I yell at the Houston Press a lot, but they're spot on today on Carlos Lee.
In the top of the first, Tejada and Lee get on base. There's a wild pitch. Tejada easily makes it to third, Lee loafs into second, at which point Jim Deshaies immediately starts talking about Lee barely being able to move on the bases because of his hamstring. Then in the top of the sixth, Lee was on third base when Kaz Matsui hit a ball in the hole between first and second. Ranger second baseman Ian Kinsler fielded the ball and ran toward first because neither the first basemen nor pitcher were in position for his throw. Matsui was barely safe at first.
During this time, Lee stood at third base. Even before offering up the Lee hamstring excuse, Deshaies stated that he should have scored on the play. Then Deshaies goes on about how tough a job it is for third base coach Dave Clark because he's got to figure out how to get Lee to score. And it ends up that Lee stays at third the rest of the inning as the team fails to score, leaving the score tied at three. Luckily, Lee's teammates bailed him out in the later innings and the Astros ended up winning 5-3.
Now I don't care if Lee is loafing, or if he is injured. If he can't score from third, he shouldn't be in the game. I know the thing is that he's not supposed to run the bases, but that he's just supposed to hit home runs and jog around the bases. But if he's healthy, he's got to at least show some effort like the rest of his teammates, and if he's not healthy, he shouldn't be out there, especially if there's a worry that he's going to further injure himself running to home plate.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
