Playing Pap is the right call. Any coach would make it. And (I don't want to speak for Kim) it doesn't seem Kim is disagreeing with that call.

What's brought this up is last night when he was missing when he had 2 opportunities to be used. There's more to that than meets the eye IMO.

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last night when he was missing when he had 2 opportunities to be used.

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^^THIS^^

Yes. I think Bryce should have stuck with the bunt and then put in Romero to get it out the infield. The bunt call is a fine line. Once it got to 2-0 and Kramer got to 2nd, the choice gets fuzzy. But IMO, with how little offense we had (11 SOs; 5 hits), I would rather have gotten the run without a hit necessary. There's also the argument of avoiding extras, which is relevant. But I wanted to win that game. And I believe tying it there would have given LSU the best chance.

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Couldn't an argument be made that with how little we were producing at the plate, compounded by the high number of strikeouts, the best chance to score would be to have that 1 extra at bat?

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It could. Putting the ball in play was at a premium. Again, it's a fine line. You get 3 chances to get a hit vs 1 chance to get the ball out of the infield plus another chance to get a hit. FWIW, Romero leads the team in Sac Flys. Another argument that goes against Romero is righty-righty. But Romero actually hits them just as well as lefties (last time I saw the split stats they were within 10 points of each other.)

I never called PM stupid for the decision he made. I would have done it differently. Not because it didn't work out either. I was posting what I would do live in the game thread. I had actually thought we might get Romero during Pap's last AB to lead off the 8th. I get that Pap has made better contact recently. But I thought it was a good chance to make a change to get something going.

Were any of those flyouts?